The muscle memory of filtering away all the wrong versions of what you're doing improves the more time you're on a film set. I feel like my problem-solving algorithm got kicked up a notch.

I've tried to get better about weighing what I think the accessibility of an idea is against the cost of executing it. I've tried to be smarter about that, because if you're not smart about that, you're going to be unemployed. But I'm still mystified about what works for people. And I'm not talking about my movies, I'm talking in general. I'm mystified by the stuff that doesn't work. I'm mystified by what's going on in the critical side, too.

Once I had a potentially heart attack-inducing eight double espressos in one day. I think my assistant secretly swaps my coffees for decaf as she doesn't want me to die of caffeine overdose.

I don't have any kind of ideology that precludes me from moving in one direction or another. I just want creative autonomy and I want at least an opportunity that it's going to be seen.

Any time I think out loud, 'I can't believe this is my job,' and remember I am a very lucky duck. Whether marshalling hundreds of zombies, doing crazy stunts or shooting big music numbers, I just feel fortunate to have made my passion my vocation.

I look at other filmmakers and see skills in them that I wish I had but I know that I don't. I feel like I have to work really hard to keep myself afloat, doing what I do. But I find it pleasurable.

I always have a plan, but then I'm always ready to throw the plan out, and everyone's ready to make a radical left turn if necessary.