Sometimes rules are there to save your life.

The thing about TV is it's a meritocracy. I love that aspect of it - and I've had shows that have gone on the air and been canceled. I've seen the good and the bad of it.

TV is a safe place to develop real characters.

I can't impress people with the pedigree of obscure French filmmakers that got me into film. It was Robert Zemeckis and Steven Spielberg. I really thought I wanted to make dumb action movies.

When I'm working on a film, I think about how it will play with a tiny audience of friends whose opinions I respect, basically a 40-bloc radius from my apartment in Manhattan.

I go into a movie sort of saying what it's not going to be.

From a production point of view, I still have one foot firmly planted in the independent film world, and much of the shooting on 'Jumper' was done 'Swingers'-style because that was the only way we could afford to do it.