I've kind of always had this balance between genre and personal dramas. It almost feels like the two help each other. If I was just to make a genre film, maybe it would be hollow and soulless. If I was just to make a personal drama, maybe it would be melodramatic and nobody would ever go see it.

You can watch any Hitchcock film and be blown away.

One of my favorite directors is Clint Eastwood, and I hear about the way he works, and I think I'm of a similar style. Very few takes - you get what you take, and you move on. It's very much a job and work.

I like scripts. I spend a lot of time writing them.

I don't think 'Shotgon Stories' or 'Take Shelter' have hopeless endings. I think there's hope in both those films, no matter how hard you have to search for it. It's there.

'Take Shelter' is a tough movie because there's no humor in it, so there's really no way to judge how you're doing - whether people are still with you or not.

I'd love to just continue making original films from scratch, but it doesn't mean I won't try my hand at something else in the meantime.

I had two DVDs my junior year. One was 'Fletch' and one was 'Goodfellas,' and I watched those movies so much. I just remember eating Ramen noodles and watching 'Goodfellas.'

Sometimes you'll write while listening to a piece of music and think it's great, but then you'll go back and read it without the music and go, 'This sucks.'

Write dialogue that supports the situation and the characters, as you find them.

It takes people being alone in front of the computer at three in the morning to write opinions about movies, apparently.

As a director, you see something in someone; you know it's there, you just got to go get it. You do that with any actor. That's your job.

I'll be honest: 'Badlands' changed my life: it really did rewire my brain as to how film can operate.

I think it's important to say typing in the computer is like the last, last phase of my writing process. That's kind of the fun part. Well, it's all somewhat fun, I suppose. But usually what happens is I think about a movie for at least a year - maybe a couple more - and I don't put anything down.

I think Warner Bros. are probably some of the best people in marketing films in the world.

I know how to write a movie. I know how to direct a movie.

Marriage isn't about a collection of scenes over ten years of two people telling each other that they love each other. It's about commitment.

Marriage is tough. I can tell my wife all day long that I love her, but it doesn't mean anything if you don't show that.

I found filmmaking to be a very practical art form. It's about figuring out how to create within the very practical limitations/constraints of time, money, and large groups of collaborators.

I want all of my films to be grounded in reality, and I think 'Midnight Special' is the most grounded film I've ever made, in spite of its genre.

I loved, in 'Starman', the use of anamorphic lenses, the creation of blue light, and Carpenter's use of the widescreen format.

'Midnight Special' is, like 'Starman', a government chase film - in the government chase film genre - about a boy who has special powers and the government agents' quest to find him.

I've been just unsuccessful enough not to have been given a big opportunity too soon.

My connection to 'Aquaman' came out through the Sony hack. It had no relationship to reality. I was not on that film. I was not hired to work on that film. I had been talking to Warner Bros. about it.