Now is a time where there are so many social networks, such need for validation... you don't have to be a star or a politician to want to have likes or dislikes. Now there is a disease of popularity in the whole society.
You have to make millions on Friday night, because there are another 600 films waiting behind you, with explosions and everything.
I think that when we wrestle with death... we start fearing life, because then we come to terms with something that is inevitable.
I started off writing TV adverts. I saw those as rehearsals for a feature film.
When you have critics filing on Twitter, it leaves no time for thought and perspective.
I have been very lucky to have final cut in all my films; everything that is wrong in them is my fault.
Yes, I am a Mexican, and I have a past and a culture. But what matters is the film itself, not where it was financed or cast.
I think there's nothing wrong with being fixated on superheroes when you are 7 years old, but I think there's a disease in not growing up.
Cinema is universal, beyond flags and borders and passports.
When you do a film in a foreign language, you know there's a cost in it, that you know, unfortunately, the audiences of foreign language films have not been cultivated. There's a market, but the market has been reduced, unfortunately, and you know that when you're making a foreign language film, you're making a choice.
For me, the most important thing that I have to accomplish is to be a good father. That's the most difficult challenge of my life. That's the most important thing for me, more than films.
To make a film is easy; to make a good film is war. To make a very good film is a miracle.
When there's a good script, everybody circles.
The corporation and the hedge funds have a hold on Hollywood, and they all want to make money on anything that signifies cinema.
I have a lot of what you might call creative self-loathing - I have pretty high expectations, and they seem to consistently be higher than what I'm able to accomplish.
That incredible bubble and high expectations built at festivals can work against a film.
Very little is known about Hugh Glass as a real guy that existed 200 years ago, except that he was attacked by a bear, betrayed and left for dead, and has to survive in the winter. I said, 'What really drives a human to survive those conditions?'
'Biutiful' is not about death. It's about life. It's a hymn to life.
My duty is to make probable the improbable. If I tell you how I did it, I will ruin your experience.
When I'm working, I'm insufferable because I get stuck with myself, and suddenly I become obsessive, thinking about how to make something better.