I've been really interested in focusing on the aspects of my Russian heritage I'm proud of. I'm actually em­barrassed to tell people I'm Russian, because it's become such an awful place.

At age 12 I had an obsession with Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange and then proceeded to watch all the other Kubrick films I could including a doc called Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures in which it was revealed to me that he started as a photographer...I got a camera sometime shortly after, but spent many years just photographing flowers in my neighborhood.

Maybe silence is something we're uncomfortable with as a culture, I don't know.

I usually bring a point and shoot with me so I can go out on the weekends and shoot a bit. I used to bring more cameras, but I'm also an Ebay nut so sometimes I'll order something if I'm really pining for it when I'm on location.

There are two parts of me. There's the really critical, film-nerd part of me that loves that, and then there's the part of me where I'm like, "I really didn't like that movie, but I want to work with that director because he loves actors."

I prefer when movies target my heart instead of my mind.

I feel lucky to be in whatever I'm in. I feel lucky to be working.