Balian [Orlando Bloom`s character in Kingdom of Heaven (2005)] is an agnostic, just like me. I am not fighting another holy war here, I am trying to get across the fact that not everyone in the West is a good guy, and not all Muslims are bad. The tragedy is that we still have a lack of understanding between us, and it is 900 years since the Crusades. We have never truly resolved our differences.

Good FBI officers are not noticeable. You would never look at them.

I think movies are getting dumber, actually. Where it used to be 50/50, now it`s 3% good, 97% stupid.

Same thing with film, by the time you`ve finished shooting and you`ve really been into everything, you`ve touched up everything in the editing room. You`ve gone in there and taken little bits from everything.

Life isn`t black and white. It`s a million gray areas, don`t you find?

Politics is very interesting and always leads to conflict.

I think one of the successes of Gladiator is how we manage to turn on a dime the character from one thing to another where you believe he is one thing and he is something very different.

Some people like to do everything always the same thing. That`s another way: To do the same thing.

MPC, Moving Picture Company, they`re really excellent, they did the majority of the effects.

You can`t stand there wringing your hands, you have to deal with how you are going to fix it. Everything has to come from a positive stance.

And anyway, it`s only movies. to stop me I think they`ll ahve to shoot me in the head.

I think if I`m going to do a science fiction, I`m going to go down a new path that I want to do.

But Gladiator is one of my favourite adventures because I really loved going into the world. I loved creating the world to the degree where you could almost smell it.

Blade Runner appears regularly, two or three times a year in various shapes and forms of science fiction. It set the pace for what is essentially urban science fiction, urban future and it`s why I`ve never re-visited that area because I feel I`ve done it.

Do what you haven`t done is the key, I think.

When you`re doing a big movie, you`re gone for 10 months to a year.

What you do, is you gradually become more and more experienced, and more and more realistic about dramatic tolerance, i.e. about how long the play should be.

People say I pay too much attention to the look of a movie but for God`s sake, I`m not producing a Radio 4 Play for Today, I`m making a movie that people are going to look at.

I knew exactly what to do on Alien, it was funny.

That`s part of the policy: To keep switching gears.

I think it`s remarkable that people will give you 10 million dollars to go and get your rocks off.

[August 2005] We`re suffering from saturation, overkill. The marketplace is flooded by demand, and there are too many films, so everything gets watered down. Demand is the boss and everything bends to that will. Bigger and not necessarily better shows seem to be the order of the day. I can`t watch most of them.

The person that probably stopped me in my tracks as a child - because I used to love to go to the cinema - was David Lean with Great Expectations (1946). I thought everything was somehow better than most of the other movies in terms of the way it looked - the way it was dramatised and the way it was photographed. In fact he was detailed from corner to corner and that is what I picked up with John Ford and then Kurosawa (Akira Kurosawa) - then Carol Reed, Michael Powell - those were all the fundamental characters at that time - and Orson Welles of course. There are Frenchmen too of course who will be remembered as well but I wasn`t open to the French cinema at that point - so it was American and English film directors - so those were the influences.

I think I have less patience, mainly because I`m so experienced. Because I`m so experienced I need the very best people around me. Because people say, "Well you don`t need a terribly good camera" or, "You can go and do this," and I say, "No, no, no, no, you don`t understand. I want the Earth. And I want the Earth in 10 minutes."

I watched Someone to Watch Over Me the other night. I thought it was a really good movie. It`s a great movie.

Digital is a different world because you are sitting at home and a hi tech piece of equipment today is within reach of most people, so they are watching a pretty hi tech version of whatever you`ve done.

I do a pretty good job at casting actually.

Cast is everything.

[October 2006] [William Monahan] is maybe one of the two best writers I have ever worked with and I am developing something with him now that will take us back to Muslim countries next year. It`s called "Tripoli", is set in 1805 and is about the bad behavior of Pasha of Tripoli, who was kidnapping ships, particularly American ships, and demanding ransoms while Jefferson was broke, having emptied his coffers of $11 million to complete the Louisiana Purchase from Napoleon, who needed the money to feed his army. It is a fascinating period.

I get so used to working with writers that my prime occupation is development.

When I meet an actor that I think is going to be possible is from the second he walks through the door, because it`s a visual medium.

It`s everything and I always make decisions about the cast.

I don`t ever blink, honestly.

I`m not criticizing Hollywood because I work there, I partly live there. But I`m saying this is the way it is, commerce is taking over art. Commerce has become the most important thing in the film industry. Hollywood is an industry, it`s not an art form, therefore they have to address the bottom line. But in a way it`s sad when you get a remake, isn`t it?

I was always amazed about how much I could finally squeeze into a thirty second commercial.

And I maintain good relationships with all the studios so I`ve never been bullied into any cut, frankly.

My career seems to be a career of non-specific subjects which are all over the place.

A hit for me is if I enjoy the movie, if I personally enjoy the movie.

Yes, obviously, there`s this degree of wanting people to accept other people faiths and philosophies.

If I have to, I`ll go and direct theater and talk till the cows come home.

Never let yourself be seen in public unless they pay for it.

I think it`s remarkable that people will give you $10 million to go and get your rocks off.

The fundamental of anything as a director is material, material, material - script, script, script - once you have the script everything else is straightforward.

The digital and theatrical markets are two different marketplaces. I think the digital marketplace - thank God for it! - is like having a book on the shelf: so you can actually go to that book and if it`s four hours long, you can put it on pause, you can have a beer - no one`s counting.

Audiences are less intrigued, honestly, by battle. They`re more intrigued by human relations. If you`re making a film about the trappings of the period, and you`re forgetting that human relationships are the most engaging part of the storytelling process, then you`re in trouble.

When I first said I wanted to make a film about Rome and cast Russell Crowe, everyone had a good old snigger. I thought, "You wait." They`ve done the same with Kingdom of Heaven (2005) and Orlando Bloom. I now say, "Take a look at this".

A friend of mine says, "Art`s like a shark. You`ve got to keep swimming, or else you drown." Keep bouncing around. People always ask me, "What`s the plan?" There is no plan. I go to what fascinates me next.

I`m a moviemaker, not a documentarian. I try to hit the truth.

[On why his movies don`t have sex scenes] Sex is boring unless you`re doing it.