Rod Lurie

“You learn quite a bit about your film from test screening audiences.”

“Every filmmaker wants to get their audience talking.”

“Sometimes, anonymous sources, when merely stating opinions or running a smear campaign, are certainly cowards.”

“The truth is that when a man has a child, and it's a girl, and he doesn't change as a man, he's not much of a man.”

“I fell in love with 'Ben Hur' when I was 8 years old, and I just knew I had to be involved in movies, even if I was the guy who melted the butter on the popcorn.”

“Just because the boogeyman of the Soviet Union doesn't exist anymore, it doesn't mean the world is living angelically.”

“I came to the conviction that film criticism, in and of itself, was an art.”

“No matter how far they rise, women never stop being the caregiver. At the end of the day, women bear the emotional responsibility for their families.”

“Hollywood is enamored of the 20- to 30-year-old actress, but by the very nature of the life experience of the character, the roles cannot be that rich. You can only have Angelina Jolie in a mental hospital so many times.”

“If you look at the greatest performances of women, they're usually older... Anne Bancroft in 'The Graduate,' Kathy Bates in 'Misery.' It's a matter of characters having a life experience that makes them interesting.”

“I shot part of 'Resurrecting the Champ' in Denver, and I spent a summer going to survival school in Colorado Springs.”

“He may not have been a good actor, and I personally don't think he was a good president, but I'll tell you this: Ronald Reagan was a helluva character.”

“If I have to answer one more time, 'Why did you want to remake 'Straw Dogs?'' with the emphasis on the word 'why,' I'm going to flip out.”

“Sam Peckinpah's movies probably say more about him than anybody's body of work says about that person. There are running themes in his films that I find eminently fascinating, disturbing, exhausting, and exhilarating.”

“'All the President's Men' is a movie that has a very personal place for me because it made me want to be a journalist, and then it made me want to be a filmmaker.”

“People tend to forget about nuclear weapons. We think they are going to remain in silos for the rest of time. As long as they exist, they are going to be used.”

“Most people with whom I talk, often quite educated, think the military is made up of knife-between-the-teeth grunts, uneducated robots without any kind of free will whatsoever - people who goose step to Republican philosophy and particularly the Bush cowboy mentality.”

“I often found that my favorite scene that I shoot is often one that I cut out, like in 'The Last Castle' and 'The Contender.' If you look at the deleted scenes, some of the best scenes never made it into the film.”

“The First Amendment is the First Amendment for a reason - our most cherished right. But it often creates muddy and uncomfortable situations, ones that are the source of great drama and national self-reflection.”

“Classically, throughout all of our history, the movies in times of crisis have turned to military figures as heroes, because they are the guardians of our nation.”