I find beauty very frightening because it's such an all consuming subject in our society.

There will always be a theatrical experience because there will always be cinemas no matter what. It's like there will always be theaters to have stage plays in.

'Bronson' was like, 'I'll do a movie about my own life.' And it became like an experiment.

I think you have to be so indulgent in creativity in that, if you're happy, it's successful. If it's then financially successful, which is different parameters, then you're also happy.

My films are like Christmas: you can't wait to open it.

I base everything on my instinctual approach. There's something very satisfying in that creativity, and it's a bit like an infant drawing.

As long as your movies don't lose money, you'll always be able to make them.

It's hard to always challenge yourself, coming up with new ways to make your life difficult, so when you make something, it becomes more interesting.

My mother and stepfather were documentary filmmakers and, of course, had a very healthy Scandinavian mentality. When it came to cinema, my mother was very obsessed with the French New Wave. That was her generation.

I'm a huge admirer of Keanu. I think he's absolutely extraordinary.

For 'Drive,' we needed the songs to dictate emotions and really bring you into the mind of The Driver; he's a unique and complicated guy, so the music itself had to be unique and complicated.

I moved to New York when I was eight years old, in 1978. I grew up in Manhattan. I couldn't speak any English, and I had dyslexia, so it took me many years before I could read.

Oh, I love L.A. It's not so much about Hollywood. I love everything in L.A.

I always, as a firm rule, make my movies based on how inexpensively I can make them because that means the more freedom I'm going to have.

My world is just one big chaos!

I believe in free education, free healthcare. But I do not believe in equality.

I'm dyslexic, which means I have trouble reading and writing. So images really speak to me.

The greater the darkness, the better the drama.

I think that every man has a 16-year-old girl inside of him.

Filmmaking is not about what we see - it's a very misconceived notion; it's about what we don't see.

The 'Neon Demon' is very much designed to be like a YouTube movie. It's designed to be chopped up. You can cut it up into seven or eight pieces and they're, like, vignettes.

I believe that the constant possibility of failure or possibility of decision-making feeds your creativity.

'Valhalla Rising' is a fusion of my upbringing, basically: everything I grew up loving and wanted to make a film of.

To me, the darkest film ever made and the film, to me, that's the darkest picture in the human humanity's soul is 'Pretty Woman.'