Your career went back into high gear with the reaction you got at Cannes for 'Pulp Fiction.' Describe the most touching moment.

It went like this: We're at the festival, I haven't seen the movie yet, and there's this kind of quiet. I'm looking at everybody thinking, What's going on? And then a journalist says one wonderful thing and then another says something else ….[with feeling]…..it was so fulfilling and so gratifying a compliment. I said, “Thank you so very much – I'll be right back.” I felt it was inappropriate to cry in front of them, so I just went behind this room divider to do that….You know, it was a lot of years of maybe feeling unacknowledged and then suddenly….I felt not only that the film was being celebrated but that I was being celebrated. And that was very moving. I'd be a bulls--- artist to say it wasn't.

So, how scary is it to see a movie you've done before anyone else? Do you bring friends along for support?

On occasion, I'll take a few people with me, but usually I like to see it alone so I can really get my own perspective. It's more poignant than scary for me, because there it is: three to four months of my life. And in the next two hours I'm going to know whether I wasted it or I didn't.

With 'Get Shorty' you knew you didn't waste it. But how do you feel when you don't like the movie?

[Long pause] It's a tremendous loss because you feel like, 'Wow, all the long days and all the concerns and all the details you put into it, and now it….it hasn't worked, and wow, I can't believe it.' Then you have to think, 'OK, what should we have done?' And once you feel that you've properly analyzed it, you let it go. You have to, otherwise you can't do the next job with clarity.