The only time I judge an actor on set is if they're not failing; if they get it right all the time, I start to question it. I feel like it's too easy.
In terms of Ray Liotta, when I was a teenager growing up in Colorado, I didn't have pictures of girls on my wall. I had pictures of Ray Liotta on my wall. Along with Mike Patton, he was one of my heroes.
I grew up Catholic, so I feel guilty about everything.
I feel like the job of an artist is to confront their own darkness and their own demons and fears. And I want to make movies that feel human up on the screen. I don't really relate to dudes wearing spandex and capes.
Look, pain is there in the world, and there's catharsis through that. I feel like there's... a rapture, if we can get through it, if we can confront things.
With each character in a movie, I'm looking for a human being. I'm looking for a person. And to me, I'm looking for a person that's full of strengths and weaknesses, a person that's full of successes and failures, a person that's full of joy and sorrow. I'm interested in people that are human beings that are alive.
I'm not the greatest reader. I feel like I have a bit of dyslexia or something, and that's probably why I became a filmmaker. I have the need to communicate, the need to tell stories; and the need to understand stories led me to movies.
I was an audience member before I'm a filmmaker. All I've tried to do as a filmmaker was to make movies I want to see.
When I grew up, a director was Cecil B DeMille, a guy sitting down with a megaphone speaking. He was the voice of God, the image of God. When I went to start making docs, I quickly turned the megaphone to my ear not to my mouth. It's more about funneling in the words and listening as doc filmmaker.
Now, I love movies so much, but I find a lot of movies to be arrogant in the way they're kind of know-it-alls - they have perfect characters on the screen that know everything about themselves.
There's something so great when you're watching a movie when you slowly get to know somebody more, because it's like a real relationship.
I don't think we ever know 100 percent of a person, even ourselves, but I think in families, you get closer to people's secrets and people's darkness - and their light, the full contrast of a person.
There was a time in my early 20s when I would leave a movie theater and just feel so alone and lonely afterwards. I just felt like my life was nothing like those characters up on the screen, so perfect all the time. Why didn't I talk like that? Why don't I look like that?
I think people need fantasy, but I think they also need to know that they're not being lied to. I think sometimes the fantasy can betray people and become more difficult for people's lives than just truth. I can't stand delusion. Delusion makes me sick.
One reason Cassavetes is a hero to me is that his movies grew with him; they reflected the stages of his life. He made movies about where he was at that time. That's what I want to do with my films.
