If you want to slice into America, it's pretty red, white, and blue in terms of how it goes about things, but there's a gray area there, and I've always been interested in where things are complicated.

All of the films that I've made are about the country I live in and grew up in... And I think if you're going to put an artist's eye to it, you're going to put a critical eye to it. I've always been interested in the gray area that exists between the black and white, or the red and blue, and that's where complexity lies.

There's a gray area there that I'm satisfied is not gray.

It felt to me like America was always wanting to resolve things too quickly, without thinking through what the costs and consequences would be and how that affects an individual living in that world. Then as I grew up and went about my life, I think I just got more and more interested in that gray area where things are not so easily quantified.

Part of me longs to do a job where there's not a gray area.

War's not black and white; it's gray. If you don't fight in the gray area, you're going to lose.