Everything kind of has a message in it.
When people are committed to things, and the world view they have is no longer in alignment with our world view, then it becomes funny.
Not to be negative, but I think the biggest lesson is don't trust anyone.
I usually just do, like, studio jobs, re-writes and stuff.
It's so rare when marketing and press doesn't ruin your movie.
I don't try to make actors play crazy characters. I like where there's a certain element of who they are and truth to their performances.
For me, the whole idea of performance is not being self-aware, and then sort of just experiencing.
I try to keep everything under wraps. Everything I can do to make sure people don't know what they're getting themselves into, I will do it.
I am interested in all aspects of filmmaking, so I have an opinion on every aspect, so sound design, score, cinematography, editing - all that stuff I have experience doing myself, so I had a very strong idea of what I wanted, and I got, for the most part, people that were able to articulate that idea, which was nice.
I grew up in suburbia, so it's a world I'm familiar with... but in my experience, all the families that I grew up thinking were the perfect families who kept it together... all their secrets would come out, and it'd be something dark and disgusting beneath the surface, so I wanted to exploit that.
Having been through breakups when you get back with the person thinking it's going to work the second time - it never does.
It's life, so you're a constant evolution of tragedies and achievements and ups and downs. You can probably get a little bit more immune to things, but whatever is the most amount of pain you feel at any given moment feels like the most amount of pain you'll ever feel.
I hate when people eat food and talk with their mouth full. I always cover my mouth when I eat, but I've had it where there's little bologna bits flying on your food.
I've always maintained that people that are funny and smart can do anything in film.
You show a movie to your friends when you're working on it, but you don't have any real objectivity. You just don't know. So that moment when it's shown for the very first time at Sundance, it's just terrifying. I'm so anxious. And then every screening is different.
If it feels like you're aiming for something too familiar, and you're not having a primary new experience, then what's the point of making that movie? It's been done before, so try to find something new out of it.
I'm just trying to get an exposure and make my day.
I wanted to do something a little bit more feminine after my second movie, 'Joshy,' which was so masculine.
I was reading a lot of Jacques Derrida at the time, writing 'Beth.' He actually talked about zombies.
In Judaism, the temple was the most holy site in the world. But if you extend that argument as a metaphor, and you say 'The world is a holy place,' and you're treating this holy place like a money-lending psycho, then Jesus says, 'This is hypocrisy!' and he'd point it out and flip it over.
