I think I'm a very American director, but I probably should have been making movies somewhere around 1976. I never left the mainstream of American movies; the American mainstream left me.
'Apocalypse Now' does not alienate us or deconstruct itself. In fact, it welcomes us in.
It's much easier to make a movie with kind of stylistic pyrotechnics because you can hide behind that if there's a gap in the story.
My wife thinks I have an obsession with social class. So I guess I have an obsession with social class. It probably stems from feeling like an outcast.
The key to humor is often self-loathing or sarcasm. In a sense, that's how self-loathing is made palatable.
Sean Penn has announced his retirement from acting about 72 times.
