I just love actors, and I've always loved actors. I empathize with their job. Everyone thinks it's easy, and it ain't. To be that vulnerable and brave on camera is tough.

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.

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.

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

If there's magic in boxing, it's the magic of fighting battles beyond endurance, beyond cracked ribs, ruptured kidneys and detached retinas. It's the magic of risking everything for a dream that nobody sees but you.

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

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