I've learned there are a lot of people that don't want to believe the Holocaust ever happened because it doesn't fit their other beliefs and so they deny it and it makes them sleep better at night to do so. But it makes the Holocaust survivors sleep better at night to know that we've given them a voice.

There's been more written about Lincoln than movies made about him or television portraying him. He's kind of a stranger to our industry, to this medium. You have to go back to the 1930s to find a movie that's just about Abraham Lincoln. I just found that my fascination with Lincoln, which started as a child, got to the point where after reading so much about him I thought there was a chance to tell a segment of his life to to moviegoers.

Before I go off and direct a movie, I always look at four films. They tend to be The Seven Samurai, Lawrence Of Arabia, It's A Wonderful Life and The Searchers.

My father had many, many veterans over to the house, and the older I got the more I appreciated their sacrifice.

I am an American Jew and aware of the sensitivities involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

I think all directors should be animators.

Bloated budgets are ruining Hollywood - these pictures are squeezing all the other types of movies out of Hollywood. It's disastrous.