It's always hard to explain why an audience ultimately responds to a movie.

I do know when you look at some ballplayer and all of a sudden he is the size of a truck something is wrong.

I've had a lot of movies that didn't get great numbers on test screening, but a lot of times the film was able to survive, or the studio still stayed and supported it.

Ronald Reagan was this actor who was going to be president, and he was very charming. What he had was, he talked about America in ways that got people all caught up in it. He was creating this America - it could even be the mythical "America" - that we subscribe to.

I think certain movies work and that is part of the magic of it all. We can't truly define why something succeeds.

I'm fascinated by documentaries, to begin with. Because of the nature of television, as opposed to theatrical, documentaries can be in this long form and take you on a journey.

Different reactions while film test screening doesn't mean even the audience thinks ambiguity is a bad thing. But if you're asking them right away to start checking things off, they don't know what to do. I think at their best, it applies to when the audience knows what it is. Then, when they say, "Oh, well, I thought it was too boring in blah-blah-blah part," then you better pay attention to it. It's like going for the hamburger. Better be the good hamburger I went for.