I made two movies very young, and then I had trouble getting a movie made, and so - which was both, I think, a plus and a minus. It was a minus because it made me unhappy.

Manhattan is so tailored. It's driven by appealing to the very wealthy and tourists.

I love black-and-white movies that are about contemporary subjects.

How you start the movie is critical. And how often you feel that there's no reason for how it's starting.

I like having associations with locations beyond their meaning for the specific movie.

I try to write 'and it's all very funny' after each scene description so that the reader can imagine the movie in their head.

Nothing that I've turned down do I feel like I should have done. Because I've generated everything I've done, I've never really considered doing something that I haven't originated myself. There are definitely things that I've been brought that someone else made good movies out of. But it's not a path I've followed, so I don't have regret.