There is an audience out there for literate films - slower, more observant, more human films, and they deserve to be made.
— Alexander Payne
That's how I like to do it with actors, have them really go for it and I'll tell them when it's too much. It's always easier to bring it back then to push it further.
I mean, look, I love movies, not just the ones I make... In fact, I don't like the movies I make very much.
A pitfall of making a comedy with a studio-and it's also an American cultural thing-is that I get tired of being encouraged to go always for laughs.
When you watch a movie, you don't want to feel like a machine made it. You want to feel a soul.
I think that Peter Jennings is the only decent one of the big three.
Hollywood films have become a cesspool of formula and it's up to us to try to change it... I feel like a preacher! But it's really true. I feel personally responsible for the future of American cinema. Me personally.
You just never know when you're living in a golden age.
I think a badly crafted, great idea for a new film with a ton of spelling mistakes is just 100 times better than a well-crafted stale script.
But it's just that the whole country is making generally lousy films these days and has been for quite a while. That's the big problem that we all have to think about.
