I've always had great independence on everything I've done. Nobody's ever told me not to do anything.

It is better to develop ideas with friends rather than the usual route of having a great idea and throwing it out into a production, and being surrounded by professionals who've been doing their jobs for years.

Sometimes in the studio movies I've been working in, you'll put a joke in a movie because the crowd loves it - not because I love it.

With Hollywood you're yesterday's news if you get a flop at the box office. So you might as well be braced to have something else to do that's interesting. Have something lined up to keep your stories fulfilled, and your ideas, because if you're just cranking out movies three times a year.

Every new project I do is a new invention of myself and reinvigorates me as to why I love the industry.

A lot of people inspire me. I'm a huge movie buff. From studying and watching movies, over and over again, directly influential are Terrence Malik and his naturalism, Robert Altman and his exploration of improvisation, and Judd Apatow, in terms of his comedic process.

It's been an obsession of various genres, disciplines, and aspects and elements of movie-making. It's always been something that I've really aspired to, so doing something new and different, reinventing myself and working with new people is just the passport to the amazing world that is the movies.