Cynicism is kind of like folding your arms and stepping back and commenting on things, like the old guys in 'The Muppets,' just throwing out comments all the time, whereas there are other people on the ground really trying to affect things and improve their lives and the lives of other people. I think it's noble and I think it's cool.

Film allows me to ask some really big questions with the time to explore them deeply. I love the form.

If I’m feeling something, I have a lot of different ways to express it, you know? I can write an article about it. I can write a screenplay about it. I can act in someone’s thing.

I've always been attracted to ensembles. When I started doing plays in high school and in college, I always loved the community aspect of it. I loved these little families that would develop.

It's hard to explaining exactly what happened, but I felt in that moment that the divine, however we may choose to define such a thing, surely dwells as much in the concrete and taxi cabs as it does in the rivers, lakes, and mountains. Grace, I realized, is neither time nor place dependent. All we need is the right soundtrack.

It never made sense to me that someone would achieve any kind of success in show business, only to become a jerk.

One thing I'm most proud of, in my movies, is that I think the performances are super-strong, but that's not all me. I think part of it is casting appropriately.