I like movies that leave things in the hands of the audience.

I'm not sure I understand the compulsion to label things.

I think you make the movie in your head that you have to make, and you have to get it out of you. You have all these pretentious reasons why you want to do it, and you set out to accomplish them. And you think "This is important for what I'm trying to accomplish for the story," and I think those reasons will come through to an audience, and they will find it. That's the best you can do.

It's one of those things, when you look back on it, you'd go, "Oh, I could've done without that. If I could go back in time, I would do it different." That's the thing with violence in general.

Of course, we talked about Westerns we like with [James Ransone in Valley of Violence] , but it was always thematically in relation to the movie and what the themes of the movie were.

I don't think you want to preach to people. I don't think In A Valley Of Violence, and the same with The Sacrament, there's a social commentary and a political element to both the films, but it's not like, "Think this because I think this."

If you ever see the director pulling people aside, that means something's not working. Because you're trying to figure out why it's not working. But we would show up, we would talk about it.