The advice you give to young directors for sure is to go out and become some version of a successful movie actor. Do that first and say yes to people like Terrence Malick and Clint Eastwood and Woody Allen when they come and offer you movies. It's a great front row seat to filmmaking.

I'm not going to recommend recklessness but somewhere just short of it - testing yourself and proactively pursuing a rite of passage has become necessary because in western developed countries we've become very comfort-addicted.

On a movie, it's always better to stay invisible as much as you can to keep things calm. I like to whisper to my cameraman, I like to whisper to my actors, and whoever else I've gotten to whisper to.

Fulfilling what you start is why you start something.

I think life's an irrational obsession.

I can't imagine being quite as lucky at any other time - I certainly never have been before. That goes right down from my producing partners to people like Eddie Vedder. But the two things that make me feel that this was meant to be now and not before was that the story itself has more resonance today - I find it a more important story today than it was then - and Emile.

I like to believe that love is a reciprocal thing, that it can't really be felt, truly, by one.