I was interested in the idea of succession - showing a father and a son both in their own time and drawing a contrast

I've been failing for, like, ten or eleven years. When it turns, it'll turn. Right now I'm just trying to squeeze through a very tight financial period, get the movie out, and put my things in order.

A director is the ringmaster of a circus that's inventing itself.

I was interested in the idea of succession - showing a father and a son both in their own time and drawing a contrast

I know that if a film is ready to emerge out of what I write, I'll be able to go off and make it without asking anyone's permission.

Sound is your friend because sound is much cheaper than picture, but it has equal effect on the audience - in some ways, perhaps more effect because it does it in a very indirect way.

So give yourself that chance to put together the 80, 90 pages of a draft and then read it very in a nice little ceremony, where you're comfortable, and you read it and make good notes on it, what you liked, what touched you, what moved you, what's a possible way, and then you go about on a rewrite.