Q: Is there any process you use every time you make a film? 

A: There is no process. I see a film in front of my eyes as if I were sitting in a screening room. Because of that, I write screenplays very quickly, as fast as if I were copying one from a book. I hear the characters’ dialogue, I see what they are doing, I hear the music. This is why I’ve never spent more than a few days writing a screenplay. 

Q: You’ve also said that in preparing for your productions you don’t use storyboards, correct?

A: Storyboards are for cowards, for those who lack imagination, for those who are bureaucratic and nothing else on the set. However, I cannot speak of that in absolute terms. When you’re doing a film with real action or digital effects that depict fantastic landscapes, you have to organize the images so you don’t run into trouble in post-production. So, for that type of film, I think storyboards are a legitimate, if not an indispensable, tool. 

Q: I know you like to shoot very quickly. Is it true you don’t like to do more than a few takes?

A: Yes, but sometimes more, it depends. If something goes wrong technically, of course I will repeat and I have no problem with that. But if a scene doesn’t work after four or five times, I get the suspicion that something—probably the text, or how the actors are instructed—is not right. So I’ll take a quick, fresh look at things. I’ll stop for 10 seconds, rewrite the dialogue in another 20 seconds, and just tell the actors what to say. All of a sudden, the scene will have life, it feels fresh, it has a dynamic. You have to have the nerve to look at what is happening on the set, a straight and direct look without checking into any video playback. I have never allowed a so-called ‘video village’ on my sets. I do not allow anyone to look at video playbacks on tiny little screens, except perhaps the cinematographer or his assistant who may need to check if the actors are in frame. 

Q: What about shooting digitally?

A: We used the RED camera for My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done. It’s an immature camera created by computer people who do not have a sensibility or understanding for the value of high-precision mechanics, which has a 200-year history. It’s terrible: Whenever you have to reboot the camera, it takes 4½ minutes or so. It drove me insane, because sometimes something is happening and you can’t just push the button and record it. An assistant cameraman said this camera would be ideal if we were filming the National Library in Paris, which has been sitting there for centuries. But everything that moves faster than a library is a problem for the RED. Super 35 mm celluloid is still better.

Q: You don’t shoot any coverage? 

A: I see the finished film in front of me. Other directors probably take a ritualistic approach, they don’t know what they’re doing and so they push their decisions into postproduction. It’s okay, why not? But so many things are pushed further down the line, and there are many essentials—the rhythm of a film, the quality of acting, the focus on the wrong character—that you can’t fix in postproduction. You’d better take charge on the set and do it right there.

Q: What about reshoots?

A: Never a reshoot. I’ve never had a reshoot in my life. It’s not even in my dictionary. The word itself sounds odd to me. 

Q: How does your frugality affect your cast and crew?

A: Hollywood has a tendency to throw five new crew members at everything that comes as a slight problem. So I say, ‘No, stop! We have to sort things out. We have to be intelligent.’ More people just makes everything clumsier. For example, on Bad Lieutenant, Eva Mendes asked for a fairly large entourage. I told her that I had waived my right to a trailer, a personal assistant, a chauffeur, even a director’s chair. (The director’s chair saved the production 65 bucks, but I despise them anyway and have never had one.) After all that, I told her, ‘It would be nice if you wouldn’t show up on my set with a psychiatrist for your dog.’ She laughed so hard, and then, all of a sudden, she arrived with just a very essential makeup artist and a security guard. Actors know I want to take them where they have not been before and make them the best that they can be. I said to Eva, ‘Nobody in my movies shows up on my set as a star. But whoever is on my screen, down to the smallest, shortest moment of an extra, will be treated like royalty.’

Q: How do you handle logistics on a big production?

A: On my sets, there’s a hundred-foot perimeter from the camera in which walkie-talkies are not allowed. And within 200 feet of the camera there can be no cell phones. It takes all the focus away when everybody’s chattering. I visited Forest Whitaker on the set of a film when we were in New Orleans. Dozens of people were hanging around a video village screen just 20 feet away from the actor, and somebody was whispering into a cell phone 30 feet away, right in his eye-line. I would have taken that man and sent him down the Mississippi on a raft. It’s mind-boggling what is happening on these sets. I personally don’t even own a cell phone. 

Q: You seem very attuned to the sound of your films, whether it’s the chirping of birds or classical music or the operas you use as a score. Do you have a theory about the use of sound?

A: I don’t have a theory, but I’m very much aware of the value of sound. And while I am shooting, after a real good take is in the can, I always say, ‘Freeze.’ And the crew knows you don’t move, you don’t breathe, you don’t even think, because it might register. And instantaneously I record the ambience for a minute or so. Whenever I hear something—a bird in the tree, or a creaking door somewhere, I immediately go with the soundman and we record it separately from close-up to use it later. So I create a whole cornucopia of ambiences and sounds and things.

Q: What about financing? Do you find it difficult to get insurance or completion bonds for your films? 

A: No, I tell [producers] straight away I do not want a completion bond because it is a parasitical entity that only costs money. You know what is the completion guarantee? It’s me, the director. I am the ultimate completion guarantee, because when I make a film, I deliver. And I deliver on time and on budget. I never need a completion bond. 

Q: Are there any other projects you’re pursuing at the moment? 

A: Oh, I have five or six feature films pushing me. You see, it sounds as if I have a career and I’m planning a lot. But no, the films come like a home invasion, like burglars in the middle of the night. All of a sudden they are there, and you have to deal with them.

Full interview with photos here.