If I can make one generalised statement, and generalised statements are never entirely true, nobody wants to be talked down to, kids included.

I don't understand the whole testing-numbers thing. It is not how I want to make movies.

Finding a kid that could be introspective and internal and thoughtful, and then also be wild and free and guileless and physical, it was hard. So at the end we started getting down to panic time, and we still hadn't found our Max. And we decided to go about it a different way. We said, "Let's just find friends of ours that live in interesting cities in the country that maybe aren't as big, and people that don't do casting." And thinking maybe you find a place that has an artistic community, maybe we'll find some interesting kids from there.

Emotions are messy and hard to figure out.

I feel like everything I make is personal to me.

You make a movie that is about what you want it to be about and let people have their reaction to it.

I think at the beginning of a project, you decide if you're in love with the idea and what it's about, or what you think it's about at that time at least. Then you commit to it, and once you've commit to it no matter what, no matter how many self doubts you have, you're in it. The ship's sailed, you can't turn around.