Michael Mann's always been one of my heroes.

You're in the middle of making a movie and this part of the process is always very interesting. Because you think what you're making your movie is and then you start putting it out there, and then people tell you what your movie is.

Truth is, we offered it to Tom Hanks, which pretty much every movie in America does, but Tom passed. Billy Bob said that Hanks recently called and said he's voting for all of us for Oscars, he loved the film.

There's a picture of the real Coach Gary Gaines in the book and he's sitting in the locker room after a game, and he just looks so much like Billy Bob, that we went to him.

I don't like alien films where you don't get to see the aliens.

I have a tradition of working with actors, over and over again. I've worked with Jason Bateman, over and over again. You get to know an actor, and you get a certain trust and a comfort, and you become really good friends, and you feel like you've got a short-hand.

What first caught my eye about Rihanna was an interview she did with Diane Sawyer after the Chris Brown incident, where she was very articulate, very poised, obviously a smart girl who talked about a very traumatic experience.