I hope that Requiem is better than Pi. I hope that Pi is better than my student films, and I'm hoping that I'm getting better as I get older.

I spent about a year and a half doing technical post work on 'The Fountain'. Although I do like the process, I think my favorite part of filmmaking is the actors.

I only want to work with actors that really get it and make it work. I didn't want it to be a star-driven thing anymore.

I couldn't sleep one night and I was sitting in my office and I realized that I was an independent filmmaker.

Right after I did 'The Fountain,' I wanted to go make a documentary or something that was less constructed - more natural. I was searching for a project, and sniffing around, 'The Wrestler' fit right in

My hope is that I'm going to continue to make more and more challenging work that's going to come out more and more interesting. I don't know if that will always continue to happen, but every one of my films has definitely been a progression as far as complexity of narrative, character, and plot.

Film is a great tool to play with time, going back and forth through time, or speeding time up and slowing it down and do stuff like that. That's something you can't experience in real life that you can experience on film, and it takes you to a different place.