The thing about the Russian secret police and the Soviet secret police is that one never leaves the secret police. Once a KGB man, always a KGB man.
The real evil of the Russian communist state is not communism. It is the secret police and the concentration camp.
Poland didn't experience a groundbreaking moment in 1989. We didn't storm the secret police building. The squads of secret police, with all their political baggage, remained unscathed.
Well can I just make a point about the numbers because people talk a lot about police numbers as if police numbers are the holy grail. But actually what matters is what those police are doing. It's about how those police are deployed.
I landed a job with Roger Corman. The job was to write the English dialogue for a Russian science fiction picture. I didn't speak any Russian. He didn't care whether I could understand what they were saying; he wanted me to make up dialogue.
When this election is over, you're done, you're finished. There is no more GOP. Don't care what you GOP leaders are thinking, you're not welcome. We don't want you in our club, and you're not gonna get in.
I have a genuine philosophy. I do not want to make negative pictures about people, and so I do everything I can to help make them feel comfortable in front of the camera. That is what is going to control your picture, because you are alone if your subject is not with you. And that's the simple answer to getting a good picture.
I want to make a picture that could stand on its own, regardless of what it was a picture of. I've never been a bit interested in the fact that this was a picture of a blues musician or a street corner or something.
It is, because you've got a nice picture, you want to put it up, and then you're like, 'Do I want this to go out in the press? Do I want them to run it and make a story surrounding that picture?' That's what I have to think of all the time.
How can I make a movie about the violence of the police if the police aren't going to let me film it?
There's an old Russian saying that goes some way or another. I don't know it. I don't speak Russian. But sometimes I think about it and wonder if it's relevant to what I'm going through at the time. Probably not. I mean what do Russian know about hunger, anyway?
The thing about Russia? Everyone is Russian. They're just Russian. They're Russian.
As the local police department might want to decrypt a phone of a criminal suspect, so would the Chinese or the Russian or the Iranian intelligence agencies like to be able to do exactly the same thing.
I lived next to Russian soldiers. We had Russian army guys in our house when I grew up. We made lemonade for them; they were everywhere. I had a Russian school. I grew up with Russian traditions, I know Russian songs... it infiltrates me a lot. I even speak a little Russian.
I don't feel that comfortable being on the runway with a G-string. I shoot G-strings with Victoria's Secret, but on the runway... It's really about the moment. I work with professionals. Professional people make everything look perfect, they make everything that you're wearing look great, if it's in a picture or on the runway.
'The Lion' all began with a picture of a faun carrying an umbrella and parcels in a snowy wood. This picture had been in my mind since I was about sixteen. Then one day, when I was about forty, I said to myself, 'Let's try to make a story about it.'