If a scene doesn't work on three levels - it's not advancing the story, the characters, and telling me something new - then put it in the trash.

I thought it would be quite a challenge to direct a mystery thriller. I hadn't really done something like that.

As a director, when you cut scenes from a movie, you do it with the idea that it is making the story move forward and progress. Sometimes, you don't realize that something is actually a sidetrack for the story, or it takes the tension out of a scene.

People are more likely to help other people who look exactly like them. They will hang out at the bar and on the golf course with them.

People love to talk, so let them have fun talking.

I worked for 20 directors as a production designer, most male. I was on the set to witness firsthand a range of sometimes atrocious emotions - well-documented firings, yellings, fights between directors and actors, hookers, abusive things, budget overages, lack of preparation. A man gets a standing ovation for crying because he's so sensitive, but a woman is shamed.

As a director, you try to do things that are going to touch the human experience somehow, and emotions that mean something to people. You search for those projects and you hope to realize the potential in a project.