I think success is a lot more healthy than failure.

You try to make them comfortable so they can do what they're best at, and make them shine. You always want to make an actor shine. I'm of the mind that there's no one - you, your mother, anyone, that if in the right place at the right time in the right context, couldn't shine in a movie. And so if it means, "Oh, I have to make them uncomfortable," then whatever it takes to get what I need up onscreen. It's all in the service of the story.

Art has a smaller audience than, say, movies or other forms of mass consumption. But that doesn't mean the work doesn't have an impact in a way that transcends just a few cultural arbiters.

One thing I want to say: I don't like victim stories and I don't write them.

Optimism is not inherently a superior way of viewing the world. Certainly doctors will say it might be better for one's physical health to be an optimist. But, morally speaking it may not be appropriate in certain circumstances.

You always have to be ahead of the audience so that they have to always catch up and know the movie's not quite going exactly where you think it's going, or expecting it to be going.

We say we embrace humanity, but what does that mean? We are all defined by our limits, so to what extent can we embrace all this? Because we all contain within ourselves equally the capacity for kindness, as much as for cruelty or evil. And the best of us are able to suppress those baser impulses, instincts. That's the war within.