If you felt like you've done the best thing you could possibly ever do, it's probably time to hang up your spurs because there's not much else to do.

As an actor, I've always paid attention on sets. I've always watched, learned and listened, and you start to see things differently. You always leave yourself an out.

Unless you're a directing producer of a television show, for the most part, the director comes in one week to direct and episode, and then leaves. I'd much rather produce television and occasionally direct an episode of a show I'm producing, then just come in as an outside director.

As an artist, you're always trying to reach a new height, do something new, try something you haven't done before, and push your boundaries.

Having been an actor, I always want to leave room for the actors to find their comfort zone, so I don't like to be too rigid in how I plan my shots. It's different if you have weeks to rehearse and you can rehearse on your sets or in your locations and you can plan that out with your actors, but in modern independent filmmaking, you don't really have that time. You have to have a certain level of improvisation.

The stories that I like to tell and the movies I like are always grounded in the emotional arc of the characters.

I think directors can be a little insensitive to how vulnerable an actor is, when he's giving a performance. Part of the job of an actor is to invite scrutiny, but with that, the people around them have to nurture that and put them in an environment where they feel safe and they feel like they can risk something.