I cannot control what you bring into the theater when you see the film. I can't control what my parents bring in. I can't control what some random person on Twitter brings in to the theater. All I can control is the hour and 50 minutes that the movie lasts, and try to give it absolutely everything I can.

I think the irony of modern life is that our data, our highly personal information, has been taken from us, but in many cases it was given away freely by us. We willfully, consciously or unconsciously, acquiesced and gave it away for a new app, you know? For the products that we have. We didn't read the fine print, or don't even really care and didn't really check to see if we could opt out. No one had to steal it from us.

Whether a project is large or small, it doesn't matter much to me as long as I feel I can serve the story as best as possible.

I've heard a lot of variation of similar questions, but it's interesting to see the variations of audiences and how different people respond, so I think it's all valid. I don't take it personally at this point, which I probably would have at Sundance. But it's really thrilling.

There have been so many instances in my life where movies, music, or literature has made my life tangibly better.

I don't think in terms of what's going to be successful. I have plenty of friends who make very small movies and friends who make giant, $150 million blockbusters, and the thing that I really admire is, the ones who do it well do it very sincerely.

And that first screening was overwhelming. You were there. People applauded when the title card comes in; there's a big "gasp moment" partway through the film. It couldn't have gone better, and it was very surreal.