I Love Comedies. I Take Comedy Very

I Want All Of My Films To Belong To Me.

Somewhat Dramatic Things Happen, And You Don't Even Always Notice Them — That's What Life Is.

Whenever I'm Asked About Independent Cinema, I Think Of What Fidel Castro Said During The Cold War About The League Of Non-aligned Nations. He Said That Really, There Were Only Two Non-aligned Nations: The U.s. And The Ussr. The Rest Of Us Have To Be Aligned Somewhere. I Say Similarly, In A Way, Paramount, Sony, And Warner Bros. Are The Only True Independents, Because They're The Only Ones Who Can Do Whatever They Want And Have Distribution For Their Films Built In.

I Could Never Be A Part Of An Adaptation Of A Film Where There's Pressure To Not Disappoint The Immense Fan Base. In Those Cases, They Often Wind Up With Filmed Books On Tape, Quite Uncinematic. Having Said That, I'd Say All The Adaptations I've Done Are Quite Faithful To The Original... You Have To Pick And Choose Which Storylines And Plot Threads, Because You Don't Have The Time To Kill In The Film As They Have In Novels. All Those Pages With Detours And Plots And Different Storylines. But Films Add A Lot, And You Gotta Keep It Moving.

Independent Means One Thing To Me: It Means That Regardless Of The Source Of Financing, The Director's Voice Is Extremely Present. It's Such A Pretentious Term, But It's Auteurist Cinema. Director-driven, Personal, Auteurist... Whatever Word You Want. It's Where You Feel The Director, Not A Machine, At Work. It Doesn't Matter Where The Money Comes From. It Matters How Much Freedom The Director Has To Work With His Or Her Team. That's How I Personally Define Independent Movies.