Oh, yes, that never happened to me in my life before. It was a risky film, and I warned the producer.
The scene that has raised the most objections in 'The Interview' is at the very end, when Kim's head dissolves into flames. To me, it feels gratuitous.
'Hellraiser' was what 'Hellraiser' was. It was a $900k movie, and there wasn't anything I would have done differently. But 'Nightbreed' was taken away from me. It was thought that its meaning wasn't... Its meaning didn't chime with the producers.
There's people saying that 'Jackie Brown' was a blaxploitation movie, when there's nothing at all blaxploitation about it other than Pam Grier being in it.
I was criticised for making 'Devdas' so ostentatious. But stark and realistic cinema isn't the only real cinema in this country.
The films that I do tend to polarise people's views.
I just hate that Lucas... and it is not just Lucas, because everybody does it, where, boom, they get it out, and then there's a special edition for a movie that doesn't deserve a special edition.
For a long time, the Indonesian government ignored 'The Act of Killing,' hoping it would go away.
I have three kids, the oldest is 18 and her friends are going to see it The Aristocrats because they told her they're going to see it, especially her guy friends.
In the case of 'Zero Dark Thirty,' about the hunt for Osama bin Laden, an issue that is central to the film - torture - is so important that I feel I must say something. Mark Boal and Kathryn Bigelow have been irresponsible and inaccurate in the way they have treated this issue in their film.
'Blood Feast' is my favorite of Lewis' films. When we shot 'Serial Mom,' and I showed them the infamous tongue scene, one of the female crew members said, 'I hate when a guy does that.'
North Korea threatened to attack if Sony Pictures released The Interview, forcing us all to pretend that we wanted to see it.
Controversies are part and parcel of making a big film.
When we made 'Night of the Living Dead,' we got riddled. There was this famous article Roger Ebert wrote just blasting the film because he had gone to see it at some screening where there were all these kids in the audience. I don't know why that happened. We didn't make the movie for kids.
Even when 'Kaakha Kaakha' was released, there were people who gave it an average rating and said they couldn't figure out what was happening. Three days after its release, the producer called me and asked me to remove all of Jothika's scenes from the film. I told him; in that case, you can also remove my name from the director's slot.
As ridiculous as it is for anybody who knows how movies are made, there were people who actually wrote in reviews that this picture [Bad Influence] had been put out to capitalize on the scandal. Which, of course, would have been impossible.
Liberal censors are the worst. I don't remember any trouble with 'Serial Mom' or 'Cecil B. Demented' or any of them. Except 'Cry Baby.'
Julie' has not been perceived as a sleazy film, and I am grateful for that.
Just because of 'Rangeela' and 'Daud,' it can't be said that I am a sex symbol.
Just because 'Mulk' addresses some uncomfortable truths, trolls are having a field day. They say that the film has been funded by Dawood because that's the easiest way to malign it. But I am not affected by such nonsense.
When a 'Life of Brian' comes out with Muhammad in the lead role, directed by an Arab equivalent of Theo van Gogh, it will be a huge step forward.
I have great respect for the FBI, and I know that there have been some rumors lately that the FBI was disenchanted because of what we were doing in story, or doing a certain take: that's not true. Actually the FBI was tremendously enthusiastic about us doing [ J. Edgar Hoover ] film.
I've been campaigning like anything for restoring these changes. For 27 years. I wrote a book about it, well, a portion of the book was devoted to these scenes and why they should have been in the movie.
I've had some pretty stimulating conversations about where we are politically as a result of this movie [Snowden], but then there are a lot of questions just about that sensationalism of it.
I was anathema in polite society after I made 'Last House.' People literally would grab their children and run from the room.
