"The Sweet Smell of Success is, I think, one of the best — certainly one of the greatest New York films, for me — ever made. Alexander Mackendrick, great director. Unbelievable script. James Wong Howe, unbelievable camerawork. And Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster — to see those two going at it, and really, you know, the tragedy of corruption and how it infiltrates every aspect of peoples’ lives. There was something so deeply dark and cynical about it. But yeah, there’s this sort of tiny little germ of hope at the end of the film, as Susan walks off with the musician boyfriend that Hunsecker has tried to destroy, and you just feel like, you know, absolute power corrupts but not totally. Still, it has a vicious sting to it, that film. It really affected me."

"There was a movie called Animal Factory; it was [written] by Eddie Bunker, and it was directed by Steve Buscemi. It’s probably the best prison movie that’s ever been made. It’s unbelievable. I actually helped produce that. Eddie had the script, was running around with it for a while, and then gave it to me and said, “See what you can do with it.” I remember handing it to Steve Buscemi on Con Air, and I said, “Here, Steve. Read this or I’ll kill you.” [laughs] And he read it. He loved it, but he said, “Danny, there’s nothing really in it for me,” and I said, “No, no, no, we want you to direct it.” So he got Willem Dafoe, and when he got Willem Dafoe, everybody else kind of jumped on it."