[about Reese Witherspoon on Election]: "She inhabited that role fully, but she can do all these other roles.  You see a woman in her, not a girl.   She's going to be interesting for a long time." [talking about Reese Witherspoon]: "She has such intelligence and humor, so it was a joyous leap of faith. Working with her, I kept thinking of Holly Hunter, she is an actress who is equally at home in character roles and in leads and in comedy and in drama.  Reese has that kind of range, as an actress and as a human being." "They [the studios] go through that process where they think you have to find the most famous people possible and then they go down the line. That's a game I'm increasingly uninterested in - unless the most famous possible person also happens to be very correct in the part, like Jack Nicholson." [on casting] "When studios entrust big Hollywood blockbusters to strong, intelligent directors, like Steven Soderbergh or Sam Raimi [Spider-Mans 1 and 2] or Alfonso Cuarón [the latest Harry Potter], I say 'God bless 'em', because those films will have legs and might stand the test of time. But if they rely on just product, like two examples from this year, Van Helsing and Catwoman - I'm glad they tanked". "I want all of my films to belong to me. There is an audience out there for literate films - slower, more observant, more human films, and they deserve to be made. Which is why I want Sideways to succeed, to encourage other film-makers". While accepting his Director of the Year award for Sideways at the Palm Spring Film Festival: "I thank you for this award, though I think there may be a problem with a world in which making small, human and humorous films is 'an achievement.' It should be the norm". We don't have movies about ourselves, and we don't have a national film culture. It shouldn't be an epic aspiration to make simple human stories, but it is. Where is it written that if you are not getting your money from a studio you have more freedom? If I had tried to make Sideways with independent funding I would have had to secure foreign presales and cast big stars in order to get my budget. This movie took a studio to say 'We're gambling on you. Cast whoever you want.' "It's my hope that we're getting into an era where the value of a film is based on its proximity to real life rather than its distance from it. To do that, you need actors - stars, basically - who don't necessarily look like Ben Affleck". "My method of writing is rather simple. I read a book, once I'm done reading it, I throw it away. I then create my own version of the book, and that's how I write a script."