Ang Lee quotes:

Sexuality is a big issue, but there are others - how much you commit to a relationship, to social obligation, to honesty and being honest with yourself.

I have two sons in America, and all they care about in Chinese culture is Jackie Chan and Jet Li.

Over the years Woodstock got glorified and romanticised and became the event that symbolised Utopia. It's the last page of our collective memory of the age of innocence. Then things turned ugly and would never be the same again.

These days I'm mostly familiar with two parts of L.A.: one is movie culture, and the other is Asian culture. The Westside is work, and the Eastside is Chinese - which means my friends.

In Taiwan, I'd be like Michael Jordan walking down the street.

I grew up pretty much prevented from knowing anything from Communist China except that they were the bad guys that stole our country.

3D is quite a lot more advanced in animated movies; for live-action movies we're just taking baby steps, we're just in the beginning.

My hometown was one of the major U.S. Air Force bases.

So many times you see beautiful lovemaking scenes with a lot of exposure or an awkward lovemaking scene, but I think it's very rare that you see it private.

I don't think the Hulk is a superhero. He's the first Marvel character who is a tragic monster. Really an anti-hero.

The source of all the material comes from nothingness, illusion is working more on things you can prove. That's the principle, the essence of life, it is actually an illusion, not immaterial. That's worth pursuing. So illusion is not nothing. In a way, that is the truth.

I took the name Green Destiny from - well there is such a sword called Green Destiny. It is green because you keep twisting it, it's an ancient skill, you keep twisting it and knocking it and twisting it until it is very elastic and light.

Kids don't even read comic books anymore. They've got more important things to do - like video games.

I feel that everyone has a Hulk inside, and each of our Hulks is both scary and, potentially, pleasurable. That's the scariest thing about them.

Sometimes films ignore other points of view because it's simpler to tell the story that way, but the more genuine and sympathetic you are to different points of view and situations, the more real the story is.

I had to find my way of translating the excitement you get when you're reading comic books to the big screen.

When there is a strong woman character in a story - that always grabs me.

You can get rich or famous by doing the same thing.

Economically, it's more expensive to make movies. I hope digital movies change that.

The L.A. weather is a lot like Taiwan's, where you don't observe four seasons, so the years can pass and you don't feel a thing.

I don't have incredible knowledge about films or of filmmaking history; I'm not that kind of person.

I'm not a romantic. In life I didn't have much experience with romance.

My mother loves me and everything goes well. I have no conflict with her, so that's not dramatic.

I had to test a new terror in myself.

Not taboo - it's just that straight actors still risk their careers commercially and economically. They have to please the crowd - they're movie stars; their image is their industry. It goes beyond acting.

After making several tragic movies in a row, I was looking to do a comedy, and one without cynicism.

I'm actually living my life with the material I choose to work with.

My first instinct was to cast as close to the short story as possible, but then I realized that I needed actors who could go for it and that they had to function well as a couple in a love story.

I don't care about writing really.

If there's something that can be formulated, regulated, give you security, then nobody would lose money. Every movie would be successful. And that's certainly not the case.

I'm a drifter and an outsider. There's not one single environment I can totally belong to.

What is really a stretch to me is to make quick decisions.

When I have a full schedule like that, I don't see myself sitting there for a couple of months, doing the research, going through a painful process, it's just not my thing anymore.

In my culture, there's a tradition that when you're in an overwhelming situation and you don't know what to do, you put yourself in a woman's shoes.

Making movies is a way of understanding myself and the world.

I don't like to deal with studios.

I think the American West really attracts me because it's romantic. The desert, the empty space, the drama.

When I'm not working, I get very down, but when I am working, I get very immersed in it.

Sometimes, you have to get angry to get things done.

No matter how widely spread out the films are, how different, you still are you.

3D is quite a lot more advanced in animated movies; for live-action movies we're just taking baby steps, we're just in the beginning. So when I think of doing that I was very excited. It didn't go as far as I think it should, I'm still a novice, but I think it's fair to say it's a new cinematic medium, experience.

I don't have a checklist. Whatever material excites me, they'll call for a certain genre or combination of genres. It'll come naturally and I'll be eager to learn how that thing works. I learn the rules, and I'll probably break some of them.

When I sent those scripts, that was the lowest point of my life. We'd just had our second son, and when I went to collect them from hospital, I went to the bank to try and get some money to buy some diapers, the screen showed I've got $26 left.

The most mysterious feminine factor, the existence that we men, we don't know. It's woman. It's feminine. That's what the sword is about. That's the symbolic meaning of the sword.

The fear factor actually brings the genuineness.

