Where war destroys, art inspires. And in order to inspire, you need to penetrate the brain. In order to penetrate the brain, you need something to react to. To have something to react to, you need to get your emotions up and running. To get your emotions up and running, you need to have something that ... whatever direction you go in, it has to be a movement between you and the experience.

I grew up in the '80s and John Hughes was the filmmaker making serious movies for teenagers.

I don't do drugs, and so music very much gets me going. When I do something, I think, "If it was a piece of music, what would it be?"

I've been trying to get away from physical violence; it's too easy; it doesn't satisfy me artistically to work with it. Dramatic violence is much more interesting, but it's much more difficult.

Love comes from the strangest places.

I never look at the internet because then you just have nothing else to do but just look. Most generally, and even myself as a consumer, you think you know what you want. But what's more interesting is figuring out what you don't want. I think the only way that I can do that is just to do what I think is right. That is the only real gesture of respect. Then people can react to the movie how they want to react.

When you make something that everyone likes, it's very easy to say, "Well, I'll just repeat that." Because that was easy. I have a formula. But creatively, it's not very interesting.