Love is a mess, at best, and I figure it can be very real in spite of all the things people try to attach to it.

I really love to make movies.

Today, maturity is a word I associate with spirituality. It's one of those words that cause people to change their voice. When your voice gets higher because of what you're saying, there's a problem. To me, the conflict of life is part of the joy of life. There's got to be a recognition of the friction that exists. Maturity seems somehow about getting careful. I don't want to be careful.

If you're willing to put two thoughts into a picture then you're already ahead of the game.

Well, the kind of central question: "Do you want to live - and I don't mean stay alive - do you want to feel your life while you're living it?" You know, there's somewhere to go that was here before we were and is going to be here after us, so get out there in it. It doesn't take somebody who's got some self-important sense of their own attachment to nature to recognise that you're just stupid if you don't go out there.

In short form I'll say it was an approach to the family and to [author] Jon Krakauer that then led to me seeming to rise to the top of the heap of several filmmakers that were trying to get the rights. And by top of the heap I mean in terms of being somebody that was trusted to do it as they said they were going to attempt to do it and that this way of doing it would be something they would be willing to allow.

I've never really been one to get what they call stage fright so much.