Excerpts from his interview with Playboy:
On ambiguity in his films:
"I had an interesting moment with my brother Jonathan during the Venice Film Festival in 2000, the first time we ever showed Memento publicly. I had no idea whether we would get booed out of the cinema, but we got a standing ovation that went on and on. Afterward, I was asked at a press conference what the meaning of the ending was, and I gave my response. While I was having dinner with my brother later he said, "You can't ever do that." I was like, "Well, I just answered the question." He said, "The point of the film you made is that your opinion isn't any more valid than anyone else's."
I hadn't thought of it in that way, but a lightbulb kind of went off. The film has productive ambiguity to the end, as does Inception. I have to know the truth as I see it for that ambiguity to be genuine, as opposed to it being evasion. But the point Jonathan made to me and that I've carried with me ever since is that I can't ever tell people what I think, because they will always elevate that above the ambiguity, the mystery. And they shouldn't, because the text, the grammar of the film is telling you :You can't know these things. They're unknowable, because they're unknowable for the characters."
On Harry Styles:
"He's fabulous in the film. Again, we auditioned many people. He earned it. He's a superb talent and really delivered the goods with great passion. I'm excited for people to see what he's done in the film. We're trying not to oversell that, because it's an ensemble film. But he's pretty terrific in my opinion."
On slowly earning the studio's trust:
"When studios give you millions of dollars for your film, the best way to secure yourself creative freedom is to stay on time and on budget. If you're the one they're not worried about as you're shooting, if you're not the fire they have to put out, they'll leave you alone. If they don't feel taken advantage of, that's a huge asset to you as a filmmaker, in terms of your creative freedom, and they reward you for that.
...and people always miss this key piece. After Memento, I did Insonmia for Warner Brothers, with Al Pacino, Robin Williams and Hilary Swank. I worked with movie stars. It had action. It had locations. So I did my $3 million film Memento, then I got to do a $47 million movie. That gave the studio a kind of comfort with letting me go to the next step with Batman Begins. That was fortunate because film makers today aren't being given the same chance. People are being taken straight from Sundance and then given $250 million films to direct. When I'm used as an example of how that can work, you want to put your hand up and go, "No, that isn't what happened." I value that I got to do a medium-budget studio thriller or drama. Those are getting harder and harder to make."
On watching war films during the writing process:
"Early on in my process, we took a look at The Thin Red Line, a great favourite of mine. It feels like it could be any war, any time, and it's very poetic, but that didn't feel right for what we were doing. We watched All Quiet On The Western Front, which James Jones described in an essay as a film that says war turns men into animals, and the longer they're at war, the more animalistic they become. After that, what else is there to say? Steven Spielberg lent me his print of Saving Private Ryan, which was as shocking and unpleasant as I remembered. The second those bullets start flying, you didn't want to be in the theater. That pushed us to go in a more Hitchcock direction—to create a different kind of tension, one that allows you to look at the screen a bit more and not hide your eyes."
On the approach for his type of war film:
"Taking a more suspense-based, thriller-based approach actually freed me up. Dunkirk is all about physical process, all about tension in moment, not backstories. It's all about "Can this guy get across a plank over this hole?" We care about him. We don't want him to fall down. We care about these people because we're human beings and we have basic empathy. There's a very intense quality to it and we put the audience through a lot, but there's tremendous positivity that results from that."
On regrets and directors cuts:
"I always say that the audience tells me what the film is. That doesn't mean we always agree. But audiences seeing the film—that's the final piece of the creative process. It's like exposing copper to the elements. It changes what the thing is. But it doesn't make me want to go back and have at it again.
I've always viewed the filmmaking prcoess as almost like a life performance or something. I would do reshoots if I had to, but I trust the production period. It's like, okay, I've got six months to shoot the film and then I've got three months to do my first cut. I've always tried to trust those pressures and limitations and stand by the film by the end of it. Otherwise, where would you stop? You'd never finish. It's an imperfect medium. It always has been. Every film is imperfect. If there's someething I've been unsatisfied about, you leave it and trust what it was. The impetus is to try to do better on the next film."
On whether he still wants to do a Bond movie:
"A Bond movie, definitely. I've spoken to the producers Barara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson over the years. I deeply love the character, and I'm always excited to see what they do with it. Maybe one that would work out. You'd have to be needed, if you know what I mean. It has to need reinvention; it has to need you. And they're getting along very well."