I feel like I studied anthropology in college for a reason.
— Zal Batmanglij
If you want to make an anarchist film, make it with a corporation.
People don't really believe that their computer or sneakers are made by small hands, a child's hands, or a person who is living such a miserable life. They somehow think that, no, that person has a tough life, but it's an OK life.
The beauty of Netflix is, their job is to put stories out there, and not stories that appeal to everybody, which is maybe NBC's job?
That's the key thing I learned from making 'The East': It doesn't matter what happens in your life, good or bad. What matters is that there's a group around you to catch you when you fall and push you back up a little bit.
A good story isn't preachy; a good story is always entertaining.
We explored cults in 'Sound of My Voice.' I think cults have an underlying spiritual quality.
It's funny how quickly human beings adapt.
I wanted to be a filmmaker, so my parents helped me by encouraging me to save my allowance. So I bought my first video camera, and I would make movies, but I never made a movie that I finished until I was in college. There was no expectation, but I would make movies every day.
Actors love to do extreme things, so that is why they become actors; otherwise, they'd be novelists.
I loved 'Terminator 2' as a teenager and 'Sound of Music' when I was a kid. I also loved 'Requiem For A Dream' as a college student and 'Mulholland Drive.' And I have loved 'Lincoln' as an adult. They are all the same, as they are all good stories and extraordinary actors.
I guess it the one consistent thing in my life was that sense of magic that film provide - I still remember the movies from my childhood that I loved.
In every public space, everyone has their head down on their phone. Including me.
The California tract houses are like the mundane meeting the mystical. Sometimes if you're driving at twilight, and you see those houses, and they're starting to light up, there's something so beautiful, so ethereal about the fact that they're all pretty similar, set against this desert landscape and the light just hitting them a certain way.
I don't know if any specific religion is the one to subscribe to. I'm not saying, one way or the other. I don't want to get involved in that. But, I think having faith in this experience we are having as a group of people on Earth helps a lot.
'Terminator' is one of my favorite films, and so is 'Terminator 2.'
A director really doesn't deal with performance that much, especially if you deal with great actors. Their work is the performance. What you're helping them with is all the stuff they cannot be in control of.
I'm just interested in carving out a meaningful life.
No one dives a dumpster like a rich kid dives a dumpster, because there's no shame.
It took us nine months to write 'The East'; we didn't start writing it on the computer until seven and a half months into it.
Even in 'The OA,' we had to follow Guild requirements and put 'directed by' and the credits, and I'm embarrassed to put my name every time. I mean, who cares. Look it up on the Internet if you want to know who made it.
Especially in America, when you move away from home, sometimes you get disconnected with your grandparents, your friends you grew up with.
I never think the ends justify the means.
I think 'The East' is political.
A film set is all about hierarchy, but I always like to think about the circus. In the circus, there's this real sense of tribalism, and they're all on the road together. I don't think the ring leader is more important than the clown. They all work together, and I think that I felt that on 'The East.'
I want to make the iPhone of movies.
People are longing for tribe and community.
In film, it is always collaborative, and so to me, it doesn't make sense to not be collaborative in one of its most critical arenas - which is the screenplay.
A lot of people dub our work as New Age. But for some reason, they don't dub Stan Lee's work that way.
To make 'Sound of My Voice,' we had to conceive the entire world and understand it holistically. If you want to show less in a movie, you've got to figure out more.
I don't think we set out to make 'The East' in order to necessarily change people's hearts; I don't know how much movies actually change people's hearts. We wanted to make something that was thrilling and got you to thinking.
I think that all the powerful religions are pretty much the same. People like to pretend they are very different, but they are not. They are really about believing in something bigger than yourself, something that's unseen, and about having some faith.
We want to make a 100 million dollar movie that we have created, in the way James Cameron or Chris Nolan does. It's so inspiring when high-quality auteurs are writing and directing those movies. That's pretty cool.
It doesn't really matter what someone's hair looks like or if the sound is perfect. Every director who's made a couple of movies knows that, because you can replace the sound. Or, like, any one shot is not that important, because they all add up together.
We're taught that food in a dumpster is waste. But when you find bags of bread that are perfectly good, all of a sudden that waste turns into bounty. That's an important shift in perception.
I wouldn't necessarily recommend shooting a feature film on a still camera.
The beauty of 'The OA' or 'Stranger Things' is that they are both made by Netflix for Netflix. And so there was a freedom all of a sudden that matched our intention.
I love watching 'House of Cards.'
When I call 'Action,' I love to be surprised. And the actors I've been fortunate enough to work with always surprise me in the best ways.
I think the political is personal, and the personal is political.
I went to graduate school for directing at AFI in L.A., and I wanted to be a director.
I think it's really important that you don't get caught up in the way the filmmaking community isolates you and the way your life ends up being.
Sci-fi always appealed to me, like, since I was a kid.
Faith requires a leap; otherwise, it just becomes science.
I think if I was interested in writing on my own, I would be a novelist - then you could write about yourself, and that would be it. You wouldn't need anyone else.
I don't understand how our story can be so bonkers, but 'Captain Marvel' isn't. A lot of the ideas in 'The OA' that seem outlandish are just normalizing as the years go by.
I think that the campaign that Fox Searchlight has thrown for 'Sound of My Voice' honors the film's roots and the film's integrity, and I don't think it overwhelms the film at all.
People are frustrated all over the country, whether they're in Oklahoma or Oregon or San Diego or San Francisco or L.A. or D.C. or New York or Omaha or wherever.
I think we're really hungry for family in America, especially when I feel like people are really pulled apart from their families.
I don't want to make a 100 hundred million dollar movie I have no stake in.
