I'm A Tulsa Jew And

Even My Wife And Two Of My Children Are In "leaves Of Grass". Because I Love The Source Material So Much, It Was Really Easy To Write And An Utter Delight To Get To Direct Because I Had People Like Edward [norton] Elevating The Material And Surprising Me In Their Interpretations Of All Of This Stuff That's So Close To Me.

You Know, Independent Films Have Been Institutionalized, Practically. Every Studio Has Got A Boutique Arthouse Label. There's Like, 18 Different Independent Film-financing Funds. In Fact, I Think The Children Of Those Films Are Getting Made. A More Interesting Question Is Whether Those Films Are Going To Get Seen And Appreciated.

Making Really Great Music, Making Really Great Films, Writing Great Books Is An Antidote To All Of That. And, As People, As Artists, Some Of The Massive Disruption That Technology Is Causing Is So Exciting, The Way That People Can Share Creativity Now.

As An Actor, If You Step To The Side And You Look At [thornton's Performance] Technically, And You Try To Imagine Doing What He Was Doing, Most People Would Panic. Most People Would Be On The Set, And They Would Be Panicking, Going, "i'm Not Doing Anything!" All The Ham Instincts In You Would Be Screaming, "you've Got To Indicate Something Here." And It's Beautiful, In A Way. And So I Appreciate, Even As An Audience Member, The Courage That It Takes To Be... Frankly, To Be Subtle.

If You Try To Make Interesting Films, You're Going To Be Disappointed Most Of The Time. I Choose Just Not To Look At It That Way. I Don't Look At American History X As A Failure, Or Fight Club As A Failure, Or 25th Hour As A Failure, Or Larry Flynt As A Failure, Or Any Of The Movies That I Care About That I've Made That Were Not Immediately Successful. I'll Stand With Those Movies Any Day Over 90 Percent Of The Movies That Came Out At The Same Time That Made A Hundred Million Dollars