I learn so much from watching films like that with commentary and then when you get to hear another filmmaker talk about their films it's a really great experience.

When I'm shooting, really the audience I'm thinking the hardest about is that first test screening audience who I want to like the film and that first opening weekend audience.

When Ben Carson said that he would remove all federal funding for universities that had 'extreme political bias.' Who would decide what political bias was, and what is 'extreme'? That kind of policing of ideas has a striking resemblance to the black list, and that's what happened during that era.

I was always interested in the larger picture, I was pre-law in college, and had a degree in economics. I was very interested in the big question 'how then shall we live?,' how do we organize as a civilization when we are so different, and often don't get along, yet we know at some point we have to unite for the common good? I actually really care about those issues, and I'm driven to understand how it works.

I do love DVD and I've always taken them seriously. You know, on the Austin things, we really put a ton of work into them because there's so much design involved. And in this one, we thought a lot about it and what could go in.

[Lyndon Baines ] Johnson is a big and larger-than-life guy, we just tried to give him the dynamic range that he actually had.

John Wayne was just a very conservative guy, who had not served in World War II, and he was defensive about that - he almost overcompensated his anti-Communism because of that reason.