Fellini was [David] Lynch's master and his biggest idol, and he believed in Fellini's view that film is a dream, it's not reality. It's all about delving into the unconscious.

Do you think you can love too much? Or experience too much beauty, at the cost of too much pain? Do you think when art is defined by expressing so much beauty and so much pain, just to be able to cope with both - and bring other people something creatively beautiful at the cost of that pain - that we can draw a line of 'normalcy'? It's important to think about.

After working with so many great actors and acting students in film school, it was a whole other thing working with Luke [Kirby].

Emotions are what drives everyone. You get up in the morning and go do something because the emotion drives you to it.

David Lynch was actually the one who first inspired me to become a filmmaker when I was in high school. His films just took me to that dream place that lifts you out of the norm, out of the everyday life, and that is kind of what allured me.

Vincent van Gogh was sane when he painted that piece of art, because when you you feel the mania and depression, you have all the heaven and hell your heart has ever experienced that you can tap into, to be able to create something that can last several lifetimes.

When you encounter that first love, a young love, you do feel that your story is original. You are utterly convinced that your story has never been told before, because it hasn't.