When I was about 16 or 17, I had a teacher who took a group of us to the National Theater in Washington, D.C., and I saw Ian McKellen do his one-man show - I think it was called Acting Shakespeare - and it completely bombed me; it put the zap on my brain in a big way.

I tend to have a kind of tunnel vision when I'm looking at an individual piece.

I thought Rounders was a comic movie in its way. First time I directed a movie, I wanted to do a comedy. I don't like things that are superficially one thing or another, mainly. My favorite comedies are really smart, too, and have a lot of levels to them as well.

The more you do your homework, the more you're free to be intuitive. But you've got to put the work in.

If I'm trying to put size on for a role, then I don't do much running.

You dream as an actor's director of letting moments breathe through two-shots.

You know when somebody really knows what they're drawing from and you can feel it when you see the movie.