The first half [of Valley of Violence] was to endear you to all these people and give you all these archetypes that you're familiar with, and then the second half, just to see all those archetypes unravel like real people.

We can't make a giant sprawling movie. We're going to make a small movie. And what we got is what I could get, performance-wise.

Humor is more so. For this, there's definitely moments that I think, "I know this part is really funny and I want to see people laugh." And they do and you go, "Yesss." That's really satisfying, because I'm so proud of the performances in the movie and everybody worked so hard.

I do think, even though I've made these genre movies, there's what happens in the movie and then there's what the movie's about. And for me, what the movie's about is so much more interesting.

It definitely could have been a horror story [Valley of Violence], oh my God, if the dog was impossible. So could the horses.

Typically, in Westerns, people who are in a Western feel like they're in a Western. It's almost like they know they do all these Western things.

The second half [of Valley of Violence], you're with the guys that you should hate, but when you start seeing what their real lives are, you're like, "I do hate you, but at the same time, all right - maybe take it down a notch." The complications of all that are what's so interesting to me, those esoteric details - that's what people will hopefully take away from the movie.