I believe that filmmakers have to internalize the story and subtext so well that all of the departments can start to speak to each other - that music can speak to cinematography can speak to writing and back again.

I am obsessed with story. I had a late awakening in life. In college was the first time that I understood what you could do with a story and what a good novel is - literary value and subtext and irony and everything.

I don't read books on how to write screenplays just because I'm stubborn. So it's all sort of made up.

All I know is that as an audience member, I am less and less inclined to go to the theater.

The thing that is most important is to feel like you're at the front of the line, to be prime or primer. I definitely never wanted to say that in the films, but that's where it comes from.

I am a control freak but it's important to feel strongly about the material you're working on.

I love to work. It's the idea of having someone else tell you how to make your film or how to sell it - that's the part I can't really deal with. I would rather do 1,000 things that are work than deal with one thing that's a political problem.