I work very hard to line up stereotypes and then smash them with a hammer.
I just lost interest in performing.
I learned a tremendous amount about dialogue because I suffered as an actor.
Violence is literally the glue of the cycle of life, and yet I think that we're the only species that does it maliciously.
Once I finished 'Sicario,' I knew I wanted to follow it up with 'Hell or High Water.'
Part of our job as storytellers is to show people pockets of the world that they don't know. The more we understand, the more we don't judge.
I mean... directing is a holy, unpleasant experience, to be perfectly honest.
'Kramer vs. Kramer' is one of my favorite films, where you have a story that really juxtaposes a lot of ideas that we have about family and about parenting.
Think about 'GoodFellas': It could be a textbook on how not to write a screenplay. It leans on voice-over at the beginning, then abandons it for a while, then the character just talks right into the camera at the end. That structure is so unusual that you don't have any sense of what's going to happen next.
I watched a lot of old movies. Clint Eastwood movies, a lot of John Wayne films, a lot of movies that celebrated the region of where I lived.
I let characters be human and flawed and relatable.
I've made up little mantras for myself, catchphrases from a screenwriting book that doesn't exist. One is 'Write the movie you'd pay to go see.' Another is 'Never let a character tell me something that the camera can show me.'
Plot is just not my gift. I'm fascinated with complex characters, and that doesn't mix well with complex plots. And by the way, when the plot is simple, you can move one piece around and make it feel fresh. Hell or High Water's a good example: I don't tell you why the brothers are robbing the bank.
You know that saying, 'You broke it, you bought it'? With horses, if you don't make sure it's a good fit... they tend to break you.
I didn't know if I could make a good movie. But I knew I could make a respectful one.
My job is not to give you all the answers. My job is to ask the questions.
I think film cannot only teleport you to places you don't know, but it can help you see people you thought were one way and in fact are another. They can allow us to examine ourselves.
How can you tell your kid, 'You can be anything you want to be,' if you're not trying to do the same?
I was going to be the head wrangler at a ranch in Wyoming, and the reason I didn't take the job is because I couldn't have my family there - the family had to stay in town. I just wasn't willing to do that.
Sometimes audiences want to see what we're doing to their world. It's our obligation sometimes to reflect it.
