It's interesting to get older and realize that part of your job growing up in this profession is to help the next generation. More and more, with Boyhood and with Ellar Coltrane and with Emma [Watson], I start to see that role. There's no better way. Nobody wants advice, so you can't really give it. You just have to try to wish them well on their journey.

Often you see a famous actor who says they produced something, when all they did was claim to have an idea at a dinner party and make three phone calls.

It was never in my dreams to make my personal life anybody else's business.

One of the things that's really lousy about making movies is that you have such little interaction with your audience.

I remember staying up all night waiting to see the first screening of Cape Fear because you knew that every time Robert DeNiro had a performance it was going to be revelatory. Then DeNiro hit this place, he seemed like he was done with the emotional cost of impaling himself like that, and he dedicated himself to comedy.

I love working on scripts. I love coming up with ideas about what people would dress like or talk like. I love all that.

I've always been drawn to the best writing that I can find. I don't care if it's in movies or theater or whatever - if you want to be in front of an audience, you have to do writing you believe in.