Saying that all documentaries are the same is like saying all foreign films are the same.

I never saw a department store Santa as a kid. My mother was afraid to take me.

The thing I was up against in documentary films - was trying to get non-actors to convincingly play themselves in a way I'd come to know before the camera started rolling. And many non-actors can't do that convincingly, even if they just have to play themselves - they can't be naturalistic. And I would always want to recreate something I'd witnessed them do or say, and it just would be incredibly difficult because of the fact they weren't actors.

There's no choice left in America anymore. Anything that's authentic and genuine, anything that grew out of any sense of tradition, is wiped out. We're left with this bland monoculture that's swept over the whole country.

Dialogue that's distinctive, funny, peculiar, and specific is the main thing that makes me want to get involved with a film to begin with.

It's certainly a difficult time right now to try to make small, smart films. I'm not trying to be self-serving, but you get to Hollywood, and if you want to make something big and loud and dumb, it's pretty easy.

Because I found myself telling the story of his family to people without the visual aids that I was able to employ by filming them eventually. But I very much knew exactly what I was going to do.