When I look at the directors that I really love, who really develop their films over time, they're almost always the ones who go back again and again and again at the same investigations. I think that when somebody has a theme they go after, it's fun to service that. It's like, "I know you now. I know what you go at." It helps you locate yourself a little bit quicker in their world.

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.

Everyone keeps saying the western's dead, but it's not.

I'm a Tulsa Jew and I have a religious upbringing.

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

I've observed over and over that people seem to get a much deeper sense of fulfillment out of something they've done as an act of service than out of the things they do for themselves.

In a very philosophic sense I think doing the work is itself a good thing. But at the end of the day, since we're taking other people's shekels to do it, and their work is being able to make a return out of it, it forces you to consider the fact that you're doing it for other people. The whole construct is built around the assumption that it's going to get shared, and that someone else is going to find value in it - entertainment, catharsis, enlightenment, or whatever.