Classicism becomes avant-garde when everyone else is doing their utmost to develop new stylistic forms. I think it's healthy to return to classical forms.
I think the biggest lesson that I take from 'Avatar' on any set that I go to is just work ethic. Working with Jim Cameron, you're used to working very, very long days and you're very meticulous about details. He's very, very picky about little details, little character-isms and things.
How mad would it actually be to do an 'Avatar' type animation film, but about something mundane like a Winn-Dixie cashier's day at work? That'd be something else, I think.
But I think it shortsells any idea when you say there's a similar part to something else, like 'aw man, 'The Avengers' is ripping off 'Batman.' You've got people running around in outfits.' Of course, there are outfitted people and there's superhero stuff, but it's not just ripping off 'Batman.'
It's really interesting that, in 'The Avengers,' the character that people relate to is The Hulk, and I think the reason why they relate to The Hulk is because he's fragile and human and faulty.
I think the first thing that I saw on IMAX was 'The Avengers.' The scope and the size of it are pretty neat, I will say that.
I've never been much of a craftsman, in an educated way. But I think just the experience of writing makes the avenues I follow a little more efficient in some ways. At the same time, when you're young, you're a little more fearless, and there's less of an internal critic.
I think that when I'm telling a story, I'm doing the best I can to tell the story as fully as I can, and if there are various fractures that happen in the story, then that's just the very thing that the story is as opposed to my looking for avenues of difference in one story. They just really do exist. For me, anyway.
I think it was my study of history that convinced me that the Democratic Party was more on the side of the average American.
I think the average American has forgotten the great feel for liberty and accountability that the framers of the Constitution believed.
I think the average guy thinks they're pro-woman, just because they think they're a nice guy and someone has told them that they're awesome. But the truth is far from it.
Scorsese and De Niro taught me to bring out the natural side of myself. And they taught me to think of myself as the average guy. Sometimes the average guy belongs in a role more than your matinee idol-type of person. We have to have people we can relate to.
He was the average guy. Maurice, I think, reflected every man.
I think I'm a little more mature than the average guy.
I think people identify with Columbo because he is an average man.
I think it's just funny, the things that come out of people's mouths, whether it's a politician, whether it's an average person on the street - and to be honest with you, sometimes these politicians sound like average people on the street.
There's a lot of little people who think they can't do certain things, but like I say, if you put your mind to it, you can do things that average people do, just in a different way.
I think the average person thinks I'm a nut and I deserve whatever happens to me.
I have been working since I was 20, and I'm 38. I actually once averaged out what I had made over my professional life. I think I could have made that much as a waiter or an insurance salesman. You know, I spent so many years in my 20's making $10,000 a year.
Americans are generally very self-sufficient and I think generally averse to pretension, just as I am.
