"Elvis Costello changed everything for me. I had to have everything he made and I had to hear it all. I loved everything about him and I think I modelled myself after him a little bit. He was a solo artist and I loved the way he incorporated a band like The Attractions, it was a cool concept. I thought his whole vibe was so cool - this cool guy in the shades, kind of goofy looking and awkward, but it was all part of his aesthetic. "Red Shoes” is a great example of how he could write an instant classic, that song sounds like it’s been around forever. I really started getting into the cracks of songwriting when I heard it and it opened more technical doors for me as well. I’m definitely a fan, though, not just a scholarly fan. A lot of people I know don’t like him or don’t get it, and maybe that’s true in a grander, bigger scale - either you like him or you don’t. I love his voice and he’s a singer that I’ve tried to emulate a lot, even though I have no business doing that. He’s inspired me to write so many songs of my own and that’s helped to motivate me."

"The Master is masterful. It is such a beautiful portrait of a relationship between two people in very different places in their lives. The power dynamics between them and the love between them, that is kind of indescribable. The bond that forms [between] them is different than you’d have with your spouse or your children or your parents, a true bond that is that kind of friendship that can bail you out of trouble and also get you into trouble. And I think it’s Philip Seymour Hoffman’s finest performance, I think it’s Joaquin Phoenix’s finest performance and, of course, I think PTA [Paul Thomas Anderson] is one of our greatest directors, if not the greatest director. I just love every aspect of the storytelling. I am always interested in a leader, whether it’s a religious leader or a cult leader, someone who finds a following and a flock, someone who, you can look at them one way and they’re a fraud, a charlatan, and look at them another way and they are close to God. I find that really intriguing. I find that kind of attention from a person like that is very interesting and intoxicating and it was certainly something I was thinking about when working on Hustlers. [I] was thinking of Ramona and Destiny’s dynamic in that way… when one person is holding the wheel and one person is in control, you know, and the other person may not be able to fall in line in all the same ways. What happens when that person turns away from their leader and no longer feels aligned with them?"

"I am convinced that Buñuel had intimate conversations with God throughout his life, wherein they would share their observations on humanity and tell lots of jokes. Buñuel’s movies are evidence of these dialogues. That Obscure Object of Desire is about a little man like you and me, self-satisfied and lustful. He is in love with a woman who refuses to give herself to him physically. This 1977 movie (Buñuel’s last) is irreverent, sexual, funny, elegant, shocking, embarrassing, political, and light as a feather. The way to enjoy it is to just let it happen to you, rather than to harbor any preconceived thoughts. To try to analyze why the director uses two actresses to play the same character and the motivation behind when he chooses to use each one is to miss the movie entirely (and to be the butt of a Buñuel practical joke—that’s him laughing at you while you are engaged in this fruitless exercise). As the story unfolds, you begin to feel that these two physically opposite actresses (the drop-dead gorgeous Carole Bouquet and the sultry, exotic Angela Molina) are the same woman and represent Buñuel’s complete male fantasy. Like many of his great films, this one includes a pig, a few nuns, a dwarf, and Fernando Rey."