Even though I occasionally appear on it, I don't watch television.

No matter how dark things may get in a story, I feel it's the responsibility of the storyteller to leave the audience with at least a shred of hope.

And as a filmmaker, I'm trying to unhook myself from this idea that unless you have a brilliant, long, enormously lucrative theatrical run, that your movie somehow failed. And I don't believe that.

I learned a lesson which I didn't heed: Don't put yourself in your movies. It's too much.

I feel comfortable with women. I have two sisters, so I grew up in a female-dominated environment.

I actually have a thing about proper nouns. They clang on my ear in a weird way when I hear them dropped into movies.

It's really hard to be poor in New York - I was really poor when I lived in New York.