I'm far too middle-class to morally object to a paying job.

I like acting and things when I like the writing. If I don't like the writing, I don't like acting. I think in some ways everything starts for me from the place of writing.

Let your characters talk to each other and do things. Spend time with them - they'll tell you who they are and what they're up to.

I've never had a plan, I've always done things from instinct.

We would go down to Riverside, California, which is very poor now, but that's where my grandfather grew up. He grew up during the Depression in Riverside.

I think in theater the playwright is king. Those words are unchangeable. They are the reason that everything else flows from.

It's so hard for people to give up their cell phones or their ideas of being connected to everything all the time in order to get an immersive experience. That's the best way to make art. It's almost like you have to treat it like you're going into a submarine, and Noah Baumbach totally agrees with that. There's not a real other life that happens outside of the movie while it's being shot, which I like.