I remember pretending to be the characters in the movies when I was a little kid.

I think that having had [Steven Spielberg's] confidence in me probably made me a little more immune to feeling as bad about myself in the face of rejection. I also was just so young - I was unaware enough to not take it too seriously.

It feels like you're being invited into a kind of community [working with the Coen brothers].

I feel about romance the same way I do about a vocation; it's a calling.

Woody Allen is kind of the one example I don't have. Because the way he works and the amount of shooting time that I did on that film, I didn't really get to know him, so he kind of stays as "Woody Allen" to me.

When Tetro came out, I met with Warren Beatty for the first time. I had, like, a four-and-a-half-hour lunch with him, and then over the next five years continued to meet with him and go to his house.

Warren [Beatty] was very adamant and very encouraging of me to direct. It's definitely something that I'd like to pursue more in the future.