When I make a movie, it's almost a relief to get shooting 'cause the hell is over, or part of the hell is over.

For me, I like to show what guys are like when no one is looking and how we really are, and that we can be emotional and have these emotional lives. I think it would be great to do a film where we see some females and what's going on there when we're not around.

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

I think great acting is about inhabiting a skin and transforming yourself.

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.

In the writing phase, normally I try not to envisage any particular actors because I like to let the characters sort of reveal themselves in that process.

I'm all about real drama, real performance, and real people, so my twist on this is: I'm creating a family, a brotherhood here. I'm creating a very real chemistry and I have this incredible ensemble of actors led by Will Smith, who are basically playing dimensional characters with lives and souls.