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

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

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.

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 it's the job of filmmakers to give anybody answers. I do think, though, that a good film makes you ask questions of yourself as you leave the theatre.

We are manipulated by fear and the fear of others, and how we're often manipulated into doing things and voting in ways that are against our own best interest. Look at healthcare. People will tell you that healthcare is socialism and communism, and they're doing this while their wife needs an operation and their kid needs braces.