The more we become civilized, the more we simultaneously understand our need to be virtuous, and our need to understand our experiences on a subconscious level.

I wanted to make a horror film about beauty.

I think that experiencing through art is a wonderful way to expand the horizon and everything around it.

Elle Fanning was fifteen when we started [The Neon Demon]. She turned seventeen during the shoot. Four weeks before Cannes, she turned eighteen. She had her prom at Cannes.

The act of creation can be an extreme violent experience.

There's incredible effect in being either loved or hated, but knowing that, either way, you have penetrated the mind and have altered it; that is a very pleasurable feeling.

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