As a writer, you have to be willing to kill your darlings, and I'm a writer first. As a director, I've got no problem cutting the scenes.

The movie on the screen is always going to be different from the movie in your head. How it makes you feel is what I'm after, what I'm chasing, and what I'm trying to construct.

Even the scrutiny is good because it lets you know the world cares about your movie, and there is interest in it.

I'm one of those big believers that the movie comes together in the way it's supposed to be and that movies are fated to become what they become.

Actors are insanely competitive and they hold back on each other. They are like magicians and none of them want to show their tricks.

The most terrifying thing in my life is a blank sheet of paper.

I'm a veteran, and I come from a family of veterans and people who served in that war. And the stories that I heard were a hell of a lot different than the movies that I was seeing, so I wanted to make a movie about the people that were really there.