If I'm a director and I read a script and I say yeah I really want to do this, I would never walk away because the deal wasn't very good - that I wasn't getting paid very much or that the chances that I would see anything on the back end were remote because of the financial waterfall and the way it's structured. I would never use that as a reason not to do something.

When you get a certain level of resources, and you want things a certain way, I find it difficult to get too belligerent because it's not my money.In this case it is. It’s a lot easier to stand your ground and say “I want it like this” when you know it’s your money you’re spending.

I like to know where I am. I don't like the kind of cutting where you don't know where you are.

Lying is like alcoholism. You are always recovering.

There are people who are originals and the stuff they make really is new. It isn't based on anything else. But I've decided I'm not that-I was never that. My abilities are to synthesize a wide range of references and ideas into something that feels relatively unified and coherent.

Whenever you experiment with something, it's very easy to take the emotion out of it. And going back and forth between wanting to be respected artistically and wanting to move people is its own challenge.

I'm still very affected and moved by their music - maybe in a way that's different from someone who grew up around it.