"Another film that I saw that just blew me away was the very first Star Wars. I saw it almost two months before it opened at the Academy, and the theater was half full! No one had ever heard of it; I had a hard time inviting someone — “Star Wars? I’m not interested in that.” When the movie was over, they cleared the audience out of the theater because everyone just sat. They were paralyzed. They had to ask us all to leave because they wanted to lock up the theater. Everybody in the theater was out on the street, sitting on the curb, in a daze. I’ll never, ever forget that."

"Star Wars reminds me of my mother, who didn’t let me see color movies until I was 12. I was raised on Alexander Nevsky and Chaplin and all of these insane movies that would just put a 10-year-old to sleep quicker than a shack of sheep. But Star Wars was my first departure from that rule, and it just blew my mind. It was the first color film I saw, and it just knocked me out. I don’t think I ever forgave my mother after I saw that film. But also just the kind of iconoclastic myth retelling that combined with science fiction, which has always been huge to me."