It started with the Godfather, this operatic violence. I don't know.

I have a tendency to say 'yes' to a script or no to a script. Not 'yes' based on a rewrite.

Actors are embracing a new aesthetic, which is leaning more toward truthful and simple and direct, as opposed to what we would normally call sitcom acting.

I don't know if it's fair to say that it's a bad time for movies. It seems to me that throughout the entire history of filmmaking, every year there have been about two really wonderful movies, about 10 others that are pretty good, and a whole pile of garbage.

We, in America, are so screwed up when it comes to sex. That's all we can see.

Anyway, I try to be a good guy. I try to tell the truth, but I'm not religious.

So much of the violence in the movies is b.s. violence: A guy in the middle of a large city with 14 people lying on the ground that he's just killed with his superhuman powers, and there's not a cop to be found. Not a siren to be heard. No price to be paid. That's not true, and I don't like that sort of stuff.