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.

I think I land somewhere between Scorsese and Capra in what I'm drawn to emotionally; I'm drawn to very intense emotion. Capra freaked people out when they saw Jimmy Stewart lose it in 'It's a Wonderful Life.

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.

David O. Russell's best films are thrilling high wire acts that run the moment to moment risk of tumbling to the ground. In his latest, "Joy," Russell has more trouble than usual keeping his balance on the wire.

I had various jobs, I taught a SAT class, I was a bartender, I had a day job at an office and was making short films. I got grants from NYSCA and NEA for an idea, which later became 'Huckabees,' about a guy in a Chinese restaurant who had microphones on every table and heard every personal conversation and would write perversely personal fortunes.

I just love real characters; they're not pretentious, and every emotion is on the surface, they're regular working people. Their likes, their dislikes, their loves, their hates, their passions; they're all right there on the surface.

And that is also what the movie's about, going beyond success, what is success 'cause I think success is misperceived as just a cake and it isn't. There is many things inside that success. There's a maturity and a heartbreak and sadness and broken glass.