I do find myself drawn more to pieces that I feel are wrestling with the way that we're living now, what we're all going through.

I tend to relate to a character in terms of the arc: what's interesting is where he starts versus where he ends up.

Sometimes we don't see certain things until we're ready to see them in a certain way.

Unpopular speech is absolutely vital to the health of our nation.

I get heartbroken flying into L.A. It's just this feeling of unspecific loss. Can you imagine what the San Fernando Valley was when it was all wheat fields? Can you imagine what John Steinbeck saw?

Sometimes their oppression of emotion and the weird way it comes out is more interesting than painting it in bold primary colors.

But look at Avatar (2009), one of the most globally viewed pieces of entertainment to have ever been made - the central emotional event of the whole movie was a tree being cut down. And the entire movie, essentially, is saying, "If we let the military industrial complex trash the place that we're living in, we will have committed an epic crime."