Sometimes rules are there to save your life.

I pride myself on doing character-driven movies and, when my movies have worked, it's been because of the right casting and the right character, and it just clicks.

In movies, you can basically buy the audience into the theater. If you spend enough money on visual effects, even if you are lacking in story and character, you might still pull it off.

It turns out that it's easier to do politics in a movie. People really don't want it in their TV.

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.

The movie I end up with is the movie I aspired to make.

My own personal process with movies is to develop the characters with the actors and, when I've done that properly, you can't imagine anyone else, but that actor, playing that part.