"An African American filmmaker [Robert Townsend] and being Keenen’s little brother inspired me to want to do movies. It really told the whole truth about African-Americans in the struggle, in a funny way, without all of us banging on the door going, “Hey Hollywood, love us.” Through laughter, it erased color lines, and is one of my all time favorites. I love when you do a movie with people doing multiple characters. That’s something I do and love to do, and I find that it’s one of the hardest things to do and still be grounded as a regular person in a movie. I’m inspired to do movies like that in my next phase."

"I don’t always love Parajanov’s roaming camera in this movie, but he settled down from Color of Pomegranates onwards. Parajanov’s love for the folk culture is quite infectious. The way that he loves everything on screen, I relate. And the winter mummers are so mysterious. He makes this Hutsul culture come alive and it’s so exotic. Now I know a lot about Carpathian culture and Slavic folklore so the movie doesn’t have a lot of mystery to me anymore. But the first time I saw these images that I couldn’t understand, I was completely conquered because he so clearly understood them [and] they were infused with some kind of meaning that just felt essential to me."

"This is a flawed film from the master, and I read in his autobiography that after it tanked, he tried to kill himself and did not make a film for five years. I love it! Such gorgeous vignettes, like the man who stops talking and loses all the color in his flesh after he finds out his wife cheated on him! Or the drunk couples who swap partners every night! He built a whole artificial dumpster on a stage and painted it in radiant colors, and then went about telling the most heartbreaking short stories of madness and despair in it. It’s like Raymond Carver on some very good acid, taking no prisoners!"

"I love Zhang Yimou. I worked with him briefly when I was prepping a show for Legendary Films – I didn’t stay on that show, the timing didn’t work out, but I got to work several months with Zhang Yimou which was great. His use of colors, that’s what we used in John Wick. My cinematographer Dan Laustsen and I were very influenced by the artistic way he used color, because Zhang Yimou is also a photographer and amazing artist. It’s funny; when asked what my influences in action are, I usually choose them based not on the actual action choreography. It’s the vibe, the thematics of the action. Or how it’s shot and composed. That’s very important to me."

"Color me gone, baby. I wouldn’t have seen this movie at twelve. I wouldn’t have understood anyone who didn’t have a mission, a point. But at nineteen, my face was gravel from “points.” I was ready for a whole lot of steel nothing, an empty road at high speeds, an existential needle guiding my arms. I knew little or nothing about automobiles, but I fell in love with this road trip, and made a couple myself, LA to Detroit, Tijuana to Spokane, no sleep, all little white pills and mud coffee. I never saw anyone as beautiful as James Taylor and Dennis Wilson passing me on the left, but I was ready to follow."