I think Dogme was inspiring for quite a few peoples and sort of started a digital movement. Personally, I found it extremely uplifting and fantastic making Dogme movies, but I felt I completed it with 'The Celebration.' I think that was the end of the road on Dogme for me. It was as far as I could go.
Having done a Dogme film taught me the beauty of simplicity and austerity.
I think the good thing about Dogme is that it forces you into an extreme sense of reality because there's no artificial light and no set design and all of those icings on the cake that you usually have on a movie.
Dogme is like leading a religious life, in that you are freeing yourself from making certain choices. It makes life easier.
The Danish filmmakers are a unique breed of filmmakers, with the Dogme films and Lars von Trier.
I have a slight controversy with the Dogme brethren because I've been saying that rules are to be interpreted; not that I haven't followed the rules, because I don't see the point of submitting yourself to a set of rules if you don't follow them. But having said that, it is always a lot of interpretation.
After Bottle Rocket, I started getting acting work. People started offering me roles in movies. It wasn't something that I thought about as a kid growing up in Texas. Actually, maybe I would have thought of it as a possibility, but it seemed so crazily far-fetched to think that you could work in movies that I really didn't ever quite imagine it. It was just lucky.
I grew up in L.A., and I don't think I've seen L.A. onscreen in a way that felt real to me. There are definitely movies, but they are few and far between.
Initially I started writing because I felt like I didn't fit in. I just moved to a new school and I felt quite lonely. I think that's where it all started for me.
For me, grief is a static thing, and my movies have an extremely dynamic sort of movement.
When I'm on the road making a movie in another city, on my day off, I always go to the movies. I love going to the movies. You get a ticket and sit there, and it's very interesting to be around people who aren't personally invested in you, in any way. They're just going to the movies.
3D is quite a lot more advanced in animated movies; for live-action movies we're just taking baby steps, we're just in the beginning. So when I think of doing that I was very excited. It didn't go as far as I think it should, I'm still a novice, but I think it's fair to say it's a new cinematic medium, experience.
I think that's my hope for a lot of the feminist movement is that the gender thing sort of stops being the selling point, if that makes any sense. We're just people making art, and that's how this process has felt to me.
As far as acting, I just went in and just started training. It was the first thing I did right when I retired. I just went in and found class, and found people, found the right coaches that could sort of just train me along.
After university, I went into film. I started out making tea, managed a brief stint as an assistant director, then found myself writing a screenplay. In the end, I wrote quite a few - but by January 2006, I wanted out.
My father's family, I think, were mostly from Lancashire, but I don't know how far back we go. I think it's quite a few generations.
I think when I first started cycling, it wasn't that popular with kids. I felt almost embarrassed going down the road on my road bike; I didn't want my friends to see me because it was embarrassing.