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.

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.

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.

The worst pressure is the pressure I put on myself.

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.

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.

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.