from butch cassidy and the sundance kid on, you were able to call a lot of your shots and eventually got to direct your first film, ordinary people. and you won the academy award the first time out. did you go, "oh, this is a lot easier than i thought"? well, yeah. [laughter] i did. it surprised me, obviously. i was not anticipating being ever-- i don't think about academy awards; never did and probably never will. with all due respect to the academy, it's just not something that i put much attention on, and i never did. so therefore i wasn't thinking about it at all; i was thinking about doing something i wanted to do as an artist, and i said, "it's time that i do my own thing. i want to do this project." so i did it; i went out to lake forest, illinois, on a very low-budget film and just made it and wasn't-- and i was left alone. i appreciate that. when it was over, i edited it in new york and brought it out. and when it came out, i was not prepared for the reaction. i just knew that that was what i wanted to do, that finally i was able to put things together and say, "this is the