So many people have said this, but it's true: 95 percent of what I do as a director is casting and getting people who can bear the load of what you're asking them to do and creating this emotionally safe environment.

It feels to me like everyone is going to do their best work when they feel emotionally safe.

I like being able to just turn the microscope on a small number of people, get to know them, drop into their lives for a period of time.

If I don't have to think about the commercial aspect of it, then I feel like I'm going to make better films.

I'm drawn again and again to relationships between people who really, really want to connect and just can't get out of their own way to do it.

I can connect with whoever I want to connect with in the world. And I can also write my own script. I don't have to follow rules. I can sort of just be unconventional.

In the collaborative process, you create a real intimacy; everybody ends up sharing personal stories and personal observations and their philosophies, their psychological side. By the time you get to set, it just creates such a sense of trust and intimacy between the director and the actors. It's really, really great.