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.

Tommy Nohilly, who plays Tubby [ Valley of Violence], he came down to see the movie for the first time and I was like, "You've got to come just to see people react to your [big scene]." I knew that would go well, but it's satisfying to me when he's sitting there and it actually does.

I have a romantic comedy I'd love to make, but I can't get the money for it. It's hard to get people to give you money for an arty romantic comedy when you've done a horror movie. So I can just sit there and keep complaining about that, or I can go make another horror movie this year. People will get behind me on that, because I'm relatively bankable. As long as I can do my own thing with it, I'll keep doing it.

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.

It's funny, because I don't think of my films as "slow-burn." I don't even know if I was familiar with the phrase until people started labeling me with it.

You have to. But I generally try - I'll creep in the back. I'll be outside. I'll pace around. I don't really get that nervous about whether people like [my films].

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.