My idea of no makeup on actors is really no makeup. I mean, they can be wearing makeup. I don't care what they're wearing as long as it looks like they're not wearing makeup. But an actress will suddenly appear with some lipstick on. And that's makeup. Keener's character wears makeup. Her character would wear makeup. I try to stay true to whoever that person is. I hate that kind of thing where you're waking up in the morning with makeup on in a movie. I just think it pulls you out of the movie.

I hear a lot of, "We want to make a movie with you." Then "No, we don't want to make this one. We want to make that other movie with you." I don't really get that and it's very frustrating. It angers me. Because my movies are my movies.

I thought of the scene while writing scenes with Rebecca [Hall] and wrote it like an opening montage of showing where someone works. If you see a film about a car mechanic, you'd show the place they work and what they do. So, that's what I set out to do with Rebecca's character. I thought it probably wouldn't even make it into film but I ended up liking it.

I think having a good life prompts it... anybody who has a good life and looks around them sees the enormous disparity that exists in the world between those people who do and those that don't. I can't say we walk about our guilt a lot, though. If we do, it probably comes out in the form of self-loathing jokes. But it's a tough thing to wrap your head around... the have's and have not's in the world.

It seemed like there were so many options in filmmaking before. If they don't want to make it, well okay, there's a hundred other places we can try. I'm not a producer and I don't even know the places my producer goes to, thankfully. But I think there are far fewer options now to releasing a movie theatrically or to getting the financing.

I don't know where my next movie is going to get financed or if it will. I think every filmmaker is probably worried about that, unless their movie made a fortune. My movies make a profit, but obviously not a fortune. So yeah, it's scary.

I think I'm a good writer. I think I have my own voice, which is unique to everyone, everyone has their own voice; if they would just write from a vulnerable embarrassing place, it's going to be universal and it's going to be entertaining. Because everyone is the same and everyone is unique.