The worst part of directing is always seeing the first assembly. It's devastating. It really is. It's like going into the delivery room and you can't wait to see your baby, and it's a crocodile.

I'm not a film-school guy. I was a high-school dropout. I was on a nuclear submarine. I was an electrician. I was a house painter. So if you get in my face, I'm going to fight you.

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

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

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

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.

The hardest thing, as a director, is that it's never right. Nothing you do is ever right. It's never exactly how you envision it. Making a movie is about making it better.