For weeks after 9/11 you could smell the dust and pulverised concrete in New York, and the National Guard came in, so there was a military presence on the streets. It was intense. Overwhelming. Heartbreaking.

For better or worse, most of my writing life has been about people that work behind the scenes. I'm interested in finding extraordinary moments in otherwise normal people.

I write on a computer, on a laptop or whatever.

I think as a filmmaker you try not to have any expectations other than that the film have a fairly substantial beginning, middle and end.

Ever since 9/11, I found myself interested in chronicling the war and the war on terror and the way that this giant machinery was affecting individuals.

So to be standing here, this was really, truly, honestly never part of anything we even imagined in our wildest dreams.

I actually think every war movie is an antiwar movie in its own way - with the exception of some of the propaganda movies.