If I do three movies in a year, I don't feel like acting ever again.
I think having nature be a part of people's lives helps all of us see ourselves as part of something larger.
It's a really unique job that is a little schizophrenic and you have to kind of do it with a sense of humor.The trick is figuring out what each job is asking of you and what it's not asking of you.
It is very difficult for any couple who are married if both people are ambitious. I don't know if it's just too hard to be married to a woman that wants to be a movie star.
I love really exploring... you know, a cop drama for example is a great way to explore class in this country and explore, you know, really, identity in the country and who we are in a way that is extremely exciting, but it's also real, you know, it's also real people and real drama. The same with the military. I mean, a good science fiction story is also great.
I remember being a kid and sleeping over at my friend's house and staying up late and watching 'Nosferatu.' Vampire movies are supposed to be secret and bad. They should be rated R.
I always felt that a marriage works best at a farm... where you're together and everybody has clear-cut roles; they have chores, 'you take care of this' and you know. But it's hard.
Most of us float with the river and there are a few people who move the river. Robert DeNiro is definitely one of them.
Often you see a famous actor who says they produced something, when all they did was claim to have an idea at a dinner party and make three phone calls.
It's interesting to work with Emma [Watson] so quickly after Harry Potter. When we shot this movie, it wasn't that long after Harry Potter was finished, and it's knowing that's a big transition in her life. She's a very talented young woman.
What I learned about acting, from my experiences directing, is why so many producers and directors don't like actors. You go through all of this work securing a location, figuring out how to get electricity there, how to get trucks parked where they need to be, and where catering is going to come from. And if the actors don't come up with some magic, it actually didn't matter. That creates a lot of animosity towards the actors.
In truth, the world is a complicated place.
'Brooklyn's Finest,' this is the kind of movie that's why I want to be an actor, to tell real-life stories. This is where I feel my job is, to interpret life.
Right now the only people I can really fall in love with are people who don't really, truly want me around. Now why do I do that?
I remember staying up all night waiting to see the first screening of Cape Fear because you knew that every time Robert DeNiro had a performance it was going to be revelatory. Then DeNiro hit this place, he seemed like he was done with the emotional cost of impaling himself like that, and he dedicated himself to comedy.
Years ago I was going to play Chet Baker in another movie and I really felt drawn to that character and the script is good and I met with Robert and we seemed simpatico and we developed. But I had a real passion for that role and that brought me deep into that film 'cause I got the sense that Robert Budreau was going to really let me be creative inside this part.
I've had several moments in my career where it seemed like I might not age out of the bracket the world wants to put you in. It's hard to keep growing up inside the performing arts. It's very difficult, and presents a lot of unique challenges.
I did this movie, Predestination, and it's one of my favorite movies I've ever made, because sci-fi really lets you talk about ideas in a way that's not pretentious.
I think it's my job to risk looking foolish. One of the things I've learned from the actors I've worked with is you don't get something for nothing. If you don't risk looking foolish, you'll never do anything special.
I'm always trying to look for how I can find human stories that aren't just dramas.
How to make a scary movie human, take a movie like Sinister. How can I make that guy so real so that the scary elements of it are more scary and it functions as a genre movie - as the way it's supposed to, you want to hear a ghost story at midnight, that's a good one - but how do you fill it up with humanity inside, in staying true to the genre? You know? Does that make sense?
The drones are really interesting - how have the troops withdrawn from Afghanistan? Because we've upped the drone strikes and most of the country doesn't even really know what that means or who we're killing or... it's such a new weapon that we don't know what the long term impacts of that kind of military action is going to be.
I really did Regression to work with Alejandro [Amenabar]. I found him very interesting. His movie, The Others, is one of the better scary movies of the last period of time.
Alejandro Amenabar is a different kind of director than I lot of the directors I've asked for. He really asks you to enter his dream as opposed to, you know, a guy like Sidney Lumet or something is going to ask you to create a character almost like a documentary. He wants you to make the people really real and he's going to capture it like a documentarian.
It's certainly an interesting moment to try to talk about, 'cause you could make a great show about the police force right now, with all that's happening in the news and Ferguson and all of it.
