The only Sundance [2011] film about cults that could actually have life as a cult film, THE WOODS has the greatest comic insight into why our current culture might inspire a search for meaning in the first place.

The thing that breaks my heart about [Dennis Wilson] is that he was very naïve from the beginning to the end.

In terms of the way the industry operates, the studio system was such its own thing. It's so different now that it's a globalized world.

There's a fantastic, thousand-page book by David Thomson about [David O. Selznick]. Again, it's not the best argument or the best advertisement for his story, because most people aren't going to read a thousand-page book. But I feel like the rise and fall and the work [Mayer] produced - not just the movies, but the memos, the volume of writing - he's just so passionate, and that's really exciting.

The only Sundance [2011] film about cults that could actually have life as a cult film, THE WOODS has the greatest comic insight into why our current culture might inspire a search for meaning in the first place.

One of the reasons why I failed was because I figured out in the research process that I couldn't tell it as just, "This is what Frances Farmer's life was like." There are so many questions as to what her life was like because of the way her story has been seized upon and exploited by different factions.

I really feel like I could do anything if given enough time.