The best thing you can do with actors is collaborate with them. My job is to inspire them to give their best. And they're only inspired if they feel they are part of the creative process, otherwise they'll shut down. So my goal is always to ask people what they would like to do before I even say my opinion. I usually don't know anything until I see it. I'm a fetish filmmaker - I make films based on what I want to see.

I always think once you have the lead protagonist, you cast around that character.

If you create something that is essentially alien to you - as a man - and make a film about woman, the more I can surround myself with woman and combine it with my soul's point of view, the more I become a stranger in a strange land.

I just think it was time [in THe Neon Demon]to do a film about women. But not just women, I wanted to do a movie about a teenage girl. It was a great counter to the masculinity of "Drive."

I've never really been on a date, because I've been with the same girl since my early twenties, but on our first date, I showed her The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. I was like, "Hey, you've got to see this!" And we've been together ever since.

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 have not seen "Batman v Superman," unfortunately. It hasn't been on the plane, as I've been flying a lot.