Sometimes you think you want to know something, but it's actually more exciting and more resonant when you have to try [and figure it out].

I’m Armenian, and April 24th was another commemoration of the genocide of Armenia people by Turkey. The perpetrator never admitted the crime. I was raised with that, this question: how do you actually find the truth of such a traumatic event? I'm obsessed with that issue.

People make decisions that may have one intent and yet are somehow perverted into something else. And sometimes it's because of design. Sometimes it's because of happenstance. But very often, it's mysterious to them.

I mean, if you are directing actors to do one thing and then directing them to do something else entirely because the one thing you wanted them to do may not work, then you are just shattering their confidence in the project.

You can talk about Holocaust denial, but it's really marginal for the most part. What is compelling about the Armenian genocide, is how it has been forgotten.

Every actor has a different temperament. Part of my job is to know what those boundaries are. The actor has to know you'll be there at the other end, that you're trying to represent them in the best light, who they are as they're harnessing these roles. The methods vary from actor to actor.

I do think you fall in love when you feel that something of your story is being listened to for the first time, or you feel someone else is hearing it as no one else has ever done.