I never think that a film should answer questions for you. I think it should make you ask a lot of questions.

There's a lot of romanticisation of the intuitive actor and method acting and all kinds of notions about getting inside a character and coming out from there.

My greatest hope is that we transcend the most fearful thing, which is that we are rapidly degrading the ecological systems on this planet that support everything we are doing and all life on it.

At this point in my life I'm not bent on proving anything, really.

I started, with three friends, this website called Crowdrise that's sort of the Facebook for personal philanthropy, a place where anybody can have a permanent microsite of their own to stage creative fundraising projects for the charities and causes that they care about. And we did it with serious intent but without any ambition.

I just like working with smart people.

I've never acted before in a movie I've directed. This felt like the time to do it just because the " Leaves of Grass" movie itself is so much of a platform for the lead actor. It's really written for an exciting performance and it really depends on the audience watching an extraordinary actor having a great time pulling off this feat. It makes sense to me as a director to act in support of that.