Those who decide to use leisure as a means of mental development who love good music good books good pictures good plays good company good conversation - what are they? They are the happiest people in the world.

Music is the universal language of mankind.

In America we have so many movies and so much media about the Islamic world the sub-continental world but it's not a conversation it's a monologue. It's always from one point of view. 'If we don't tell our own stories no one will tell them' is my mantra.

I mean the trouble with some of the kind of relationship movies I've done is there's only so many ways you can shoot a conversation. I was really tired of talking heads.

When I was a little kid - and even still - I loved magic tricks. When I saw how movies got made - at least had a glimpse when I went on the Universal Studios tour with my grandfather I remember feeling like this was another means by which I could do magic.

In the past I've made movies that were pretty universally liked. You can't really hate them. You can discard them but you can't really hate them.

I just remember Stella Tenant and me dancing in Donatella Versace's bathtub until like four in the morning. It was one of those 'pinch me' moments.

It only worked for a little while the morning after I agreed to go with Universal an article came out in the Hollywood trade papers and the secret was out.

I started running 3 miles every morning after throat surgery to remove a cyst last year. The gym used to be my adversary. But that has all changed. Now I look forward to it every morning.

I myself spent nine years in an insane asylum and I never had the obsession of suicide but I know that each conversation with a psychiatrist every morning at the time of his visit made me want to hang myself realizing that I would not be able to cut his throat.