Every movie changes you. The process of making a film changes you. You have to be obsessed, you have to get up at 3 in the morning and go "Wait, I have an idea!" You have to continually be drawn over and over again to deepening inside that story, and ruminating over questions: "Why would he say this to her? Why if he was standing there, would she go?" Every one of those answers has to come from some personal place, and in order to do that, you can't sit on the surface. It's such a big change that you can't really explain it to anyone else.

I spent a lot of time not in school, so I didn't have deep relationships with kids my own age.

My definition of a friend is somebody who adores you even though they know the things you're most ashamed of.

I was never the ingenue or the pretty girlfriend of Tom Cruise in a movie. I didn't have that career, so I don't have to compete on that level.

It's a skill that people are born with. Either you're a focuser or you're a multitasky person. I am a full-focus person.

I was one of those avid moviegoers as a kid, and we didn't have video, so we went to see everything five times. I went to see every foreign film playing in my town. As times went on, I watched a lot less films. I have a different film school now. My film school now is my life experience.

All of the thinking and planning that you do to get there, and then, in one minute, in one second, it just doesn't matter. It goes out the window. You either got it or you didn't. There is something kind of refreshing about that.