I am not trying to be a historian and a dramatist; I'm a dramatist, a dramatic historian, or one who does a dramatic interpretation of history.

Pat Nixon was called the Mona Lisa of American politics. She never wrote anything. Her interviews tell us nothing.

One of my fantasies in my life has been that I was granted access with a camera to go back in time, and to film the actual campaign of Alexander crossing into India through Iran and Persia.

I'm not an activist. I'm a filmmaker. I'm a dramatist. My strength is to tell a story, to find a way to tell a story that makes it exciting. Our Untold History was a huge challenge. Snowden was no piece of cake, because writing code and breaking code is some of the most boring stuff you've ever seen.

The worst nightmare I ever had about Vietnam was that I had to go back. I woke up in a sweat, in total terror.

There is a Greco-Buddhist school of architecture and sculpture that you find everywhere in the world. It's fascinating, because Alexander died in 323 B.C. and Buddha existed around 500 B.C. But Alexander met Buddhist-type sages. And they had a different view of the world, as you know. They saw it in circular terms. They didn't need to conquer any land. And there are blond people who live in that region who are said to be descended from the soldiers who stayed. He left garrisons all over the world as he went.

I gave up on America. I read the Times just to find out what they're thinking. I read blogs. I get most of my best information from people who are there, people who write independently. And there's actually very few of them.