Art and commerce are not irreconciliable, they are inextricably intertwined.

A screenplay is not a finished product; a novel is. A screenplay is a blueprint for something - for a building that will most likely never be built.

I think that the reason that people are so up in arms about movies that have historical inaccuracies is because now that we've trashed our education institutions beyond repair, people fear that the only people are getting their histories is through the movies, so the elephant in the room is that no one wants to talk about why we're so passionately obsessed with accuracy.

I'm mainly interested in people trying to figure s#!t out.

The director is a bit analogous to the conductor of a symphony orchestra. It's a collaborative adventure.

There are movies I've made that I think no celebrations are in order.

We were extremely prescient in that we predicted the Soviet coup before it happened. That was kind of amazing.