Pastoral Resources

It was the point where things became much more abstract and less literal than in the bulk of the film, which was hardcore rockets and space and planets - all a fairly straightforward evolution from what I had been doing before.

When I worked on 2001 - which was my first feature film - I was deeply and permanently affected by the notion that a movie could be like a first-person experience.

Sometimes it's difficult directing yourself on film because you can't quite separate yourself from the subject.

As a director you have to be careful you don't over-design the film. You have to be careful that the period aspect does not take over.

Even The Impostors, as silly as it is, is a very intimate film, in a way.

It's more interesting because you get to research the history of the period, and all the different aesthetic elements that make a film, particularly this film, so stunning.

A film's success or failure is strictly on the director's shoulders.

I did a film about the Zodiac Killer. It turned out well.

It begins and ends with money. It's absurd in this day and age when we need so much money for education, health, for people, that a $100 million dollars can be spent on a film. It's obscene.

I never feel more alive than when I'm on stage. On film you feel chopped up, you can be acting from the neck up, or the hand, there is a lot of close up.

If a film doesn't play, people aren't going to be that nice.

In my first film, Five Corners, I played a very scary, violent crazed character, and it exposed me to a lot of directors.

When I attack a role, be it TV, film or stage, the first thing I say is, I don't want to know anything. If it's good I don't want to hear it; if it's bad I don't want to hear it. The only thing either thing can do is distract me. I like to stay focused.

That is the thing I'm most grateful for in this industry to be able to spin in those different mediums, with television, film and the stage - at this stage of the game.

My son had his eighth birthday recently and we had a chance to borrow the film and show it to all of his friends that was at his birthday party and they loved it. I was a little nervous. I said they might not even like it, and say his daddy's movie is wack, but they loved it.

I haven't done a lot of things in my career that my kids can watch, because they are 8, 6 and 3, and they are pretty young; so given the concepts that the film was about a superhero, it was a black superhero, and it was a father and son type partnership.

That is a big danger, losing your inspiration. When I work in film and television I try to do each take a little differently. I never want to do the same thing twice, because then you're not being spontaneous, you're just recreating something.

I'll need every ounce that I have to drive it through. Film and TV require that energy. Sometimes fight scenes can be pretty intense. When I was shooting 'Heaven' it was truly guerrilla film-making.

It was always something I knew I was capable of and from an early age my mother was involved in the film industry. She used to work at a production company. So I was exposed to a renaissance period of films in New Zealand back in the early 80's.

You wouldn't ask Rodin to make an ugly sculpture, or me to make a film with an ugly woman.