Acting is a lot easier than people think it is.

If you're not making epic, archetypal films on some level, I think you're wasting a great potential of cinema.

I read reviews of critics I respect and feel I can learn something from. Right now there are a lot of bottom-feeder critics who just have access to a computer and don't necessarily have an academic or cinema background that I can detect, so I tend to ignore that and stay with the same top-tier critics that I've come to respect. I like reading a good review - it doesn't have to be favorable, but a well-thought-out one - because I very much appreciate the relationship of directors and critics.

You just never know when you're living in a golden age.

There is an audience out there for literate films - slower, more observant, more human films, and they deserve to be made.

What science-fiction premises do is it gives you a "what-if" prism to look at the contemporary world with a wack on the side of the head.

Hollywood films have become a cesspool of formula and it's up to us to try to change it... I feel like a preacher! But it's really true. I feel personally responsible for the future of American cinema. Me personally.