It turns out that good actors can make anything believable.

You don't do pictures because the audience is ready for them. You do them because there's something gnawing at you, something inside.

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.

I’m a deeply broken person, and broken institutions fascinate 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.

I don't think writers should write about answers. I think writers should write about questions.

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.