When I was a kid, my grandfather said that "if you say a word often enough, it becomes you." Thinking of that later in life gave me this idea that I could try to become America by learning the words of people from many aspects of the country.

If I do three interviews in a day, I can be exhausted, because the process of hearing everyone requires that I empty out myself. While I'm listening, my own judgments and prejudices certainly come up. But I know I won't get anything unless I get those things out of the way.

The American idea is as promising, imaginative, and full of the unexpected as the land itself. The land represents freedom - the frontier, the ability to make a new future with your own bare hands.

I don't talk a lot when I interview. My job is to get out of the way.

Movies, as evidenced by a chorus of protesting and celebrating Americans, influence broader trends.

I remember from my father's funeral that the minister kept using a metaphor about life of a prism. And I took that away like a cherished image.

Probably the person who said the only color in Los Angeles is green was right.