If people knew what made hits they'd make more of them, so to have the illusion of control over one's career isn't something I can even pretend to have.

I try not to be overly analytical.

I would say chemistry between two people is very powerful. You have to fight to keep it, but if you don't have it, you can't manufacture it.

I've always had this unresolved desire to prove that I could get a Ph.D., or contribute something else to the world.

Independent films have a very different cachet than success films.

I don't know what it is, exactly, but there's a negative drag on film sets after the second week or so, a mutinous vibe because the infinite capacities of the directors and everybody else become quite finite and everybody's under the gun and it becomes work.

You really can't take a cat and turn it into a dog, or try and get lemons off an apple tree, or what have you.