If You're Not Making Epic,

I Spend A Long Time Casting, But Once I've Cast A Film There's A Reason Why I Selected Those People. So I'm Hands-on In Selecting The Cast, Hands-off To See What They Do With Their Characters, And Hands-on Again To Offer Suggestions.

I'd Love To Be A Director-for-hire And Get A Nice Paycheck And Captain One Of Those Big Ships, But I Think Studios Mistakenly Think I Want To Write What I Direct - Which I Don't. I Write Out Of Desperation, Because I Never Get A Script I Like, Other Than "nebraska." It's A Matter Of: What's The Screenplay? Is It Intelligent? Is It Human? I Don't Care What Genre, What Scale. I'm Here For The Movies.

I Don't Think So Much About Verbal Comedy. I Always Think About Visual Comedy. I Was Raised Watching Silents, And I'm Always Thinking About How To Make Cinema, Not Good Talking - Although I Want Good Talking. I'm Much More Interested In Framing, Composition, And Orchestration Of Bodies In Space, And So Forth. My Goal Is Always What Chuck Jones Wanted His Warner Brothers Cartoons To Be, Which Was If You Turn Down The Sound, You Could Still Tell What's Going On. I Think If You Watch Most Of My Films With The Sound Off, You Could Still Tell What's Going On.

I Never Wanted Money Worries To Slow Me Down Or Make Me Take A Job I Didn't Want.

Just Because I Make Films Doesn't Mean I Think They're Great. I Just Make Them And Then When I'm Done With Them I'm Just A Filmgoer Like I Always Am. They're All Lessons. I'm Still In Film School, Honestly. And This One Is Just A Dry Run For Whatever The Next One Is.