“I was a TV junkie as a kid. I am the Sesame Street generation.”
“I'm Godless. I've had to make my God, and my God is narrative filmmaking.”
“Right after I did 'The Fountain,' I wanted to go make a documentary or something that was less constructed - more natural. I was searching for a project, and sniffing around, 'The Wrestler' fit right in.”
“I don't make films that are easy to market, unfortunately. I think that 'Pi' was the easiest one, because we had that symbol to stick up everywhere, so that was a good gimmick, and created a good mystery, and we didn't have to do huge scale.”
“I've always wanted to introduce hip-hop filmmaking to film. There's hip-hop art, dance, music, but there really isn't hip-hop film. So I was trying to do that.”
“You hear stories about directors using manipulation to get actors to do certain things, but I think when you're working with professional actors, it's all about trust. They can do anything you want, it's just a matter of them understanding what you're looking for, and the reason why.”
“I spent about a year and a half doing technical post work on 'The Fountain'. Although I do like the process, I think my favorite part of filmmaking is the actors.”
“I'd like to do a lot of different stuff. I think it's important as a creative person to keep challenging yourself and keep doing new stuff. If you end up trying to repeat yourself it's death. It just becomes boring and takes the passion out of it. You gotta find stories and characters that you really want to hang out with.”
“Turning 30 was when my parents both got cancer and were fighting it and beat it, but their mortality started to get to me. Everything wasn't as hunky-dory like it was.”
“I hope that Requiem is better than Pi. I hope that Pi is better than my student films, and I'm hoping that I'm getting better as I get older.”