The holy trifecta of directing and filmmaking is character emotion, camera movement and music. When you hit those three, that's magical. That's what I'm trying to do.

I feel profoundly blessed. I feel it's a great privilege to make any motion picture.

What we assert, very often can become our reality. To some degree, everybody can try to shape and control their fate. Everybody picks an identity.

The great lesson about filmmaking is never take "no" for an answer, especially if you have a lot of passion and inspiration to do something.

The romance is essential. I love the love. I don't love just people struggling. I love what people are struggling for. That moves me. I love watching people be loving, and I find it enchanting, magical and transporting. It's one of the reasons that I go to the movies, and that's why I like putting it in movies.

As people, [my parents were] very colorful, very talkative, passionate, they really loved each other. But that also meant heated, it meant there was a lot of drama in the house. Which is good for a filmmaker, I think.

That's the most beautiful thing that I like about boxing: you can take a punch. The biggest thing about taking a punch is your ego reacts and there's no better spiritual lesson than trying to not pay attention to your ego's reaction.