I'm a harsh critic, you know? I am.

As a producer, you have an opportunity to see the whole and bring people together.

My mom would always say this thing about writing - and I've taken it into account in a lot of things in my life - which is just, "Make it shorter." Figure out what you are truly saying, whittle it down to the essence, then say that.

My parents taught me as a kid: do your work. Do it well. Try as hard as you can, whatever it is. It will one day, for the long run, it will make some sort of change somewhere.

'Brokeback Mountain' takes all your conceptions of America, and the Western, and cowboys, and sexuality, and love, and it stirs them all up.

When you have the opportunity to choose projects, inevitably you start being moved towards the things that you're moved by, right? And that changes over time, as we change, right?

I don't think I had any idea at the time how to work with someone as masterful as he is. And I don't think at the time I really understood what was happening. I think I was in a space where I was like: there are all these things. I was shooting all these takes with David, and I was just confused, as a person, and as an actor feeling a little too big for my britches and that this thing was happening and then also not having enough skill yet, and technique to know exactly where I was, and know about the character.