I've written immense love letters that are supposed to be opened over days at a time.
— Cary Fukunaga
There are elements to the 19th century which just don't work for contemporary audiences.
When I was a kid, I knew the black and white version of 'Jane Eyre,' and I guess I became interested in the idea of romantic love - of unrequited love and the tragedies of that; of what are the important things in life; what should one value over other materials.
I think any character has to be well-rounded, whether they are male or female - they have to be complex and make choices that maybe we don't agree with, you know? I guess that's what makes them human.
I have these plants in my house that are dying, so having a robot butler to water them when I'm away would be pretty handy.
Going from having an Atari to a laptop changed everything. It allows me to work anywhere I want and send my work home - I can work anywhere in the world.
Casting directors I don't think are the best in Mexico at street casting. Whereas, I think, in New York and in L.A., that's more common; not so in Mexico. So it's up to you as a director in a lot of ways to go out and do that.
My dad is from Japanese descent, my mom is from Swedish descent and, through marriages and divorces, a pretty multicultural family - a lot of Spanish speakers in the family.
I'm not a very sentimental person, so you're not going to find schmaltzy scenes in my movies.
I'm definitely sensitive to the idea of exploitation. You don't want to glamorize certain things.
Literally, I don't have a television. So I don't really know what's happening pop-culturally. I read the 'New York Times.' And there's one worldwide cabin blog that I look at.
I binge write, basically. I do a lot of prep, research, setup. I'll have a pretty detailed outline. Sort of like a beat outline. And then I'll add little notes and dialogue ideas, and I'll just create a 20-page document.
It's so easy for shows to be gritty and handheld and shaky and really tight in people's faces.
It's hard because there's a part of me that wants 'True Detective' to win every award we're nominated for. But I'm a huge fan of 'Breaking Bad' and 'Game of Thrones.'
Every single substitute teacher growing up could not pronounce my name, so whenever someone pauses, I'm like, 'Oh, that's me.'
I enjoy setting the scene and coming up with interesting frames. 'True Detective' was a very hands-on set.
When I was 20, I was living in the Alps, snowboarding and studying political science. I blew out my knee, and I began to realize my days in the sport were numbered; the reality was I would never be a pro.
I used to always make art for girls. That was the thing I did for girls to like me. I did portraits, drawings, letters that formed outlines of significant things in our relationship. Art. I just used art in general. It usually worked.
Shakespeare is repeated around the world in different languages, just because it's good storytelling.
I don't believe happiness comes out of material gain, for sure.
I used to do Civil War re-enacting between the ages of 15 and 19. I was part of a unit that was considered very authentic. We would source the right wools, the right buttons for the costumes. We had the right look.
I think the only reason people use PCs is because they have to. Mac is the most streamlined computer there is. I started using the Mac in college because I was doing editing, and they were the only computers we could use to do that.
'Sin Nombre' was almost like the adolescent version of 'Jane Eyre.' 'Jane Eyre' sort of picks up where 'Sin Nombre' ends. It's about this girl who starts off on her own at her lowest point of despair, and she figures out how she got there.
My ideas tend to be either really big in terms of like, the logistics, or really small.
I think about a Richard Avedon photo series, the kind of faces he gets of real people, which I find so captivating. Fellini was also great in filling his films with this ambiance, this environment, sometimes chaotic and carnival-like, but people's faces were always amazing.
It's a treat and daunting to be directing someone like Judi Dench, who's made more films than I'll ever make in my lifetime.
'City of God' and 'Slumdog Millionaire' are both films that I really like, but they are stylistically the opposite of what I wanted to do.
I'll definitely say that, before film school, I didn't have much of a film-history background. I didn't know much about classic cinema.
I'm never more miserable than when I write, and never more happy than having finished and having it sitting in front of me.
There's nothing I find more lazy than unmotivated camerawork just to make things look interesting.
I'm clearly not meant to be in front of the camera. I'm really not meant for anything but behind the camera.
It's easy to make something avant garde. To do something in the traditional way is much more brave in the sense that you're - your technique is so much more exposed because there's not all this flashy stuff to distract the viewer.
Some directors don't get involved in the cinematography and are just about story, but I'm definitely more tactile than that in terms of my involvement in the minutiae.
To be straight, I was kind of a dork, and in order to fulfill the creative fires burning inside me, I participated vigorously as a Civil War re-enactor through most of my teenage years, traveling across the country to participate in large scale reenactments - grandiose plays enacted by over weight history buffs and war enthusiasts alike.
I have a really good relationship with Focus Features; we had a wonderful time working together on 'Sin Nombre.'
I've certainly never been dying to go to England my entire life.
I like characters that make choices and try to drive their own fate.
I was a big history buff as a teenager.
I think I have this field around me that makes electronics work bad. It's not like an entropy thing; it happens very quickly.
Ed Norton is probably one of the smartest people I've ever met.
I'm not Mexican, and I'm not Central American. I'm from California.
One of my problems with a lot of things I watch is that everybody's too pretty, and it takes me out of the film because I'm thinking that all these people look like I've seen them in a cafe in Los Angeles.
On 'Sin Nombre,' Adriano Goldman and I improvised a lot of things on-site. We were working with untrained actors, and you can't really block a scene in a traditional way.
I want to have a nice country home one day, yeah.
I eventually want to do writing on all the films, but not necessarily to be the writer. Writing is a painful, painful thing; it really is.
I'm better suited to be a director, I think. I see myself as the general author. I hate the word 'auteur,' because it sounds so solitary when filmmaking is anything but solitary.
To do action without cuts is infinitely more exciting.
I don't really put trophies out. I don't keep trophies around my apartment.
I wanted to make my sophomore film as different as possible. I didn't want to be pigeonholed. I didn't want to be identifiable.
'Victoria Para Chino,' my 2nd-year film at NYU, gave birth to 'Sin Nombre.'
