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.

As soon as you think you know Clint Eastwood, you don't know Clint Eastwood.

I was fired from my own television show, CBS's Family Law. It was the second time this had happened in my career, the first being when I was fired from The Facts of Life. I had been grateful to work in TV for so long but had always been chasing a career as a feature writer-director and had completely failed.

I wanted to do a political film that is as nonpartisan as can be, because I wanted to do a story that was American. I wanted to tell an American tragedy.

I optioned the magazine article. That was end of 2003. It was a time when the war was incredibly popular here and everyone was driving around with flags on their car, if you remember not too long ago.

United States could be a great country. It needs to be a great country. It's our responsibility as citizens to make that happen, every single one of us.

The stereotypes we pretend that we reject are ingrained in our DNA.