"Anytime somebody’s like, “You want to watch Boogie Nights?” No problem. Carve out the afternoon. I’m ready to go. Again, story, performances, direction, music, era, subject matter — it all works for me on that one. Both as just a simple audience member who wants to check out of life and have a nice time, and also as someone who works in this industry and appreciates as an objective viewer the craftsmanship of that film. I mean, “It’s my big dick and I want to f— now, Jack?” How do you write something better better than that? [laughing] I’m constantly quoting that to friends. But there’s this thing that a friend of mine just showed me on the DVD that’s called the “John C. Reilly Files,” or “Reilly Files.” It’s basically scenes that were not used in the final edit, but are John C. Reilly-based scenes. They are incredible. It’s so cool. So many of them are — maybe my friend who showed it to me, maybe he’s lying — but so many of them are cut scenes during the recording sessions. Things like that, where he’s the ultimate wing man. You know what I mean? He’s repping so hard for Dirk in the recording studio. It’s a bench marker. I would be interested to see what other films came out in 1997. Like what really holds up. Like, Magnolia still holds up for me. Punch Drunk Love still holds up for me. PT Anderson — those movies. I went back and watched There Will be Blood maybe three or four months ago. Just riveting. Those movies don’t get old for me. There’s so much to digest in them."

"I do like movies from other time periods, by the way. There is something, it’s sort of a sweet spot for me — societally, culturally, artistically, whatever sort of groove they hit right there — that appeals to my sensibilities. Nashville is endlessly inspiring to me, everything that I do is aiming for that sort of mixture of casualness and kind of amazing f— it sort of attitude, but combined with these incredible performances and story and structure. It’s probably been the single biggest influence, since the first time I saw it, over how I approach movies. That movie fills me with a tremendous sense of freedom when I come into a new project, that I can do whatever I want. There aren’t rules for how to make movies and I also love that Altman was like 50 when he made that movie. That’s inspiring to me as well, that we sort of live in a culture that values, like, people’s first films or first books or first record, fully formed right out of the gate, or whatever. Most of my favorite filmmakers didn’t have careers that looked like that. They sort of kept challenging themselves and trying new things. And for me, Nashville is this amazing thing, whenever I feel pressure that my career should maybe look different than it looks right now. I’m 32 years old right now. Altman made Nashville when he was 50. I have time to keep getting better and pushing towards this stuff. The best is yet to come. So that’s great. Beyond that, I love the music, I love the way it looks, it’s just a great movie."