Very few people make exterior movies anymore. It's always action films driven by action and quick editing.

It's great to be recognized for work, and the work is great, but once you have the awards, it becomes less important. It just gives you the ability to do better work, in my opinion.

'American Dream' is a small little movie made for under a million dollars. Totally independent feature.

I just directed another picture called 'American Dream' with Nick Stahl. Just finished shooting principal photography right before I started ['Lincoln'].

[Steven Spielberg makes] human movies. Movies [...] that reflect the life we wish it would be, not necessarily as it is. And the happy ending, you know. Life is a tough thing to begin with, and I like the happy ending.

We exchanged a couple of ideas and stuff like that, but that's about it. I just think ... consulting on 'Tintin' was very interesting because you try to ... not educate, but inform the animators [about] what the lighting looks like, but [in the end] they do it themselves. I don't actually go and sit there with them. [We] just had a couple of conversations.

'Sugarland Express' was pretty amazing.