It's a great asset to you, on your first film, to bring some people with you from the television world because they understand the speed that you have to work with to get your grand ideas down.

On some kind of unspoken, deep, deep level, I think we [with Ryan Murphy] have an aesthetic that we both understand or connect to. It's not that we see the world in the same way because we have very different points of view, but we're both visual stylists.

I'm really grateful to Ryan Murphy for so much because he's fearless. He's so confident. He has a very unusual and unique way of seeing the world sometimes, and he's somehow able to translate that into entertainment for the masses, at the right time in pop culture.

I started in the P.A. world and craft service and storyboard artist, with the eye on the prize of directing. When I was directing second unit on Babel, I ended up casting most of the unknown parts. In these weird circles, I was this guy who found these kids on the streets.

To me film school was film history because there weren't a lot of books out there that I had access to.

There are the relationships you make. All of the friends I made in grad school are the closest ones that I have.

I love visual stylists like Bob Fosse and Vincente Minnelli and Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger with The Red Shoes and The Tales of Hoffman.