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Before digital and mobile communications effectively tethered us to an invisible, infinite 'wire,' even those with the most hectic schedules were usually willing to answer the phone if they happened to be home when it rang.

I did not have a mobile phone in 1993. No one did, except the occasional banker or Hollywood star seeming smart, or the main character in 'American Psycho.' In 1993, every day was 'let's get lost.' I could walk Greenwich Village for hours and not be found.

You used to be able to just call people. You didn't have to be on someone's calendar to have a phone conversation. The telephone was an important and valuable domain of communication, both for casual, friendly chats and for professional exchanges of ideas and information. But no more.

You're talking to somebody who two years ago couldn't figure out how to use e-mail and who now has carpal tunnel. It has totally changed in that these films would not be getting out to people the way they're getting out without the Internet.

You have to take into account it was the cell phone that became what the modern-day concept of a phone call is, and this is a device that's attached to your hip 24/7. Before that there was 'leave a message' and before that there was 'hopefully you're home.'

When I was going to school in, like, '84 to '88, you didn't have cell phones. There was no e-mail, if you can wrap your brain around that.

The film world is a crazy place to be. You sit around all day waiting for the phone to ring. Are people talking about you or aren't they?

Kids don't know what life was like without cell phones.

The phone is one hundred, one hundred and ten years old. There was a middle period where the government had a broad ability to surveil, but if you look at human history in total, people evolved and civilizations evolved with private conversations and private speech.