Quotes

If I wasn't producing movies I'd be writing and engaged in still photography.

A lot of people are groaning at the Studios for producing the same material all the time. But the market-cycles are so frequent these days that you can keep doing the same material over and over again.

The best way I can describe what it's like being in a producing partnership is to liken it to marriage and children. ...When you make a film, it's like having a child...How many children can you have in a partnership before you need to move on?

With each year that passes and each new film that opens, it's harder and harder to be original.

Saving Private Ryan (1998): Mark had an office in the same complex as Tom Hanks and thought we should get the script to him. Tom read it and arranged a lunch and he said: 'This is great, I want to do it...So what do you think about Steven directing'? ... It was a difficult spot for us because we already had another director attached at Paramount, so we had to get ourselves unhinged.

When I read the script for 12 Monkeys (1995), I knew David & Janet Peoples had written a master screenplay. Because every time you read it, it was different.

On Hard Rain (1998): That film was a great example of timing...

Growing up in S. Africa provided a unique perspective: ...Because the cultural impact of America on the rest of the world was a ripple affect - like someone throwing a stone into a pond - and where I lived as a pre-teen, it was like the American revolution of the 1960s hit us last. By the time it got there, it was so soft compared to what really happened.

I've always considered myself a filmmaker and never concerned myself with the business of multi-nationals and what goes on up there; why certain films get green-lit.

Actors who get a lot of success quickly have to deal with the question: ...'what did I do?'

I've always felt the film business is the point where art and commerce meet.