I'm a history person; I love history. But I am conditioned by the present.

A lot of the good cameraman who we used are doing television work; they're doing commercials for a lot of money. And the commercials look incredible. But what's it about? I made three major commercial campaigns. I enjoyed it, I experimented with it, and at the end of the day I felt no satisfaction. It was like having a fast food lunch.

Well first of all you have to make the character strong so that people can follow that. And then hopefully that character can integrate with the background of the social situation that people can recognize.

You're not a historian, but most historians will tell you that they make very discrete judgment as to what facts to omit in order to make their book into some shape, some length that can be managed.

There is a narrative to every life, and I believe in the classic mode of storytelling that goes back to Homer and carries through to today.

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.

I knew that one day I would come to this point that I would make something so outrageous and so ambitious that... it'd be that Don Quixote feeling, that I'd have to tilt at a windmill. Sometimes you've got to do it. That's the only way you can do things.