I don't really distinguish between a fictional hero and a real life hero as a basis for any comparison. To me, a hero is a hero. I like making pictures about people who have a personal mission in life or at least in the life of a story who start out with certain low expectations and then over achieve our highest expectations for them. That's the kind of character arc I love dabbling in as a director, as a filmmaker.

Documentaries are the first line of education, and the second line of education is dramatization, such as 'The Pacific'.

A lot of the films I've made probably could have worked just as well 50 years ago, and that's just because I have a lot of old-fashion values.

For one thing, I don't think that anybody in any war thinks of themselves as a hero.

People have forgotten how to tell a story. Stories don't have a middle or an end any more. They usually have a beginning that never stops beginning.

I quit college so fast I didn't even clean out my locker.

I get very, very anxious on the set. I have a thousand ideas and I don't censor myself. I wind up cutting some of them out in the editing room... I shoot [needless footage] and then don't use later on in the process.