I think having funny characters is just one way of having three-dimensional characters.

[Valley of Violence] was written for James Ransone. PJ's a friend of mine, I've known him for a long time, he's always like, "Dude, when are we going to make a movie together?" I finally called him.

It is a very classic Western [Valley of Violence], and if you like Westerns, you'll like this movie, but there's a tone to it that's all its own that I think is unique and memorable.

I've done it with all my films. I always keep an eye on the first time I show it because... I don't know. Neurosis.

In a traditional Western there's always the bravado, and it's almost like they're winking that they know they're in a Western - "Look how good I can spin my gun." In real life, when the bad guy kills somebody, or they're bad guy friend gets killed, they're upset, too, which is not typical in Westerns.

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.

Ethan [Hawke] just - they got along great. He got to act with a dog, for real, and it felt like Jumpy was acting with him. It was a surreal thing to watch. When you watch the movie [Valley of Violence], you just kind of accept it. But if you do think about how we show - there's a dog and a movie star interacting - and you buy it. That's crazy.