Quotes

[on Quentin Tarantino] I've realized that I can't hang out with him. I talk with him, and he just sucks stuff from me.

[on Pulp Fiction (1994) and all the inspiration and effect it had] In some ways, I think "Pulp Fiction" hurt cinema in a very, very minor, small way. It did a massive amount of good. But it also made it impossible to make a movie even remotely like it without someone comparing it to "Pulp Fiction".

[on the film adaptations of Bret Easton Ellis books Neige sur Beverly Hills (1987) and American Psycho (2000)] Those two movies have stripped away his literary devices, and the filmmakers are just trying to tell the story. If you strip away Bret's devices, you strip away his themes - they're part and parcel of each other.

[on the characters in Les lois de l'attraction (2002) and them as people] Bret Easton Ellis is a social satirist; I consider myself aligned with how he does things. Bret doesn't write about that which he loves about the world, he writes about what disgusts him. You'd be a disturbed individual if you came out and said, "I love these characters".

[on Quentin Tarantino doing his Top Gun (1986) speech in the film Sleep with Me (1994)] Important lesson learned. Intellectual properties can be taken from you if you put them in the air. Result is to never speak to anyone else ever again and withdraw from society. Keep few friends and speak to them rarely.

[on the detractors of Les lois de l'attraction (2002)] It does not matter to me if you hate the movie. What matters to me is if you are ambivalent. Anybody can do "thumbs up, thumbs down". That's the real problem with film criticism today. It's been reduced to "I like it, I dislike it". Criticism should be more of an examination of exactly why a film makes you feel the way you feel.

[on Ron Perlman] Ron Perlman is a giving actor, with no pretensions. He's wonderful to work with, full of ideas, and a truly gifted actor. When he came onto the production of Mr. Stitch (1995) the set literally lit up. Working with him was one of the bright moments of my career, and I would work with him again in a hot second. This must sound like I'm going overboard, but Ron has such an elegant, wonderful and bright personality that I honestly don't think it's an exaggeration. I mean, how often can you say that you're a better person for having met someone?

As I was reading the serialized version of Sandman: The Doll's House, it was like having a third eye open in my forehead. Johnny Depp as Dream. Fairuza Balk as Death. I would subcontract Jan Svankmajer or the Brothers Quay (Timothy Quay and Stephen Quay) to animate the transitions from the dream realm into our own world, so as to simulate the graphic style of Dave McKean's covers. It would be a glorious and magnificent epic. A year and a half after my first meeting, I politely left the project, not wanting to be the guy who ruined the Sandman film adaptation. I simply couldn't imagine the Lord of Dreaming throwing a punch. Just because it looked like Batman (1989) at first glance didn't mean it was. But Jon Peters, the "savant" producer Warners had attached to the project couldn't be dissuaded. I moved on, a year and a half of my life gone to the ether. No more real to me now than the memory of a dream.