The apartments are made for eels.

I was a big history buff as a teenager.

When people start talking, things happen.

Film still looks way better than digital.

I just have a hard time displaying things.

My mom loved the old black-and-white films.

'True Detective' would not pass The Bechdel Test.

I do want to direct a movie from horseback one day.

To do action without cuts is infinitely more exciting.

As storytellers, you're always somehow creating history.

Ed Norton is probably one of the smartest people I've ever met.

I don't believe happiness comes out of material gain, for sure.

I've certainly never been dying to go to England my entire life.

I have tremendous faith that there will be greater films to come.

I'm not Mexican, and I'm not Central American. I'm from California.

I'm terrible at making titles. I never like the titles of my films.

I like characters that make choices and try to drive their own fate.

It's rare that you can promote a love story and feel fear in a film.

You're always against the clock. But really just fighting for quality.

I love the idea of 3D, but it's completely superfluous to most stories.

I live in Brooklyn, New York, and hail from the 'East Bay,' Oakland, CA.

I think the semantics of mini-series for a network is that it has an end.

'Victoria Para Chino,' my 2nd-year film at NYU, gave birth to 'Sin Nombre.'

I don't really put trophies out. I don't keep trophies around my apartment.

Sundance took me on my first film and from there sort of launched my career.

New York is perfect for Tanizaki because it's filled with so many dark spaces.

I began writing fictional stories and little screenplays when I was in fifth grade.

I didn't grow up watching detective shows. I've never even seen an episode of 'CSI.'

Writing, for me, is an inherent part of understanding the material on a deeper level.

I've written immense love letters that are supposed to be opened over days at a time.

I'd done the method bit before from, like, age 15 to 19. I was a Civil War re-enactor.

After 'Sin Nombre,' I just needed to take a break to go to completely different worlds.

I love period pieces. But it's hard to get money to make costumed dramas, so we'll see.

You only have so much time in life so everything you do needs to mean something to you.

My ideas tend to be either really big in terms of like, the logistics, or really small.

There are elements to the 19th century which just don't work for contemporary audiences.

I'm not a very sentimental person, so you're not going to find schmaltzy scenes in my movies.

It's so easy for shows to be gritty and handheld and shaky and really tight in people's faces.

If you have something really important you want to say, you have to read your audience, I guess.

I'm definitely sensitive to the idea of exploitation. You don't want to glamorize certain things.

There's nothing I find more lazy than unmotivated camerawork just to make things look interesting.

You have to tease enough misinformation and lack of information to hopefully make people want more.

You work with the communities to make films. And you just don't go in and take over their territory.

'Jane Eyre' was one of those films that I was familiar with as a kid, and I always enjoyed the story.

Shakespeare is repeated around the world in different languages, just because it's good storytelling.

I started writing stories when I was 9 or 10. I wrote my first screenplay-type document when I was 14.

I have aspirations of making a big, historical epic. I don't know if I'll ever get the money to do it.

I've been wanting to make a movie about the war in Sierra Leone, specifically, for more than 15 years.

I enjoy setting the scene and coming up with interesting frames. 'True Detective' was a very hands-on set.

When you know you have a certain amount of work to finish, you just don't allow yourself to get sick again.

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