Quote

When you go off in the world and make your life, and you come back to your home town, and you find your old high-school friends driving in the same circles, doing the same things, that's what Hollywood's like. It's a little block, little town. It doesn't really grow or change.

I think the perspective that small-town directors bring to films is very different.

Sometimes Hollywood is a small town on the West Coast of America at the furthest point from everywhere else, and that can make it a little provincial and insular.

When I did 'Boyz N The Hood', I never thought how we grew up in South Central was interesting enough for a movie.

Hollywood is the kind of town that likes to make everything larger than life: movie premieres, aging actress' lips, and murders. Actors come from all over the world to find their sliver of fame on the street of L.A. Many stars rise, but many more fall.

And so I love films that are kind of rural in atmosphere. And you know, it's just a nice place to be day after day. All be it, it can be hard, it can be hard work. You can get hot.

Hollywood is a small town, believe it or not. I see the same people over and over, so it's not that overwhelming or crazy as you might think.

Unfortunately, all the cliches we see about Hollywood are true.

I feel like, big city or small town, you can relate to following your parents' footsteps or putting your own dreams on the back burner or vices that we get caught up in - that whole cycle. That's not just a small-town thing. That's a life thing.