I care about the connection with the audience. Film is such a powerful medium. Movies can change the way people think.

All my life I have loved and been inspired by French cinema and as a studio head it has been my pride and joy to have the ability to bring movies to audiences around the world.

Audiences want to see intelligent movies.

Well Toronto I consider to be the birthplace of my films. I've made three films and this is the third one to premiere here in the same theater on the same day at the same time - they are my audience. They're the people that I think about while I'm writing directing and editing. I specifically make movies for them.

I want my movies to be audience experiences. As much as I like Michael Haneke I'm not going to make a Haneke film. That's just not in my DNA.

Steven Spielberg is unique. I feel that the kinds of movies he loves are the same kinds of movies that the big mass audience loves. He's very fortunate because he can do the things he naturally likes the best and he's been very successful.

I think that's what distinguishes Schmidt really. In the movies now so much of what is appealing to an audience is the dramatic or has to do with science fiction and Schmidt is simply human. There's no melodrama there's no device It's just about a human being.

You know those movies where the people in the audience are screaming 'Don't go in that door!' because you know the killer is there? Well it is the same thing with this debt. We know how this ends.

Movies are a fad. Audiences really want to see live actors on a stage.

So far as I know anything worth hearing is not usually uttered at seven o'clock in the morning and if it is it will generally be repeated at a more reasonable hour for a larger and more wakeful audience.