Kubrick's vision seemed to be that humans are doomed whereas Clarke's is that humans are moving on to a better stage of evolution.

The really courageous and bold thing is to make movies about human behaviour.

I like to think of myself as a fairly educated human being but I'm a very uneducated actor when it comes to movies directors producers actors for that matter.

Well the thing about great fictional characters from literature and the reason that they're constantly turned into characters in movies is that they completely speak to what makes people human.

I think people like to see the lives of artists that are legends. They always go through the dark periods and I think just as humans we like to see that and them coming out of it. I love those kinds of movies.

I really love the independent movies and I just think that sometimes when they throw a lot of money into it and a lot of special effects and a lot of stunts that you lose the connection the human connection and I personally love movies that are about the human connection.

I think what a lot of action movies lose these days especially the ones that deal with fantasy is you stop caring at some point because you've lost human scale.

Listen I think movies serve many different purposes from those movies that are frivolous and just an entertainment to movies that just go to exploring the complexities of the human soul. Everything is valid if it's done with honesty and dignity and I actually do both of those types of movies in my career.

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.

The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder.