My biggest fear in life is to be average.

I consider myself an independent filmmaker.

The whole world makes comic book movies now.

I'm so from the Woody Allen/Spike Lee school.

Is it possible that there are no coincidences?

I'm a big believer in our connection to nature.

I have a naive outlook on life. That's who I am.

Always in life bad times will lead to great times.

When you find your voice, your life takes on grace.

I've been asked to direct pilots for a lot of shows.

I grew up watching Steven Spielberg and scary movies.

There is no one looking out for us. We are all alone.

I find it very eerie when somebody is being really polite.

I don't want to pretend I'm any cooler or smarter than I am.

The beauty is that we can blur film and TV a little bit more.

I always thought I was going to be the film guy until I died.

There's a monster outside my room, can I have a glass of water?

Filmmakers have to find the right materials to match their [voice].

If I'm hesitant at all about an idea, then that's not the right idea.

My normal cycle for movies is eighteen months and each part is separate.

That's something we should be taught as kids: To be okay with ourselves.

Anime is intended to have ambiguous features. That's part of the art form.

My secret to all casting, and specifically kids, is cast good human beings.

I feel most akin as an artist, in my life and my career, to Agatha Christie.

You don't want to watch classics with me 'cause I'm constantly writing notes.

The thing that's protected me creatively is that the movies have made profits.

I'm from that world where I feel so comfortable making small independent movies.

I storyboard every shot of my thrillers in general. I draw them out and do them.

If ever I was feeling down I would go and write something. It's a form of escape.

Giving should be a part of your routine, just like working out, eating, and sleeping.

I want to make a bunch of small movies. I'm really interested in that for me in the future.

Saw #‎ Birdman . Such singular, audacious filmmaking. Can't stop thinking about the ending.

I like to write in a shroud of secrecy because I have to keep finding ways to scare myself.

You're never the same. You're degrading, or you're getting better. You don't stay the same.

People who come to see my movies, you're coming to see a drama masquerading as a genre piece.

I've never had an issue with studios. I believe in them as true creative partners in the process.

Sometimes we do not do things that we wish to do, so others will not know that we wish to do them.

Most of the time, I don't watch classics with anybody. I have to be by myself. That's my classroom.

I'm super confident about creative stuff, and I'm really not confident about human interactions stuff.

I don't like to chase an audience. You can smell when someone is chasing an audience and it's not good.

I love 'The Killing', I love 'Homeland' and 'Mad Men', all those shows that lean into the tone of things.

There's no staying where you were. If you're not doing anything, your skills and point of view are atrophying.

Sometimes people can write really great scenes and even a great episode, but they can't see the bigger picture.

You don't have your film finished when you have your director's cut finished. It's just a bunch of green screen.

When I was a kid, I had two great guilty pleasures. One was horror movies and the other was martial arts movies.

I'm so consistent that my director's cuts are usually 20-25 minutes longer than the released version of the movies.

My directing style is long takes. The longer take I can do, the more I can think of not doing it in cuts, the better.

If I had a big brother who was a year older than me or something, I probably wouldn't have ended up being a filmmaker.

The first two movies I directed failed, when I was 21 and 23, and that was the greatest thing that could have happened.

I had a desire to do TV and wanted to get in, in the right way, knowing that I was going to learn a lot, along the way.

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