I'm very excited about some of the novels that I have adapted. I think they're equally as powerful, if not more. Going After Cacciato (by Tim O'Brien) is something I'm very passionate about.

I speak a little bit of Russian.

If you're a skilled player, you want to use your skill, not just hit the puck.

I'm American and I wanted my friend and people to see ' Red Army' . I didn't want it to be a film for Russia, although I did show it there and they absolutely loved it.

Anatoli Tarasov, the guy that created the Soviet style of play, was a visionary. He was a creative thinker. He studied ballet and chess and art and read a lot.

I guess the prime example is in North America there's a thing where if there's no opportunity to move forward with the puck, then a [hockey] player is told to dump the puck into the other zone. Just give up the puck and dump it in. Give it to the other team. And to the Soviet mentality in coaching, it just doesn't make any sense. If you're a skilled player, why are you going to give the puck away to the other team? Just give it away, right?

When I looked into the story of Soviet hockey and its players, I realized that it has nothing to do with hockey. It was a larger story using hockey as a window into the story of the rise and fall of the Soviet Union, the Russian people, with friendships and betrayals, paranoia and oppression, and the meaning of sports to people and nations around the world, and how sports was used as a political tool.