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.

You never make all things for all people and can't always pander to the broadest denominator. I keep an eye toward doing the themes that interest me. Do they move me? Interest me? Make me think? When I run across something that is provocative in an unsettling way, it appeals to me.

You know, independent films have been institutionalized, practically. Every studio has got a boutique arthouse label.

I've already spent a lot of my life doing what makes me go. There's a life out there while I'm still young, able to move, able to just sit at peace in the water - I should be spending much more time doing that, rather than continuing to go through this artistic struggle.

I always felt that acting was an escape, like having the secret key to every door and permission to go into any realm and soak it up. I enjoy that free pass.

Look, you've got a generation of people coming along who are going to form their own new relationship with the idea of supporting the causes that they care about or changing the world. And these people are not going to do it the way our parents do it.

As an actor, if you step to the side and you look at [Thornton's performance] technically, and you try to imagine doing what he was doing, most people would panic. Most people would be on the set, and they would be panicking, going, "I'm not doing anything!" All the ham instincts in you would be screaming, "You've got to indicate something here." And it's beautiful, in a way. And so I appreciate, even as an audience member, the courage that it takes to be... frankly, to be subtle.