In 2005, I visited my home state of Texas, spending time on a ranch outside the town of Post. Then spending some time on a large ranch outside Archer City. I was taken by just how few young people I saw anywhere.
You know that saying, 'You broke it, you bought it'? With horses, if you don't make sure it's a good fit... they tend to break you.
I've made up little mantras for myself, catchphrases from a screenwriting book that doesn't exist. One is 'Write the movie you'd pay to go see.' Another is 'Never let a character tell me something that the camera can show me.'
To me, 'Unforgiven' is one of the best films ever made. Aside from the fact it takes the genre and kicks it between its legs, it's this fascinating deconstruction of the myth of the West.
As a filmmaker, you have to stand in front of what you did and make choices that you could do with a clear conscience.
I spent a lot of time doing really unimportant work as an actor. It was important when I started writing that I obviously make it entertaining, or no one is going to go see it - but to really make you think, that is my goal.
To me, a purely good individual or purely bad individual, that's a comic book - that's a fantasy - and I don't do fantasy.
Don't try and make a movie for someone else. You have to make it for you and trust that you're not that unique. And that'll matter to other people as well.
Whether we can call 'Hell or High Water' this rogue buddy bank-heist movie, it's also a meditation on assimilation and failure and what happens when someone loses their purpose.
I think 'In The Heat Of The Night' was one of the most influential films on me. Looking back now, I can see how influential it was on my screenwriting because here you have what looks to be a crime procedural, and it's actually a study in race and loneliness, and a perception of an era.
To me, 'Unforgiven' is one of the best films ever made. Aside from the fact it takes the genre and kicks it between its legs, it's this fascinating deconstruction of the myth of the West.
Where having been an actor was extremely helpful to me was in casting. That's where I think a director who has acted can really shine, and casting is the most important thing you do.
I let characters be human and flawed and relatable. When we do things that aren't that great, we can understand it.
I look for absurdly simple plots so that I can simply focus on the characters. Having an understanding of what dialogue's easy to say and hard to say - I think that that's helpful, too.
With 'Wind River,' I became fascinated with the notion of how you overcome a tragedy - accepting it, making whatever peace you can with it - without ever knowing what really happened.
Violence is literally the glue of the cycle of life, and yet I think that we're the only species that does it maliciously.