Actor

The movies I make - the goal isn't a mass audience. They're not expensive films. So the attempt is to reach a much more limited audience - one would say an audience that enjoys films that challenge them emotionally and intellectually.

My education - my Ph.D. in storytelling - comes from having worked on it, being a lover of film and watching them, from working with some great writers and some very good TV directors and then working with some who weren't.

I had to push exposition through dialogue, which is really, really hard for an actor do.

Bad people sometimes do good things, and good people do really bad things or do something the audience disagrees with.

Plot is just not my gift. I'm fascinated with complex characters, and that doesn't mix well with complex plots. And by the way, when the plot is simple, you can move one piece around and make it feel fresh. Hell or High Water's a good example: I don't tell you why the brothers are robbing the bank.

My job is not to give you all the answers. My job is to ask the questions.

There's not a lot of pure evil in the world, but it's amazing how little it takes to do great damage.

'Kramer vs. Kramer' is one of my favorite films, where you have a story that really juxtaposes a lot of ideas that we have about family and about parenting.

I wanted 'Hell or High Water' to feel like a road movie and an exciting, fun film - until it's not.

I broke a lot of conventions. Look, I spent a long time as an actor. I spent a lot of time playing pretty ordinary arcs.

If you're going to make a sequel to 'Sicario', you have to - you know, you've got to go beat a brand new path.

How can you tell your kid, 'You can be anything you want to be,' if you're not trying to do the same?

One of the major issues that's constantly batted around Hollywood and the media is my industry's responsibility toward the portrayal of violence. There's the irony of the films that glorify it and the individuals taking positions against it. It's a very confusing, confounding place.

Unfortunately, there is still much to mine in this world and explore creatively.

I saved every script I'd ever worked on as an actor.

To get a film in Cannes is a real honor. To have it play and not get booed is a real relief.

I was surprised by how much I liked 'Hacksaw Ridge' and its depth.

I've been very fortunate with my three spec scripts - which is sort of my thematic trilogy of the American Frontier. With 'Sicario', 'Hell or High Water' and then 'Wind River' - which is the third - there were no rewrites. It was the first draft for all three.

Until you've been to Cannes, it's hard to describe to someone the magnitude of that festival.

I made a very conscious decision to quit acting. I was on a series, and we were in the process of renegotiating. They had an idea of what they thought I was worth, and I had an idea that was quite different.