So it's hard to be an artist and be true to the reality of the world you want to create and also make it entertaining and successful financially.

I started studying mythology, just on my own. Joseph Campbell, mysticism.

Tupac Shakur is something that, of course I want to make the Tupac movie, I love Tupac, but when that movie was announced, we didn't even have a script yet. It was just being written. People announce things too soon. If you go to any filmmaker - Clint Eastwood, Oliver Stone, Martin Scorsese, Ben Affleck, Michael Mann - you go in their offices and there are scripts everywhere and there's about four or five of them you really want to make.

I'm a product of older filmmakers I guess, the past where you get to make movies and scenes are what they are.

We're very good friends, we have a very honest relationship. He keeps me honest, I keep him honest. He's an incredible actor and when you have an actor like Denzel action becomes drama.

Even the Westerns that I grew up with, the Sergio Leone's and all that, there was always a sort of anti-hero, a guy reluctant to shame even, to pick up the gun again because he wants to help other people, and he does, he uses his skills for that.

One hundred percent, I mean, many of the Sergio Leone movies were with Clint Eastwood, and that's what it is.