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.

I'm doing an over-the-shoulder shot on a dog. I'm putting the camera behind the dog's shoulder. This is craziness. You just accept it in the movie [Valley of Violence], but when you make the movie, it's the weirdest thing. There's dog coverage, like it's a person.

The bad guys, when they start getting picked off, they're upset that their friends died, too. But that's the thing. That's what life is. It's that weird gray area.

I wrote [Valley of Violence] entirely with James Ransone in mind. I get such a joy out of watching his performance and seeing people watch this. He's so great. The bravado thing and the foolishness, he does them both so well. It's weird because he's so hateable in the movie, but in the end, you're also going, "I feel bad for him." That's hard to do. It's hard to do that to where you're like, "This guy's the worst, but I know why he's the worst, so it's a shame this is happening." That's the whole thing.

Older actresses apparently have no sense of humor about being older actresses.

To me it's not so much that the movies are slow-paced as much as they are about spending time building a relationship between the audience and the characters. If you don't spend an adequate amount of time doing this, then how can you expect to scare anyone?

It's not the plot [of Valley of Violence] - the plot is the reason to get all these things to happen, all these character moments to happen. It was always meant to have these two perspectives.