I hope people don't compare 2D and 3D because 3D's new, it's unfair to compare to 2D which is really sophisticated, even when we're jaded about it. 3D just began, give it a chance, let the equipment and projection system catch up and be better, let the price go down, let more filmmakers get a hold of it more easily.

When I grew up, in Taiwan, the Korean War was seen as a good war, where America protected Asia. It was sort of an extension of World War II. And it was, of course, the peak of the Cold War. People in Taiwan were generally proAmerican. The Korean War made Japan. And then the Vietnam War made Taiwan. There is some truth to that.

I think great romance needs great obstacles and textures.

To me, Ennis stands for the conservative side of America. He's the biggest homophobe in the whole movie - culturally and psychologically - but by the time he admits his feelings, it's too late.

Meanwhile, the Ice Storm was still in development, And that was something I really wanted to do, and frankly I don't think I was ready to do a big production like this

I wanted to shoot straight, mainstream, somehow off-beat. Not only realistic West, which is quite unfamiliar to the world's population - even to a lot of Americans.

There's a level of sophistication of filmmaking that's mind-boggling. Anything you need for your movie, there's an establishment that can make it happen really fast.

I think each movie-making process is a very exhausting and satisfying and fulfilling experience for me.

I think, if allowed, 3D is a new film language. I can have more adventure exploring a new media, that's very exciting. 2D we know most of it, things haven't changed for decades; it's the same principles, so 3D's more exciting.

San Francisco is one of my favourite cities in the world...I would probably rank it at the top or near the top. It's small but photogenic and has layers...You never have problems finding great angles that people have never done.

Sensitivity and money are like parallel lines. They don't meet.

I am not particularly religious. But I think we do face the question of where God is, why we are created and where does life go, why we exist. That sort of thing. And it is very hard to talk about it these days, because it cannot be proven. It is hard to discuss it rationally.

A movie is really provocation. It's not a message, it's not a statement.

I look at American movies, the big muscles, and try to apply that to Chinese film-making.

Many times when you make a movie, it feels like your biggest mistake. But even if a film isn't a hit, you shouldn't view it as a mistake.

Summer blockbusters are very expensive to make. They have things that have to be expensive, such as 600 effects shots or CG characters that have to go a certain way, or a film design that is different but expensive.

I'm such a late bloomer.

The thing we call critics are not really reviewers, they are not really critics. They don't have the discipline to write what we would term as critique - it's really just reviewers. They have a common man kind of taste. If you watch them overall, they are not different from the box-office. That's my view.

The way I go about a lovemaking scene is that we will talk about it during the rehearsing time.

I'm still a novice student.

I find it hard to deliver straightforward things.

In the past I've made movies that were pretty universally liked. You can't really hate them. You can discard them, but you can't really hate them.

Film study was considered disgraceful by my father.

I was very quiet, very shy and docile.

I think a movie is a media that is evoking feelings.

The father figure is something I love, but also suffocate from and want to work against.

I think the book struck me in a few ways that I thought very interesting to pick it as my first martial arts film. It has a very strong female character and it was very abundant in classic Chinese textures.

My cultural roots are something illusive.

Some actors give you what you want. Some you have to make do what you want.

I guess in Hollywood you chart your life by Oscars. You say to each other, 'Remember when that movie won that year? It was 2006. Remember that?'

When I started out, nobody gave me scripts, so I had to write.

Fighting for identity is something that is very much in my life.

I grew up pretty peacefully, in that Eastern way. You easily solve problems, believe in harmony. Reduce conflicts, take orders until one day you give orders.

I don't have a superpower.

We need storytelling. Otherwise life just goes on and on, like the number Pi.

I see a movie as a way of learning about the world, about myself, and learning about my relationship with people and art.

You have to know the rules, otherwise you have no tools to communicate to the audience, but to keep it fresh you have to break some. I don't choose genres as the element, but the material itself is the element, then I'll decide what genre I need. That's just how I work.

Depending on the budget. I think I prefer 3D to 2D now. Also, because of 3D I have to use a digital camera, which is the way it's going anyway. That still confuses me, a digital camera versus film.

I think people are universal

I did a women's movie, and I'm not a woman. I did a gay movie, and I'm not gay. I learned as I went along.

First we pre-visualized it so the actors could act. It took a long time to get that to come to life and to design those coming out of the screen. We had great fun with that. It takes a long time, a year maybe.

I think it[3D] should be used as a new artistic form, not as a gimmick, not to impress you but the existence of an environment that you view as a theatrical dramatic experience is - you don't just have the X-Y axis, you have the Z and that makes a difference. You still have the framing, you still use lenses, so most of the cinematic rules and languages still apply but I think it's a different existence.

I feel like all of my characters now take this congested situation, they clash, and from there you purge yourself.

