One man's uplift is another man's sentimental hooey.

Everyone has expectations. You just don't want to have them dashed, so you're quiet about them.

My film school is making movies. But, I do think that being an actor has served me immensely, as both a writer and director, in terms of knowing what is playable and what will be fun to play, for actors, and also how to communicate to actors on set, and not screw them up and get them in their head.

We don't have a lot of space in our imaginations to allow people to expand what they do.

Here's the problem: I don't like who I've become when my iPhone is within reach. I find myself checking e-mails and responding to texts throughout the day with some kind of Pavlovian ferocity - it's not a conscious act, but a reflexive one.

The reflexive allergy to L.A. that a lot of New Yorkers have, I feel like it's kind of nonsense.

You can say something that can really help and actor and you can say something that can really get in the way of an actor's performance, kind of cut them off from their instincts and really get into their heads. And every actor's different. Every actor requires something different. Being an actor, for me, was the greatest training to be a writer and director.