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.

I love crosscut parallel storytelling, like we did in Blue Valentine. I love how Alejandro González Iñárritu has done it, and Quentin Tarantino, and Francis Ford Coppola, and all the way back to D.W. Griffith - this parallel editing is an effective way to tell stories. It's like juggling, like keeping a lot of balls in the air and seeing how they come down.

When I made my student film, a feature, nobody wanted to talk to me and I was, like, in the desert for 12 years.

Sidney Lumet is one of my favorite filmmakers. I feel like his approach to filmmaking was always so human. He was always making movies about the people. He wasn't about the tricks, you know what I mean? From 12 Angry Men on. Another film of his which I really, really love is Prince of the City, with Treat Williams, which is kind of a lost classic. Lumet is one of those film heroes that changed movies for everyone.

So I don't think being an artist you can ever satisfy - the moment you do get satisfied is the moment you're done, really. I'm actually starting to bug out now, because it's not enough. I get joy and pleasure in the movies out there in the world that people are seeing, but for me, it's about making it. That's why I do it, is to make it, to deal with my life.

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.

I tell the actors that the biggest gift they can give me is to fail. And that the second gift they can give me is to surprise me.