Nicolas Cage

Helen Mirren is someone that I have really admired ever since I saw her in 'Excalibur.' That was the first thing I said to her. 'I loved you as Morgan Le Fay.'

I've gotten pretty good at leaving characters on the set. I go home and try to relax and regroup and be ready for the next day.

I want people to discover my movies, and however they choose to receive it is their business.

The best characters are the ones that somehow manage to be both attractive and repulsive at the same time. If you do that, you're at the center of the universe - if you can find characters who are more ambiguous and can raise more questions than answers.

I loved 'Fantasia' as a kid because it filled me with wonder, enchantment and awe. It was my first real introduction into classical music. It was totally inspiring to me.

I try to make two movies a year. To me, that's not too much. On top of that, I like to work.

I'm an enormous admirer of Christopher Lee. He's somebody, along with Vincent Price, who I celebrate, and I wanted my movies to show that celebration and that honoring of these great film stars that were unafraid to go into horror and Grand Guignol and the macabre.

I think that if you go about making movies to win Oscars, you're really going about it the wrong way.

I was always shocked when I went to the doctor's office and they did my X-ray and didn't find that I had eight more ribs than I should have or that my blood was the color green.

Children, to me, are of the utmost importance. They're really the future, aren't they?

Every great story seems to begin with a snake.