My interpretation of a strong director is someone who knows their story. That's what directors are, they're storytellers because they're directing where your focus is going to be as an audience.

All directors are storytellers, so the motivation was to tell the story I wanted to tell. That's what I love.

The story is one that you and I will construct together in your memory. If the story means anything to you at all, then when you remember it afterward, think of it, not as something I created, but rather as something that we made together.

Storytellers are a threat. They threaten all champions of control, they frighten usurpers of the right-to-freedom of the human spirit -- in state, in church or mosque, in party congress, in the university or wherever.

I think every director has a different take, some are good, some are bad. The directors you get on best with sometimes don't make the best films, so who's to say who is right.

I owe the little formal education I got to my drama teacher, Mr. Pickett, who got us to read Shakespeare, Moliere, and other classics.