To see my wife getting inspired from my notes and thoughts, going in the direction I wanted, and have her surprise me with wonderful choices was a real treat.

I am always more interested in performance and character depiction, and my direction says as much.

I discovered the 7th art at home when I was kid, through Charlie Chaplin's movies and those of my father who shot documentaries. He was my biggest influence. So I took his camera and started shooting.

My key interest in choosing scripts is character-driven stories, because there are so many stories that sacrifice character for plot.

It was important on The Shipping News to have my house far enough away from each location so I had this time in the morning to think about my shots and still remain open to surprises once I got to the set.

I love mixing amateurs and professionals.

I love involving actors at all levels - and they have to know that I want to hear their contributions, with dialogue, with story suggestions, with script changes, whatever.