So it's something I'm still learning, it's fresh, so if the budget allows I'll do it again and just see how far it goes because it's the frontier, it's more interesting. It's still expensive, the projection system can be annoying sometimes, it's not really regulated or perfected yet, so it's still expensive. If I do a lower budget I'll just do 2D, but if the budget allows I think I'll try 3D.

I'm not a master of films. I'm rather a slave.

On a Chinese film you just give orders, no one questions you. Here, you have to convince people, you have to tell them why you want to do it a certain way, and they argue with you. Democracy.

When there is a strong woman character in a story - that always grabs me

I think a lot of people do big movies not because they are talented artists but because they can function in the circumstances.

So I'm a one movie at a time person, I don't develop. Normally we do a movie then one thing leads to another. If something pops up that catches my attention, then I'll decide.

The first show to the journalists, that was the first one, so I was very uptight. Then I felt okay about the reception because we did a press conference with good and friendly questions, although people looked serious. So really, after the show you went to - the premiere - that reception tells me I think the movie worked, so that was a relief. I started to feel deflated.

So anything that's not absolutely needed, we would cut it out, which would make me very insecure; everything has to work, and it's a water movie in 3D with a kid, animals. So the more I do that, the more I'm scared of "What if it doesn't go the way we want it?" But we had to do that to meet the budget, otherwise we wouldn't even have a start-date.

Things that don't have a big impact seem to be crucial. Always when you go out to make a movie you have questions, "What if this doesn't work? What if that doesn't work?" you want to cover yourself, you want to bring back enough [footage] so you can do something.

As artists, we like night more than day sometimes.

So there was one point I thought I was gonna lose it, but once I get on something I have to finish it; I just kept persuading them and they turned around. One good thing was the international guys really stood behind this movie, they thought they could support this film. So these guys step up and that's really good, and then they turned around.

Now I'm kind of established as a director, I much prefer directing to writing.

It's not a pleasure torturing actors, although some of them enjoy it.

Only one time in my career I had that feeling, it was for this movie. It was right before we started the physical pre-production. I pre-visualized the whole ocean part before we made the movie, I was that prepared. At one point they seemed to want to drop it because it was really risky. The budget we proposed was a lot higher than they expected, they wanted to [drop it]. After all, it's a philosophical book and a literature property, it's not Batman.

For a filmmaker, it's a rare chance to do a personal film on a big canvas.

When you talk about God, the first thing that comes along is not love, it's fear. You have to fear, and be in awe. You have to be scared. Any religion, it's like first thing...

Usually with this genre the first thing that happens is a good fight sequence to show that you're in good hands. So we broke that rule. I think a lot of that comes from the western audience.

Mostly it's like, I get inspired by something and I want to learn that part of filmmaking, I want to delve into that kind of depth. And leading, also, a lot of people. A lot of people, for two years of their life they follow me, and they believe what I believe in. So that's some responsibility and I'd like to make it worth the effort.

Americans are hidden dragons to me.

Beautifully-acted and precisely observed, ILO ILO is an amazing debut, full of heart and intelligence.

Basically the movies I make are my life, so I choose how I want to live my life for the next two years. So that's a decision I have to make. At some point if I feel there are enough elements - it doesn't even have to have great characters or great stories - it's just elements that can get my excitement and curiosity for one or two years, then I'll jump in and I'll find out what that is. Then I have to do [interviews like this] and rationalize why I do this.

I'm just a pretty regular dad.

You become the movie you are making.

There's a certain time in the core of making a movie from pre-production to halfway through post-production I don't read any project, my agent will tell people that "he's not reading." And then when I know how the movie's probably gonna work halfway into post-production, I'll come along.

I have a lot of repression. So repression is what I make movies about.

It's just what I am. When I am in the zone making one movie, I just didn't want to read anything else or do anything else, so I don't really develop projects.

My father was the center of the family, and everyone tried to please him.

Making a martial arts film in English to me is the same as John Wayne speaking Chinese in a western

Making this movie as a period piece about a period that was very recent in people's minds. I was in Taiwan [during the 1970s], so I hope I did all right. Otherwise, it could be the biggest embarrassment of my life. Also, the story is not linear, it's patchy, like a cubist painting, and there is always the possibility it will not hold together, it will fall apart. The tone is part satire, part serious drama, part tragedy, all mixed together, and it has to hit an emotional core. That's also very scary.

I think for most people, the audience probably couldn't tell the difference, but I know they can be better. And the people working know they can be more precise. I'm still doing another round of sound mixing and color timing, pretty technical stuff. I think the movie's really presentable, nothing was left out that would take you out of the movie. I just need to perfect the job and I still have two weeks to go.

If it was a choice between making movies and doing nothing, he'd probably still wish me to make movies, So he made me keep going.