Russia itself is an extremely complex country, and sometimes I feel like all of that comes back to haunt me. I can see why so many Russian writers were so tortured.

My parents were of the opinion, because they had started skating very young, that you should have something that you do that you care about, because it structures your life as you're growing up.

I'm not passive aggressive. If something bothers me, I think about it, then I act on it. I express it.

I don't really like watching my work. I don't mind watching it when I was a little kid because I forgive myself a lot, since I was a little kid.

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

Communism destroyed so many generations. I look at my grandparents and their generation, and it's as if their lives were taken from them. It's really sad and frightening that something like that could have happened. But I don't really think of myself as Russian anymore. I didn't even live there for that long.

And also, that's the kind of wonderful thing about film culture, is the interaction between films and who works on what, where they were before, and now what they're doing now, and that inevitably informs how people view a film.