But you need to strive to try and communicate and try and change things in a similar way. And then people can think that's pretentious or whatever, but it's your life's work, and you've decided that. That's what they made us believe. So we have a pretty high standard, which is at times great and at times not.

Theater has given me a different perspective on the way I approach films.

Heath [Ledger] would walk up to a horse and could like silence the horse. Just literally he'd be like, 'Shh. Shh.' And then he'd get on the horse. I'd be like, 'I'm going to get on you.' They'd be like, 'F - off!' I didn't really have that style.

I'm superstitious a little bit.

I like the conscious manipulation that a great director can have. When you're both complicit in the manipulation of an emotion.

I think that we all have within us the potential for almost anything. If we play close attention to our lives, then we can get at it somehow.

I think that I have done work where I feel like I've challenged myself, and then what's even more confusing is I've done work where I think I've challenged myself and no one's responded to it, and no one's interested in it.