In the end, it's acting, it's not real. But every director will tell you that you have to create conditions that create tension, because tension is what makes drama feel real.

The actor's job is to divine and embody the truth, and find it.

I think when you think of my films, I think hopefully you think of an extreme sort of real unfolding, real-time, performed, feeling semi-improvised, you know what I mean, all that.

That's one of the central challenges we face - how to stay true to events and compress the fundamentals.

The people who went on that airplane were unexceptional.

Most of the films that I've written, made in my life, I've written. Not all, but most I would say.

You're trying to create a screenplay and your screenplay is there to give you a structure, rigidity, situational awareness, who the characters are, what do they want, what's the shape of the thing.