Quotes from Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

For me, it is especially important to maintain my interior life. My spirituality, my connectedness. That is the way I think. That is the way I deal with life and tough moments. I keep in touch with something bigger than me. And I connect with people who have an interior life - a connection with something bigger than them.

I like to make films, but the only reason I do is because I'm a very bad musician.

When I have been exposed to so many films that are so bad, my soul gets crushed. I just feel intoxicated.

Directing non-actors is difficult. Directing actors in a foreign language is even more difficult. Directing non-actors in a language that you yourself don't understand is the craziest thing you can possibly think of.

Actors are exposed in a way that nobody else can understand. They are subject to the likes and dislikes of people their entire life, no matter how successful they are. At the same time, in order to be liked, you have to not be yourself. So it's a very complicated human exercise - an alchemy that I have never understood.

When you do a film in a foreign language, you know there's a cost in it, that you know, unfortunately, the audiences of foreign language films have not been cultivated. There's a market, but the market has been reduced, unfortunately, and you know that when you're making a foreign language film, you're making a choice.

Time is what allows stories to spread into people's consciousness.

Ultimately, with every film I'd done before, there was a reference. They have their own uniqueness, but there was always a precedent.

Cinema is universal, beyond flags and borders and passports.

When I went to university, I finally got exposed to European films, and they had a strong impact on me. I felt those films had a lot of things to say that weren't getting expressed in the films I was used to seeing.

Fear of the unknown is a great creative partner.

In my work I think what drives me is perfection. I'm a chronically unsatisfied guy.

When you see things upside down, the ego can be extraordinarily funny; it's absurd. But it's tragic at the same time.

I have learned that I am a one-woman man.

Everybody is looking for validation, no matter who you are, and I think that's a need of the human condition - to look for affection or recognition or validation.

Now is a time where there are so many social networks, such need for validation... you don't have to be a star or a politician to want to have likes or dislikes. Now there is a disease of popularity in the whole society.

When we are looking for validation, that will never satisfy us. When we are looking for affection, for love, a little bit of that will be enough to be complete.

All of us want something in life, all of us have flaws, and all of us have strengths. So, I always try to discover those things in a character and then try to expose it in one way or another.

I think films are bigger than structure.

I think Jenny Beavan is a masterful costume designer and very deserving of the Oscar for 'Mad Max: Fury Road.'

From the time we open our eyes, we live in a Steadicam form, and the only editing is when we talk about our lives or remember things.

When you shoot in a room, that's a symmetrical thing that contains you. When there's no contention, the sensation is overwhelming you. That's a challenge, to do that.

In a world where irony reigns, where you have to separate, protect and laugh at anything that is honest or has an emotional charge, I bet for catharsis. I like to invest emotionally in things. And catharsis, when it touches the emotional vein, can open the doors of even those who protect themselves.

When I'm working, I'm insufferable because I get stuck with myself, and suddenly I become obsessive, thinking about how to make something better.