I hope I can now use my ability to communicate, without being too precious or serious. It's good to have some levity, even as you're facing some really dark times, to mix it up a bit.

When Dalton Trumbo and his friends joined the Communist Party it was 1943, and Russia was our ally in World War II. This was connected to a very popular movement of artists and intellectuals at that time towards anti fascism, and an alliance with the union movement.

I love making people laugh. It's an addiction and it's probably dysfunctional, but I am addicted to it and there's no greater pleasure for me than sitting in a theater and feeling a lot of people losing control of themselves.

You can make an idea spread for good but you can also make an idea spread for bad and the power to make an idea spread, memetics, you know which now people talk about memes.

Dalton Trumbo actually was [ a hypocrite], because he liked his wealth, which was against the grain of being a Communist. I put title cards at the head of the film that explains the context.

I'm not one of these directors, so far, that wants to have a whole separate director's cut of these things. So far they've turned out to be kind of the length that they wanted to be.

There is an energy in the USA that will have to be dealt with, will have to be acknowledged and coped with. There are people who feel that they've lost ground, lost access to government - people whose quality of life has been affected.