When I'm writing a movie, it's usually pretty close to what the movie is going to be, which is just a luxury of being a writer-director.
Just making a movie the way 'All is Lost' had to be made was a great experience, because it was structured differently than any other film I will make for the rest of my life.
I had decent but not great grades in high school because I was highly motivated in some subjects, like the arts, drama, English, and history, but in math and science I was a screw-up. Wooster saw something in me, and I really flourished there. I got into theatre, took photography and painting classes.
To have a second movie that you're proud of and that actually turned out the way you wanted, shot by shot, I realize I'm probably going to be able to do this for a little while for my living.
The original Spencer Tracy version of 'The Old Man and the Sea' was always terribly flawed because of the over-reliance on voice over, but it's still a beautiful movie.
I think my films kind of walk this line that I'm proud of, that they feel sort of like films of my youth, which were far more commercial.
I wrote 'All is Lost' while editing 'Margin Call'. I did that long before I knew if I was ever going to get to make another movie.
When I have people around, I'm a chatterbox. But when I'm alone, I never speak. I don't talk to myself; it's just not my schtick.
I consider myself somewhat spiritual, but not practicing.
As a writer, I had learned a lot on 'Margin Call' about embracing the weaknesses of a narrative and of a project. A story always has an inherent narrative weakness.
That's what film can do in a way that TV and other long-form storytelling can't. It gives you this very immersive moment.
I did not grow up a cinefile. No one in my family was in the film business or even anything close to it.
There is certainly a part of my filmmaking that harkens to a more simpler commercial kind of taste, but then with this there's certainly a kind of avant-garde, abstract, existential element to it.
I grew up in suburban New York City and London, England, where my dad was working.
We print money. The people that print the money is actually us. The government of the United States of America. By its very nature, we control that, and this system is there as representation of us.
I'm a huge fan of the films of the '70s and even into the '80s, Sidney Lumet, all those films that used what was going on in people's lives as drama. And not only are you entertained, but hopefully have a greater understanding of your world coming out of it.
I don't know how you make decisions in your life, but I weigh lots of things, and it's not always the purest of things for why I take a job or do this. I always try to think of the many different factors in my life, and not one is pure greed. One is pure quality of life.
