Screenwriting is like ironing. You move forward a little bit and go back and smooth things out.
I didn’t have any desire I might have had 10 years ago to shoot every single word that I wrote.
Clinton used to like to get out of the White House a lot. He would take night trips to McDonald’s, and stuff like that. I think he wanted to get out of the house.
No matter how many times you do it, you don’t get used to the sadness – for me at least – of coming to the end of a film.
As I have got older and become a father, there’s less and less time for films.
I’ve never been a fan of whimsical or confusing storytelling.
It felt like the first thing, but when I first started out, I got a job adapting a book by Russell Banks called ‘Rule Of The Bone.’ I didn’t do a very good job. I didn’t really know what I was doing in general, let alone how to adapt a book.
You have to be a brat in order to carve out your parameters, and you have to be a monster to anyone who gets in your way. But sometimes it’s difficult to know when that’s necessary and when you’re just being a baby, throwing your rattle from the cage.
I’m not really a Sundance baby, but they helped me so much I feel I have to acknowledge it.
My dad was this sort of avant-garde guy who did all kinds of weird things. He was a true original and anybody who met him never forgot him.
I have a feeling, one of those gut feelings, that I’ll make pretty good movies the rest of my life.
I had the standard movie geek childhood, because for as long as I can remember, all I wanted to do was make movies.
I really subscribe to that old adage that you should never let the audience get ahead of you for a second. So if the film’s abrasive and wrongfoots people then, y’know, that’s great. But I hope it involves an audience.
I write from my stomach.
Of course, I’m no dummy.
I don’t miss scenes at all the way that I used to miss them when I was younger making a film. It’s actually quite fun to get rid of them now.
To make a film, the final big collaborator that you have is the composer.
We’re all children of Kubrick, aren’t we? Is there anything you can do that he hasn’t done?
How do I respond to criticism? Critically. I listen to all criticism critically.
If you figure a way to live without serving a master, any master, then let the rest of us know, will you?
If I say I’m an oil man, you will agree.