It's just nice to be able to communicate and be able to identify with a lot of different cultures. I have no idea what it would be like to be just one thing and speak one language. I feel enormously privileged to travel and be able to mingle and speak to people that, had I only known English, I wouldn't have been able to meet.

I think that one of the most exciting things about making films is the sort of reaching out to the world. It's as an ambassador. You realize the more you travel that you are a cultural ambassador for your own country. You never become more patriotic than you do living abroad.

Levity, you need levity to feel anything. You need to laugh before you cry. I think films that take themselves too seriously without any levity are missing an important ingredient to the potential emotional impact of their stories.

The only pressure is the pressure I put on myself, that's up to be I guess to mitigate that. I think there's always pressure that you make the right choice for the next film. You don't know what the outcome is gonna be, there's always potential to find length to your career as well. Now I'm so far from any other job skills that if I don't make movies.

I've been wanting to make a movie about the war in Sierra Leone, specifically, for more than 15 years.

I don't really put trophies out. I don't keep trophies around my apartment.

In snowboarding, you're constantly aware that people are so technically brilliant at what they do, and you feel like, "Ugh, I'll never be able to do that."