Works like 'Brave New World' and 'The Handmaiden's Tale' develop their atmosphere from a movement or a revolution, as if the world has ended and has come out to this other side. When I wrote 'The Bad Batch,' I thought that the world outside the gates that confine the 'bad' characters is simply our world today.

Whenever you anticipate something - like, "it's my highly anticipated whatever" - you are probably going to be disappointed. I wish we could all Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind ourselves every time we went to the movies and not know anything about anyone.

If you become a star known for one thing, that becomes your thing, and you don't want that, on some DNA level.

Music is one of my big orgasmic meters. I need it, I love it. I'm so happy when people bring it up because I love it. I need it.

The history and baggage of certain actors and characters - it goes into the movie and becomes part of it. If Keanu Reeves wasn't Keanu with all the things that make him Keanu, it wouldn't be the same for him to come in and become his Bad Batch character The Dream. It's kind of meta or next-level interesting for me.

I don't personally do that many castings. But I did get involved in "The Bad Batch," because we couldn't think of an actress that was a 3-D embodiment of the character. But when I saw Suki Waterhouse on tape, I knew she was 'it.' And I can't describe that any more than to say that I never had to really express to her the the ideas that were on the page, she just instinctively embraced it. She was Arlen, and I didn't want to f**k it up. Her instinct was just it.

There's something to me with categorization - it stops you from thinking about the thing that is actually happening.