Fitzgerald was a modernist.

I love dancing.

I am always worried when someone says, 'This is perfect.'

I don’t have fights with actors. In absolute honesty, I’ve never fought with any actor ever.

My wife is the fact-checker, I’m in the story telling business.

Get to know your parents, you never know when they’ll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings, they’re your best link to your past. And the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund, maybe you’ll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out.

I’ve always loved the old epics that tell a simple emotional story, whether it’s the tumultuous relationship between Rhett and Scarlett or Lawrence of Arabia’s passion to get lost in a faraway place.

One of my great all-time loves in cinema, and I’ve seen it three times, is Bondarchuk’s ‘War and Peace.’ Not a lot of people may have seen that film. It was made during the Soviet era.

Opera was the cinema of its time, so to bring back that popular appeal, you just need to unleash its visceral immediacy and excitement. Most productions don’t manage that – but when an opera does do it, you never forget it.