There are only so many movies you can direct. And yet there are movies that I want to make sure make it to the screen in as honest a way as possible.

Most people see a documentary about the meat industry and then they become a vegetarian for a week.

Unlike with any other art form, filmmakers have this unique web of festivals. There are hundreds. It is a democratic system in which you submit films, and if they are good enough, they play. The only barrier to entry is the submission fee.

My writing voice is very much like 'Thank You for Smoking.' It's a guy's voice. It's very masculine.

I remember when I was like 19 years old and I started a desk calendar company to pay for my first short film, just so I could say one day that my daddy didn't pay for my first short film. And I really established myself in the film festival world.

The first thing I say when people ask what's the difference [between doing TV and film], is that film has an ending and TV doesn't. When I write a film, all I think about is where the thing ends and how to get the audience there. And in television, it can't end. You need the audience to return the next week. It kind of shifts the drive of the story. But I find that more as a writer than as a director.

'Election' is a movie I'd give a leg to cross the director's name out and put mine in.