If you make a film and then two and a half, three years later, suddenly the country's changed and you look like you just happened to hit it. I actually like being contrarian. I would have preferred to come out three years ago when everyone was disagreeing with me. But hopefully it asks a lot of questions about our responsibility in sending young men and women to war, especially a war that's so complex, where there's no right answer, where they're forced with impossible decisions every day.

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

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

When we're threatened, it's very easy to appeal to our basic natures.

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.

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

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.