It's too easy to trivialize people. The Internet does it all the time.

Turn off the sound in a movie, and if you can tell what's going on, the movie should work.

Usually when you meet with a director, just meeting them after you've seen something you're interested in, they say, "Oh I'd love to work together," and sometimes you never hear from them again.

Sometimes you feel like you have to do research to make something, other times you know you don't feel it so much.

When I was a kid I was very interested in the idea of the will, finding out what you're capable of. I liked those kind of challenges.

When I give over to somebody's vision rather than have an idea of what I need to do, it takes me to places I wouldn't have got to by myself. I'm always attracted to a strong director.

While we have a very strong popular culture, the roots of American culture are very shallow, and we put emphasis on how a movie does as far as the box office goes. Many years ago, it would have been vulgar to print box - office grosses in the paper. Now The New York Times does it, and it's the big story for people interested in arts and entertainment on Monday. Which is why emphasis has shifted away from filmmakers and fallen on movie stars and business people.