"…and then [in Mean Streets], Robert De Niro; his kind of twitchy reverence to this wonderfully insane underworld. Somehow, the two [films] will always be forever linked in my mind. Whoever programmed those two movies together… it was at a moment when, in an art context, I was beginning to make short films. So film was definitely becoming a medium that was intriguing to me, and I hadn’t quite made a complete transition yet, but I found those two films just extraordinary, and they opened up a kind of unimaginable landscape for me. That kind of great irreverence, and intensity, and strength of purpose in those characters."

"The films that I like aren’t necessarily because they’re good films in themselves — One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a good film — but that one specifically meant a lot to me. Not because I was in a mental home or anything, but that character influenced me so much when I was 15 or 16, and bits of it stuck with me. A lot of that kind of “putting your middle finger up to the world” attitude — not that I really have that, but…I used to be so timid, and that was one of those films that [helped me break out], by pretending to be [Jack Nicholson’s character] Randle."