The thing I always say to any writer that I'm working with is: Just make sure that in any argument, EVERYONE is right. I want every single person arguing a righteous side of the argument. That makes interesting drama.

Movies aren't finished, they're abandoned. And you have to make your peace with that.

It's a very American thing to hide away from death.

People always ask why I don't make independent movies. I do make independent movies - I just make them at Sony and Paramount.

If I see a movie for the first time on DVD, I watch it all the way through, the lights are down, I don't pick up the phone. The third or fourth time you see a movie, sometimes you just have them on and you check in every once in a while with things that you liked. I think it's a different expectations from that environment.

How do you shoot a 150-day movie? You shoot it one day at a time.

I don't have the Tom Hanks fans. When you make the kind of movies I make, you get weird letters from people.