Directors Steven Spielberg(Munich), George Clooney(Good Night and Good Luck), Ang Lee(Brokeback Mountain), Paul Haggis(Crash), and Bennett Miller(Capote) had things to say about their movies and movies in general:

Ang, you grew up in Taiwan. Which movies inspired you?

LEE: I always wanted to be a filmmaker, but I kept it a secret until I did my first movie.

SPIELBERG: You never admitted it?

LEE: No. I always felt ashamed.

Because your father didn’t approve?

LEE: Yes. And because of the society I came from.

SPIELBERG: What would your father have wished for you?

LEE: Anything but this, I guess. Something practical. So film was a very repressed pleasure for me. I always had scenes in my head, but “The Virgin Spring” was an epiphany for me. After that movie, you cannot move for a long time. You feel you will see life differently now. [Pause] I always wished I could do something like that on screen.

(a little later, after Spielberg reveals his start in film was the Night Gallery pilot)

CLOONEY: Was Rod Serling around?

SPIELBERG: He was great with me also. I actually lit his cigarette.

CLOONEY: Did you really?

SPIELBERG: Yeah.

CLOONEY: You helped him die.[Laughter]

Clooney makes me laugh. He’s a funny fellow.

Funny ha ha.

(via matt fraction)