I was very impressed with Davis Guggenheim's 'An Inconvenient Truth.' He's inspired me as one of the newer, cutting-edge documentary filmmakers. I see those films, and I'm just instinctively drawn to them.
— Peter Berg
I'm a huge sports fan. I love the psychology of athletes and the culture of athletics. I'm constantly drawn to those kinds of stories.
If I could find a way to make a film that takes you into the mind of a fighter, where you have 36 minutes of combat with so many different emotions, so many highs and lows, so many obstacles to overcome, I'd do that.
Boxing is not always about standing in the middle going toe to toe. It's about poise and grace under extreme pressure.
We will play football. We will box and play lacrosse and ice hockey and snowboard and surf and drive fast cars, climb trees, and do dozens of things that we know are potentially concussive. We will do this because we are human and animals, and we like speed and contact and aggressive maneuvering and all such things.
Head and neck injuries are what parents thinking about letting their children play tackle football should be thinking about, talking about, and demanding answers about, from any coach presenting himself as a worthy custodian for their child's introduction to tackle football.
I don't want to be knocked out. But the contact and the focus and the energy I get from sparring gives me energy to make movies, energy to be a dad, energy to be a friend, and, you know, makes me feel, probably, a lot younger and behave a lot younger than I am.
The SEALs rarely call the Taliban 'terrorists' because they respect them as worthy opponents.
Some directors want to make superhero films. That's what gets them off, and they love it, and they love sci-fi. I prefer putting my hands into non-fiction.
I love actors. I'm empathetic to them. I understand what they go through. But I didn't want to be an actor.
The big fun in 'Battleship' is that there are no current battleships in the Navy today. The battleships are about 1,000 feet long and they have huge guns. They were what you saw in WWII. The last battleship that was used was the Missouri, which is what the Japanese surrendered to.
The first movie I literally ever made in my life was about two guys playing Stratego with each other. I had all my friends dressing up like the military characters in the game. So 'Battleship' is really my second board game turned movie!
I somewhere along the way became fascinated with exploring characters who are willing to put themselves into violent situations, whether it's football, hockey, boxing, being a cop, being a soldier. There's not a lot of people who are willing to put themselves into those situations.
What first caught my eye about Rihanna was an interview she did with Diane Sawyer after the Chris Brown incident, where she was very articulate, very poised, obviously a smart girl who talked about a very traumatic experience.
I think musicians oftentimes have the right skill set to be good actors. And with Rihanna, I noticed her and knew of her obviously, and was very taken with her charisma and her confidence.
I'm pretty upfront about my love and admiration for the military. One of the perks of making movies is that you get to sort of follow your own passions, and I believe quite passionately that we don't pay enough attention and respect to our veterans. Not just our wounded veterans, but all veterans.
Michael Mann's always been one of my heroes.
Obama really is a warrior in chief. He's not afraid to get the job done.
Generally, studios are adverse to making films about war in the Middle East. They'd much rather make a film with a superhero or an alien or a robot.
Sweating the small stuff is important in boxing and life. On a movie, we have production assistants who're 18 and 19 years old. If someone asks you for a cup of coffee, and you bring them a cup of coffee that's cold, I make a big deal of that. I make a really, really big deal of that. You have to pay attention to details.
Life is, and should be, a little hard. Getting punched in the face or getting an occasional concussion will probably happen to us all at some point in our lives. We can handle it.
Young kids should probably not play tackle football. I know this intellectually, but emotionally, I'm conflicted. I love this sport. I grew up playing and adoring football. I love the brotherhood, teamwork, athletic grace that borders on superhuman, grit, pressure and, yes, contact. I love the contact.
I found at a certain point in my acting career that I was just bored. I had too much energy. I had too many ideas.
I've always found boxing to be an incredibly pure sport. The level of character of most fighters I find very high. And it's just the best workout you can get.
Where do you go to buy back your reputation when you lose it?
When I started making films, like almost every filmmaker, I think, you're just so excited to be able to make a movie that you'll do anything.
I'm a patriot. I admire our military, their character, code of honor, belief systems.
I'm a huge fan of the Navy. My father was a Naval historian, and I've been studying Naval battles forever.
I wanted to do a naval film and I flirted with different ideas, most of which ended up being too intense. So when the idea of 'Battleship' was first suggested, I was instantly drawn to the challenge - could I invent a movie around the idea of five ships fighting five ships?
I did not want 'Battleship' to be perceived as an American war film. I wanted to do everything I could to make the film accessible to a global audience. It felt like bringing an alien component to the film would help take the American jingoism out of it.
I had great luck with Tim McGraw twice in 'Friday Night Lights' and 'The Kingdom.' I love finding off-beat casting and finding someone you know in one way and you reinvent them in another way. I like doing that as a director.
I've had great success and I've had catastrophic failure. It's really how you handle the rough stuff that defines you, I think.
People know I love to shoot action and that I'm not afraid of emotion.
It's always an interesting sort of adventures that gets someone into a movie.
I don't think about awards when I set out to do something. If that happens, it's great.
I grew up during a time of peace, and my friends weren't joining the military - it wasn't something on my radar. But if you asked me whether I could go back and do it all over again now, and it meant I wouldn't go into filmmaking, there's a part of me that would have loved to try to be a Navy SEAL.
The more you learn about the science of boxing, the more appreciation you have for man's ability to think and perform in violent situations, and that's what interests me in film.
For me, concussion response is pure common sense. We can all probably handle a few mild concussions. I have had at least three, and despite my detractors' opinions, I am mentally and physically fine.
Young boys must be taught to play football without leading with or lowering their heads. Young players must be drilled over and over and over with Heads Up Football skills until that skill set becomes muscle memory and second nature.
If you're a 50-year-old guy, and you're sitting around the house with - you know, and just getting fatter, feeling sorry for yourself, get up and move your body and see what it does to your life and to your mind and to your happiness and to your energy levels. And I get all that from boxing.
There's a truth to the violence of boxing. You have a very real threat, an opponent.
I'm definitely drawn to stories of just regular folks, just generally in some kind of horrific situation. I keep saying I want to do a love story in the south of France with a boy and girl and some wine. Then I always end up in an oil rig with four hundred guys or on a mountain with guys shooting at each other.
I don't go to a lot of other directors' sets; directors don't come to mine. Directors are all very cordial with each other, but they're not necessarily friendly.
Before boxing, I was this angry kid ready to fight if someone said, 'Hello.'
I don't like alien films where you don't get to see the aliens.
I believe that anything in this world is fair game for a creative exercise.
You know to me, being a good actor, the most important quality is you've got to love to play, and to just be open to anything.
I've been a big believer in musicians turned actor, going back to Sinatra winning the Oscar for 'From Here To Eternity.' David Bowie in 'Man Who Fell to Earth,' Kris Kristofferson's been great in a bunch of films. Liza Minnelli, Barbra Streisand, Mariah Carey, I thought was great in 'Precious.'
I've spent enough time with soldiers to know that once they get to know you and they loosen up and become themselves, they are some of the biggest hams and most charismatic, cocky, fun, humorous guys I've ever met.
What kind of town do we want in the future, and how are we going to plan on that?
