In order to be universal, you have to be rooted in your own culture.

When I find the character, I try to spend time with them and get to know them very well. Therefore my notes are not from the character that I had in my mind before, but are instead based on the people I've met in real life.

Using non-actors has its own rules and really requires that you allow them to do their own thing.

Anything I've not experienced I do not look to for a subject. I have to feel it.

When we start shooting I don't have rehearsals with characters at all. So, rather than pulling them towards myself, I travel closer to them; it's very much closer to the real person than anything I try to create. So I give them something but I also take from them.

It's true that the best way of knowing yourself is to put yourself into different situations.

You've noticed that same joke told by two different people, once works, and the other time doesn't, simply because how the person edits it. The silences, the pauses, what they neglect, what they emphasize - all of this matters.