We never did just one take. Multiple takes. Many. I did a bunch. Sometimes I do one take. Sometimes I did 20.

All the studios are owned by multinational corporations, which are not usually bastions of the left. So all the actors, writers, and directors - or at least a great majority of them - live in fear because we're all insecure, we all want that next job, we all want to be loved, and we don't want to piss off some studio chief who won't hire us for the next movie.

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.

You don't make a film because the audience is ready for it. You make a film because you have questions that are in your gut.

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.

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

Every 10 years, I know less about love and relationships. The smarter I get, the less I know.