Every film is a challenge. I always say that making a movie is like film school - you're always learning. But unlike most schools, you never get done with it. You never learn everything.

There's no real rules about what you do [while directing]; it's just you just use your instincts as to the pacing of a film and what is repetitive and what is the minimum amount you can get away with to tell the story, that scene didn't make it in.

To his ex-wife in court, he said I lost interest in you when the Botox lost its effect and you looked like a plastic doll that escaped from a fire.

I think that's the job of a director really, to sort of funnel all the creativity into one centralized point of being.

If you work at love, you will find love at work.

When you're casting a movie and when you're shooting a film, the eyes are the most important feature of any performer, really. Any great actor literally knows exactly how to use their eyes, and even as a filmmaker I love shooting huge close-ups because it's those eyes that mean so much to me.

No matter how many great performances or exciting visuals we put together for the movie, we found that it was all somewhat two dimensional until we added the emotional heart of Howard Shore's music. Then, and only then, did the film come to life.