People go to the movies to see things they haven’t seen before. Call me a radical.

It's a bad day when you don't get the work done that you need to get done or you don't get it done to the satisfaction.

I always say everyone was lucky enough to be in a Cate Blanchett movie.

Our Pavlovian response to movies has gotten to its lowest point ever. You look at a lot of movies that are successful and a lot of movies that studios hold up as examples and you go, 'My God, that isn't even a story. It isn't even two acts. It's eight set pieces drawn out with slow motion.' The difficulty for me was that you had to hope that people were interested in this kind of a story.

I do agree you can't just make movies three hours long for no apparent reason. For a romantic comedy to be three hours long, that's longer than most marriages.

Entertainment has to come hand in hand with a little bit of medicine. Some people go to the movies to be reminded that everything's okay. I don't make those kinds of movies. That, to me, is a lie. Everything's not okay.

I want people to surprise themselves. Instead of saying "Oh, god, didn't we already do this 17 times?"