When I think about directing a film, the thing that stops me short is wondering if I'm a natural at it the way I think you, and PTA, and Fincher are born directors. Maybe some people's talent is in understanding the ways that film communicates, without dialogue, without plot.

I've always liked the idea of taking old dramatic ideas and devices and making them feel relevant or contemporary or whatever.

On the downside, to paraphrase Thom Yorke talking about the music business, we're still having to deal with the stench of the last fart of the dying corpse of this regressive vision that America is a white, middle-aged, male, conservative country.

All people are paradoxical. No one is easily reducible, so I like characters who have contradictory impulses or shades of ambiguity. It's fun, and it's fun because it's hard.

The more you can create that magic bubble, that suspension of disbelief, for a while, the better.

It's better for people to miss you than to have seen too much of you.

It must be good to be in Germany and France, because I have completely forgotten what it is like to be proud of your government.