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As an actor, I had noticed very vividly that very few directors know how to direct actors because they haven't done it.

When you direct a movie, you're basically looking at a story, the way you want to look at it. You bring that director's vision, and I'm totally open for that.

A film is a director's vision... there is, however, much input an actor or actress can have.

My sense is, I think it's okay for directors to do movies that speak to other work in their career.

I'm very manipulative towards directors. My theory is that everyone on the set is directing the film, we're all receiving art messages from the universe on how we should do the film.

The thing that's very close in the process is writing and acting, not directing. Directing's very different.

Part of the process of acting in a film that you're also directing is really trusting the people around you to capture your vision, which hopefully you have communicated well to them.

When I write a screenplay - and I think this is true for a lot of people - you direct the movie. That's what writing a screenplay is.

I think, as directors, they may recognize, more than the rest of the body of filmmakers, exactly what you do as a director, because I think sometimes the conception is if the camera isn't swinging around, and it's not pyrotechnic or worthily melodramatic, then the direction is uninvolved.

It doesn't matter who's directing, or who's doing the movie; there are a ton of things that can go wrong, and they do all the time. So you just have to figure out how to get through it, and then how the director finally puts it together, and then see what the audience takes from it. That's the most important thing to me.