I was in New York 9/11. Mark's [Wahlberg] from Boston, flew there immediately after. I was in Nice Bastille Day when the truck drove through and killed all these people. It's the new reality, unfortunately. The idea of trying to explore how we process this kind of event, how we survive emotionally, what we tell our kids: That was the movie [Patriots Day] we wanted to make.

I think I've been fortunate enough to have a fairly long career and hopefully I'm at the middle of it now. And I think I'm starting to develop a certain amount of experience and a certain amount of wisdom about kind of what really matters and what doesn't matter.

I believe that anything in this world is fair game for a creative exercise.

Working with composers often is a really frustrating experience because you speak a different language and, oftentimes, they take two or three jobs, at the same time. They're difficult and pretentious and they're tormented artists.

I'm pretty upfront about my love and admiration for the military. One of the perks of making movies is that you get to sort of follow your own passions, and I believe quite passionately that we don't pay enough attention and respect to our veterans. Not just our wounded veterans, but all veterans.

I tend to not have to handle things that are probably gonna end up being irrelevant, that aren't gonna have much to do with the film. I have probably a better understanding of really what does matter, when to pick my battles and when to kind of let them go.

Michael Mann's always been one of my heroes.