I like movies that are about real people in real time with real problems.

There's something melancholy about professors because they're chronically abandoned. They form these lovely relationships with students and then the students leave and the professors stay the same. It's like they're chronically abandoned.

I think a lot of Civil War stuff is written - As they say, history is written by the victors. And one of the things that I think is fascinating about this from a purely dramatic perspective is whether someone is right or wrong, you understand where they're coming from in this.

Each film is difficult, in its own particular way. There's a unique set of challenges on every movie.

I learned to choose my battles. Sometimes I let my producer deal with something that I didn't want to deal with.

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.

You know, I’m not saying, “Oh, because I play a good guy on TV, I need to suddenly be villainous in a movie.” I look at it more like: does this role has a kind of urgency for me in terms of, “can I not say no to it for whatever reason?”