Actors are like kids, they need to play a little bit. And that's the nature of their job, they need to shake off some energy and then you as the director get them back on track. When you do loosen up the reins, you get some amazing things, but you have to wring out the performances for every last good drop.

You hear again and again that audiences want to see movies that are different and critics say we [directors] make the same thing again and again in Hollywood, then you go and make something different and you get kicked in the gut for it.

[If] you want to learn something about somebody, get into a fistfight. You'll learn more in five minutes than you will in five weeks of conversations. It's basic.

I feel like, as a filmmaker, I'm at my strongest when I write the script and when it comes from me, out of whole cloth. My best work has always been self-generated.

You don't want to get too far ahead of the audience and you don't want the audience to be ahead of you. So, that balance is difficult and it takes a lot of work and tuning in the edit, to get the right balance.

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.

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.