Director

I am always looking for that nuance, that moment of truth, and you can't really do that fast.

I actually enjoyed the struggles that we had trying to shape 'Blood', to get the pacing right, the rhythm of 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.

Of course, I'm no dummy.

You know, I'm really not that competent at describing things musically.

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.

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.

Crazy is so hard to play, there's nothing you can really tell an actor.

But I'd be lying if I didn't say that every time you go to make a film, you're desperate to either do it better than you did it last time or to not repeat yourself.

The films that I love are very straightforward stories, like really old-fashioned stuff.

I think my job is to try and be as honest as I can with what is in my mind and how I feel - I think that's what you're supposed to do, if you're a good writer. So I try to do that. I know I do that. I do do that.

I always had a dream about trying to make a movie that had no dialogue in it, that was just music and pictures. I still haven't done it yet, but I tried to get close in the beginning.

My writing has a lot to do with who I am, and what my life is like, and my relationships to people.

I have a feeling, one of those gut feelings, that I'll make pretty good movies the rest of my life.

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.

Screenwriting is like ironing. You move forward a little bit and go back and smooth things out.

To make a film, the final big collaborator that you have is the composer.

I had never read Upton Sinclair. I didn't read 'The Jungle' in high school or anything like that. But it's pretty terrific writing.

I don't think the competition's so rough, within the majority of movies made in Hollywood.

My older sister was at the cusp of new wave, and I had older brothers from my father's first marriage who were rock 'n' roll guys, so I was exposed to a lot of popular culture.