It was always my dream to be a director. A lot of it had to do with controlling my own destiny, because as a young actor you feel at everyone's disposal. But I wanted to become a leader in the business.

I think the most important thing really was that you could take very personal ideas and present them to an audience in entertaining ways.

Confidence is preparation in action.

Every religion, in my opinion, has something to bring, and I think we all learn from everyone that there's no right, perfect way to look at something.

I'm not a caterer. I just have to stay with my creative convictions. At some point, you have to just get past the special-interest groups and do what you're there to do, which is make a movie.

I've just looked for ideas and great characters that I relate to and that I think I can offer something to the audience, and I no longer look at them as experiments or genre exercises at all.

If I had to choose between a great acting job and a good directing job, I'd choose the directing job.