I think what inspires me is in a constant state of flux...it's easier to stick to photographers and perhaps cinematographers, though the great medieval, Mannerist, and Baroque painters of Italian, Spanish, Flemish, and German origin are a constant source of inspiration, along with select modernists like Dali.
I've been lucky to be able to work with great people and on interesting material.
I'm fascinated by how ethnic communities have assimilated into massive capitalist environments.
I'm sure there are directors who don't like to work with actors and don't know how to be sensitive to actors.
When you don't understand the fashion world you're just grateful you get to wear good clothes.
My playing music is strictly for fun. When I was in a band, I was really excited to talk about it since I had never really played music to that extent. It was never meant as something I would consider as anything more than having fun with my friends. But I think I would enjoy writing music for the movies that I'm working on.
I don't really like watching my work. I don't mind watching it when I was a little kid because I forgive myself a lot, since I was a little kid.
If you want to make movies you need to think on a micro-micro level and figure out how to make them for nothing with people who really care about your movie and really want to make it.
And also, that's the kind of wonderful thing about film culture, is the interaction between films and who works on what, where they were before, and now what they're doing now, and that inevitably informs how people view a film.
You don't share the things you're forced to share [on a movie set].
There are two parts of me. There's the really critical, film-nerd part of me that loves that, and then there's the part of me where I'm like, "I really didn't like that movie, but I want to work with that director because he loves actors."
I'm actually embarrassed to tell people I'm Russian these days, because it's become such an awful place.
It would be nice to live off the land and fix cars.
I've been lucky to play characters that are really broad.
I'm not passive aggressive. If something bothers me, I think about it, then I act on it. I express it.
Communism destroyed so many generations. I look at my grandparents and their generation, and it's as if their lives were taken from them. It's really sad and frightening that something like that could have happened. But I don't really think of myself as Russian anymore. I didn't even live there for that long.
Every relationship I've been in becomes long-distance because of work. It's never worked out. It puts an intense strain on the relationship, and at a certain point, it becomes too difficult.
I want things to be characters and not me. Why would I want to play me?
I don't feel any connection to Russia.
Teenagers are like atoms when they're moving at hundreds of miles an hour and bouncing off each other. Everybody's got such a crazy hormonal drive and reacting to each other differently and getting upset over little things. High school puts all these potential explosions in one place.
Russia itself is an extremely complex country, and sometimes I feel like all of that comes back to haunt me. I can see why so many Russian writers were so tortured.
I tried ice-skating and wasn't very good at it.
Most of the girls I know are from my school. I've gone to school with the same people since fourth grade, so I can't wait to go to a place where I don't know anybody.
I don't hang out at trendy Hollywood bars.
