I think every film I make that puts characters in jeopardy is me purging my own fears, sadly only to re-engage with them shortly after the release of the picture. I'll never make enough films to purge them all.

I've been shooting movies and television shows for now 47 years and I've worked with the best of them and [Kirk Douglas] is the only movie star I ever met.

Cell phones tend to bring us more inside of our lives whereas movies offer a chance to escape, so there are two competing forces.

I've always wanted to tell a story about Lincoln. I saw a paternal father figure; I saw someone who was completely, stubbornly committed to his ideals, to his vision.

It's still a mystery to me, but even though my mother was like an older sister to me, I kind of put her up on a pedestal.

I really trust the authenticity of real people and my job is to get them to be themselves in front of the camera. Often what happens is, you'll get a newcomer in front of the camera and they'll freeze up or they imitate actors or other performances that they've admired and so they stop becoming themselves. And so my job as the director is just to always return them to what I first saw in them, which was simply an uncensored human being.

Social media has taken over in America to such an extreme that to get my own kids to look back a week in their history is a miracle, let alone 100 years.