I'm not a big believer in the sense of Jews having a monopoly on comedy.
The comedies are not a million laughs on the set. Its business and the dramas are business as well, really. When I'm writing it I struggle more with drama because I started out in comedy.
When I first started, there were writers that I looked up to that I felt very influenced by and very respectful toward their work and their opinion of my work.
There's nothing good about getting older-absolutely nothing-because the amount of wisdom and experience you gain is negligible compared to what you lose. You do gain a couple of things-you gain a little bittersweet and sour wisdom from your heartbreaks and failures and things-but what you lose is so catastrophic in every way.
I didn't go to Paris until I was a grown-up in 1965. And when I went to Paris, it was the Paris I knew only from American movies.
I can't minimize the terror factor. As you get older you get more and more frightened because the terrible indignities of old age become closer to you.
If the [actors] are working, and I have a dinner engagement, I don't do 20 takes. I do five takes and go home. I want to go to dinner.
I'd like to make a great movie. I've made many movies. I think I've made some good movies, but I never felt I've made a great movie.
Drama, it would be as if you wrote some poetry. You'd run the risk of being embarrassed if people read it, because you're pouring your heart out and you're not mitigating it with any humor or anything.
I'd always wanted to be a dramatic. Comedy comes more naturally to me. I can do it with more facility. So I feel more comfortable with it.
I always thought it would be very funny if I was a blind film director.
I've always believed that thoughtful people don't really take the tabloids seriously. They're basically a form of entertainment. I enjoy them as much as the next New Yorker.
I've always been interested in being in other people's movies. I never get any offers.
I think I've gotten technically better over the years but you'd have to be a fool not to. I've made so many movies that by sheer quantity you get better at the technique.
To be a film director is not a democracy, it's really a tyranny. You're the head of the project, for better rather than worse. I write the film and I direct the film, I decide who's going to be in it, I decide on the editing, I put in the music from my own record collection.
I wish I was writing something much more heavy each time I did a film, and that the comedies just occasionally come out. But unfortunately you're stuck with what you're born with.
The content dictates the style all the time. That's the way it is. If the content of the film - as in Husbands and Wives - is highly jagged, neurotic, fast-paced, nervous New York film, it just called for that kind of shooting, editing and performance.
I'm a creature of the New York City streets.
