Thinking back to those earlier days I felt I was weak when I wasn't making movies and then when I was I thought I was weak as a family member.

I can't tell you how scary it can be walking onto a movie and suddenly joining this family it's like going to somebody else's Christmas dinner everyone knows everyone and you're there and you're not quite sure what you're supposed to be doing.

It's very important that every movie I do makes money because I want the people that had the faith in me to get their money back.

There comes a point in your moviegoing life where you look at the screen and then you look at the world and you ask 'What is going on?' You want the movies to show you the chaos and mess and risk and failure that are normal for a lot of us. Generally the movies hide all of that.

I mean I love L.A. - I love living here. But I wish that we could make things without the need to hit a home run every single time. It's a unique thing to Hollywood that if you don't do that every time then you're considered a failure. But it's like 'Well are you making movies to be successful? Or are you making movies to learn something?'

Whether in success or in failure I'm proud of every single movie I've ever directed.

In Torch Song I did that character almost non-stop from 1978 until I made the movie in 1987. Then I had some failure which also colors how you react to doing other things.

I love music and after my first experience with movies I can't wait to do more.

You ask any moviemaker what their favorite movie experience was and they'll say it was one of the first ones where everyone had to pitch in and do everything together and you had to struggle.

If you're working on a movie you want it to be projected on the largest tapestry possible and the sound to be perfect and for that kind of communal experience of the movies to take place for it.