All the people in the film are strangely of the same generation. It was quite nice to be doing a film from where I come from about that period of time.
As a teenager, I took photos and developed them, but I was never a serious still photographer at all.
By the time I have a script I've already been working on it for a couple of years, so I tend to want to make them.
Chinese culture is very different than British and American culture, but it was a completely normal shoot.
Films, once I've made them, I don't watch them again.
I don't really have a sense of what attracts me to story except at a certain point, you realize that's the story you want to make.
I don't really understand the still photographer's work.
I hate working in studios because it's hard to imagine a story without imagining the culture where it takes place.
I have to justify leaving my home for six months to shoot a film, Working quickly and cheaply. I also enjoy it. If you don't enjoy it, there is no reason to keep doing it.
I never look at my picture, I'm sure it's fine.
I prefer to watch people.
I still enjoy watching films more than making them.
I think it would be impossible if you had a name like mine not to get a little flack for it.
I think there's something attractive about extreme stories, but it's not a conscious desire to try and find something shocking or miserable or tragic.
I'm a fan of music from all over the world.
I'm not a science fiction buff at all.
I've been interested in films since I was 14.
I've been offered films in America but not $100 million action movies.
I've just made another film where the actors are really making love, which is a much more satisfactory way of doing it if the actors are into it.
I've never felt like there was any point in doing a storyboard because what's interesting in a shot is the way it changes from the first frame to the last frame.
I've wanted to do a film about the Antarctic for ages.
If I had to put together a Michael Winterbottom retrospective, I'd call it Struggle, Actually.
If you do a story about a British journalist rescuing a child from Sarajevo, then Sarajevo just becomes an exotic location, and the story's about this British journalist.
If you're a director, you don't necessarily want to be acting on your films.
If you're not writing your own script, you tend to get scripts given to you by people. What's nice is working collaboratively.
In a normal film, sex scenes are quite tricky. I try to make it comfortable. When you do a sex scene in a movie it's very organized and artificial.
It was very cold, but at least it was consistent. It wasn't one of those things where we went on the mountain thinking it was gonna be gloriously hot and then suddenly it all changed!
It's a problem that 90 percent of screens are in multiplexes, which are designed to recreate a bit of suburban America.
It's always good if you can find someone that you like working with; it's easier.
Like almost all art forms, there was a golden age.
Most of the work I do is stuff that originated from me working with other people.
Most shoots are about six or seven weeks. It's not like being in the Army.
Nobody thinks it's strange to collaborate with actors, and it's the same with cinematographers.
Obviously any film you do becomes personal by way of working on the script, choosing the actors, and where you film.
Part of the reason I hate studios is that I like actors to go out and look at the place.
Some people thought Wonderland was warm and optimistic, others that it was pessimistic. That might reflect their own experiences; it certainly reflects the complexity of real life.
That's something I generally like to avoid in films -scenes where characters sit down and tell each other their history.
The characters are shaped by their environment and society. We wanted to find places to film where the society would create an interesting world.
The film starts off with The Sex Pistols. I was about 15 when punk started, so in the film, that was the moment that most connected to my experience of it, that whole kind of explosion of a new sort of energy.
The stories that interest me a lot involve deep emotions at some level, and if you're going to deal with something that has emotions, it might as well be intense emotions.
There seemed to be an interesting connection between a generation of pioneers coming to the Gold Rush and then 20 years later the building of the railroad and the connection of California to the rest of America.
There's still a 1950s view of cinema, that there's one audience and they all want to see the same thing.
Tim Robbins wasn't difficult, but he likes to know the shape of the thing, the point of the scene.
We traveled to Dubai, Shanghai and Hong Kong. We eventually decided to shoot in Shanghai and Dubai, taking elements from each of them to combine them in a way to make the story work.
We use cloning in the film because I like the idea of taking a romantic story and finding a new way of doing it.
We were interested in the West and the way in which California changed from when it was part of Mexico to where it was 20 years later.
When people approach me about my films it is usually to tell me how much they hate them.
When you make a film, the approach is very different to that of a still photographer.
When you start being enthusiastic about whatever it is you like, that is the golden age for you.
Why do films not show sex? So many films are love stories, so why not show a love story through two people making love? It seems perverse.
With The Claim, that story literally started off like, Let's do something about immigrants to America, and then it became, Let's do something about people coming to the Gold Rush.
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