There's something so glorious in giving control to the world. I think that's what I'm trying to do in my films-control the world but also let it be chaotic, let there be life.

Making a film is like making a mixtape. You're collecting all this stuff and putting your favorite stuff into it: you have actors that you like, characters that you're interested in, moments you want to explore, themes you want to deal with, music that you want to put in. It's a pastiche of all these things that deal with how you see the world. You're just trying to make a love letter, a gift.

I always say writing is like dreaming, shooting is like living, and editing is like murder, because you take all these gifts that actors give you, and you cut them.

You can never maintain just pure happiness. In my life, I want full emotion. I want equal parts happiness and sadness.

There's something so glorious in giving control to the world. I think that's what I'm trying to do in my films-control the world but also let it be chaotic, let there be life.

I'm so sick of seeing guns in movies, and all this violence; and if there was going to be violence in Pines, I wanted it to actually be narrative violence. I wasn't interested in fetishizing violence in any way of making it feel cool or slow-motion violence. I wanted it to be just violence that affected the story.

A lawyer actually has to see all sides of a situation. Lawyers actually might be the most understanding human beings.