Quote

It's funny: as a director, there are movies you make because you're passionate about getting your vision across, and you know that you're vision is different than anybody else. In those cases, you take the plunge, and it works, or it doesn't. You make the stylistic choices based on how you feel about the material.

When a director is also a writer, everyone on the production looks to him, knowing he gave birth to the idea. There's a different level of viability.

Different people have different styles, but there is an opportunity as a director to be a writer in every moment, with every visual cue and every piece of production design. Everything is a decision, and everything can be obsessed over.

Being a writer-director can sometimes make you incredibly blinkered.

In my first film, we always tried to have a script and work in a normal way, but I was constantly changing things during shooting. Because I worked as a scriptwriter for 10 years, I understood that directors always wanted to change what was originally written, to improve on it.

A lot of directors prefer the solitude of the editing process, but I revel in the craziness of what a film set is.

Oddly, in a sense, I still have more confidence as a director than my ability as a writer. Somehow, directing is just really easy. It's just about being really honest about how you feel about what you're seeing.

I've never been a fan of directors who clutter a piece with all sorts of crazy preconceptions or weird ideas.

I mean, there are many other directors who are probably both more skilled and excited to adapt novels or work within certain genre conventions. I'd like to do that kind of work someday, but for better or worse I'm too drawn by my own material.

I had never thought of myself as a director and found out that I was not. I am a writer who was able to direct the films that I write.