You hear this story that we're all on the left, but when there's a demonstration, you count how many actors actually come out. If there's a half dozen, that would be a big day.

I really wanted to make a nonpolitical political film. I wanted something that folks in red states and blue states could look at and not ask if this is the right thing to do to be in this war, but what this war is doing to the fabric of our society.

I like taking genres and subverting them. I did that with In the Valley of Elah. I said, "Okay, this is just a murder mystery. Relax." And then, two thirds of the way through, I broke every convention of a murder mystery.

We're trying to reinvent Bond. He's 28 - no Q, no gadgets.

When I started to allow the characters to go where they wanted to go, I just had to follow.

We crash into each other just so we can feel something.

What I love about writing is the contradictions we all embody as human beings.