"Istanbul, London, Madrid, Boston…ever since my childhood I lived in numerous countries. One of the downsides of a nomadic life is that you can never keep a proper library. At some point, I had boxes of books in Istanbul, waiting to be shipped, boxes of books in Arizona. You have to let go of even your most beloved possessions when you live a peripatetic life, but there was one author whose voice I could never do without: James Baldwin—the observer, the commuter, the rebel. Notes of a Native Son is a collection of essays about language, racism, hatred, and ultimately, resilience and dignity."

"It’s the first of Haneke’s film I saw. When we were in film school, Sean [Durkin] called me and said, "You've got to see this film." We went to the NYU library and he first showed me two scenes: the one on the train where Juliette Binoche gets spit on and the red room scene where she gets directed off screen by Haneke. It was one of these moments where I had been waiting to see a film language that really spoke to me and this film had it, it made so much sense to me. From there I fell in love with Haneke."