Producer

There are a handful of music docs I'd love to do, including David Bowie.

You tend to put your rock stars on pedestals - they seem like they've been there for time immemorial. But you realize that the rock stars have their own rock stars. They were fans and kids once, too.

I always tell aspiring documentary filmmakers, 'You have to go into it because you love it; if you go into it for the money, you're an idiot.' The number one prerequisite is you have to be intensely curious. If you love learning and trying to make people figure out what makes people tick, it's the best job in the world.

I think of myself as a cultural filmmaker.

I feel like - like Netflix is great if you've got a project ready to launch itself into the world rapidly.

I've produced two docs for Cameron Crowe, and I've always loved him as a filmmaker.

Space is something which makes us question our role here on Earth. It brings out the best of our hopes and dreams.

I so often doubt how much people on television believe what they're saying. They're playing roles for think tanks or political parties or shills of whatever stripe.

The problem with a lot of narrative films is that they're not real enough.

Non-fiction or documentaries can tell any kind of a story because they don't have to adhere to the rules of what's possible. When you're making something up, you have to say, 'Well, this is what would happen here,' but in reality, stuff happens that seems impossible.

I wish I didn't care about what people thought as much as Keith Richards doesn't care.

I love documentaries. I love the format. I've been doing them for a long time.

Like the ancient Silk Road itself, 'The Sound of Silk' will make the foreign familiar while challenging long-held notions of identity and our place in the world.

As a writer, I think about films I work on in a traditional Hollywood kind of a way. I'm curious to see how it translates.

When you come to documentaries, the stakes are too low for it to be cutthroat. You're all doing it for the right reasons.

Church singing is a great training ground.

I always like learning the small details about a subject.

In a weird way, our satirists probably have the most complicated, nuanced views of our politics now - Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, John Oliver. I don't know what that says about our country.

'The Sound of Silk' will serve as a lens for larger questions about cultural identity in a global society and the potential for individuals to act as catalysts for change.

I knew who Buckley and Vidal were growing up, being a political junkie.