I think that the mark of a great book is that it will meet you wherever you're at and you'll feel and experience something new and different each time you read it.
I'll say this, and this has nothing to do with gender or sexuality: You do not want to get licked in the face repeatedly by another human being. You just don't. It's not pleasant.
I distinguish sentiment from sentimentality. Sentimentality makes your skin crawl. It's like too much sugar. But, sentiment is a great feeling.
Acting on stage is still my favorite thing to do. And everyone who's been in musicals knows that there is nothing more fun.
I have really good female friends. I've never bought the whole men-and-women-can't-be-friends thing. I think that's sort of nonsense.
One man's uplift is another man's sentimental hooey.
But, yeah, I'm really happy when I'm writing. When I'm being creative and when I have something that I can put down. You know, if you go out and you overhear a conversation or you have a thought, you have a receptacle to go home and say, 'Oh, this would be great in this script.' Your antenna's out in a different way, and I love that time.
A lot of times, we're just sold these movies that are really cynically conceived and marketed, and they just want you there opening weekend, before everybody finds out it's not so good.
I sometimes don't know what I'm writing when I start writing it, on some level.
My trick is the trick that everyone knows: Work really hard and prepare.
There are just things you can explore in a movie that you can't in 22 minutes with a laugh track.
Time off from the news is always something I welcome.
We are so vocal about what we hate.
There's something melancholy about professors because they're chronically abandoned. They form these lovely relationships with students and then the students leave and the professors stay the same. It's like they're chronically abandoned.
And as a filmmaker, I'm trying to unhook myself from this idea that unless you have a brilliant, long, enormously lucrative theatrical run, that your movie somehow failed. And I don't believe that.
There's something touching about a kid who's reading a book that's printed on actual paper. I think that anything that kids start reading, within reason, can lead to other discoveries.
One thing I'm most proud of, in my movies, is that I think the performances are super-strong, but that's not all me. I think part of it is casting appropriately.
My film school is making movies. But, I do think that being an actor has served me immensely, as both a writer and director, in terms of knowing what is playable and what will be fun to play, for actors, and also how to communicate to actors on set, and not screw them up and get them in their head.
When I'm working, it's great. When I'm not working, it's great.
I feel comfortable with women. I have two sisters, so I grew up in a female-dominated environment.
I really like to travel when I write. Something about seeing new things and being in new cultures and environments provokes new thoughts in your head.
I think a lot of Civil War stuff is written - As they say, history is written by the victors. And one of the things that I think is fascinating about this from a purely dramatic perspective is whether someone is right or wrong, you understand where they're coming from in this.
There's that great Bill Hicks line - the comedian - where he says, "Are you proud to be an American?" "I don't know. It's just where my parents had sex."
I remember the first day I was looking at my hands and I thought about my nails. People wouldn't really be paying attention to that, but a Civil War doctor - What would they be doing with their nails? Would they cut them really low? And Dr. Burns said, "No, they would let them grow out so they can scoop stuff out. They would use their nails." So for a while I let my nails grow. They were too long. I kept stabbing myself by accident, so I cut them down, but I was trying to be faithful to the details.
The attitude of the director is really important, in terms of setting tone.
