“I think it's kind of like, movie-to-movie the influences vary and I think they've tended to be more literary influences than filmic.”

“we would write specific parts for a specific actor, someone whose work we knew or who we knew personally and were friends with. So there's always been a mix of parts for specific actors and parts where we're not sure who's going to play them”

“Make the shooting schedule as long as you can, even if you have to sacrifice other things that seem important. The trade-off towards time for shooting is always the smart one to make. The big compromises you make are the result of not enough time to shoot. Cut anything that costs money...pay people less. You're always going to be better off the more days you have.”

Both of the Coen’s parents were university professors, so no doubt expectations were high.  As children they made remakes of films they saw on television on super 8 with a schoolfriend as the star, but otherwise showed no desire to become filmmakers.  Ethan studied philosophy at Princeton whilst Joel studied film at New York University, but shortly after Ethan graduated they began writing scripts together, whilst Joel worked as an assistant editor on Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead.  They made their first film together, Blood Simple in 1984, following this with Raising Arizona.  Since then they have made an almost unbroken run of critical successes.  They generally share the duties of director and producer and writer, though, until recently Joel has usually been given the directing credits and Ethan the producing ones.   Joel has been married to Frances McDormand since 1984 and she has starred in several of their films.

The quotes are all from The Hollywood Interview (2008)