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

I like to write about things about which I have no answers, questions that trouble me. These things trouble me.

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.

You have to be careful of the advice you take.

Walk through Santa Monica and try to find somebody who knows a young man or woman who's in this war. Here, war is an intellectual concept. If you lose your son or daughter, it's no longer an intellectual matter.

We all have these tendencies in us that could go this way or that. I think that's the real key in writing. To look at a character without judgment.

Always write from your gut, no matter what the project is.