I find myself in situations a lot where I have to say to someone, "This can be better," and it's hard to say that.

You should never assume anything coming from a critical standpoint. You should go into everything assuming you're going to get crushed.

Men tend to define themselves by what they do, and so if you're dealing with a character who's trying to figure that out, or multiple characters, then there's something there for guys, too.

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.

I've found through experience that I'm only good when I'm writing something that, in essence, only I could write. The times I've written for hire, for other people, I don't think I've done very well.

I was lucky that I was getting exposed to a lot of different kinds of films, and I was liking them all. So it seemed logical to me that you could - as in the style of the studio directors of the 30s and 40s - jump from one genre to the next, with the same satisfaction.

If you're a painter and you want people to know who you are and recognize your work, you've got to build some long-term value.