Quentin Tarantino has said he does not make the kind of film that sweeps the board at the Oscars - but a Best Director award would be "wonderful".
Speaking at the Leicester Square premiere of his new film, The Hateful Eight, the Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs director, who has never won the prize, said: "It would be wonderful to be nominated for best director, but we'll just see.
"Normally Best Director is tied up - ever since I've been watching - is tied up to a sweep. And I don't know if I make sweepy movies."
The film was almost never made after an early version of its script leaked online, leading him to consider scrapping it.
Tarantino, dressed in a black suit and black tie as he greeted fans, said: "I saw what looked like a bad situation and tried to turn it into a good situation - I saw a script that was leaked and did a script reading in Los Angeles and rehearsed it with the actors, and a lot of them are the actors in the movie.
"We rehearsed it, and we had a really good time, and we put it on - I thought at that rehearsal I'll probably end up making it."
The film is reported to be one of Tarantino's most violent.
Kurt Russell, who plays John "The Hangman" Ruth, said: "There's a slight cartoonish quality to it, which I enjoy. It's a little bit like being in the backyard of your house when you're a kid, squirting ketchup around the room when you have gunshot fights. I find his violence to be in the right place, which is at the movies."
Tim Roth, another of the stars of the film, described the "circus" of working with Tarantino, and said of the coveted best director Oscar: "I don't know if he'll get it, but he should."
"Whenever he asks you to do something, you just do it. He's the most extraordinary screenwriter around, I think."
Roth plays Oswaldo Mobray in the film - one of eight grizzled strangers who find themselves taking shelter together in a blizzard just after the American Civil War.
Telling of the experience of working with the Django Unchained director, Roth said: "He'll hit the ground running. You'd better know what you're doing. It's a bit of a circus - it's really good fun."
Roth, a Londoner, moved to America in the 1990s, saying he could not get a job under the Tories. But he said he could be on the move again, with far-right Donald Trump leading the charge for Republican presidential nominee.
"It's tricky," he said, saying that in the event of Mr Trump reaching the White House "I think I'd go to France, but with Le Pen on the rise, I probably couldn't go there. You run away from the right wing!"