"The first movie that comes to my mind when somebody asks me about favorites is Searching for Bobby Fischer by Steve Zaillian. First of all, it’s a beautifully, beautifully shot and acted movie. I mean, the screenplay is brilliant, but more than anything, Conrad Hall shot the movie, and it’s one of the best performances I’ve seen by an actor of any age in a movie. The honesty and the presence of the lead kid in the movie is amazing. And every actor surrounding him is extraordinary, from Joan Allen, and Laurence Fishburne, Joe Mantegna, Ben Kingsley; Laura Linney plays like a one scene role in the movie. Like a virtually unknown at the time, Laura Linney. And just the story of father and son and the score is beautiful. It is inevitably one that I am always drawn to, and I think it’s filled with hope but also like a real darkness and the beauty of childhood."

"Bill Forsyth, come back! It’s hard enough to create a movie this deeply funny, so odd and so memorable… but to have a score like Mark Knopfler’s, too? Come on. This is the holy grail of personal filmmaking with a distinctive directorial touch. Also check out Forsyth’s other films like Comfort and Joy and Gregory’s Girl for his trademark touch: the random moment that has no reason to be in the movie, except it’s everything you think about later."

"Terms of Endearment is always a touchstone movie for me. That’s one of the best acted comedy-dramas that has ever been made. I can never get enough of Terms of Endearment. I find myself watching it over and over again. It does everything that I want a movie to do. I fall in love with the characters. I care about their journeys. It never does anything easy to make me like the characters. It doesn’t sell out the characters for likeability. They all do things that are awful to each other. The relationships are very complicated. Yet, you root for all of them when you watch the movie. A large portion of the movie is also about cancer. It’s treated realistically and it is also hilarious in some of those moments. It’s not a maudlin movie. There are moments in that movie that I think about all the time that haunt me. The moment when Shirley MacLaine is yelling at the nurse to give her daughter more medicine… As you get older, you find yourself in those situations. It may be my favorite film of all time."

"I also love Harold and Maude. That’s another probably equal favorite. I just love the Ruth Gordon character in that. I feel like she is so inspiring to me, how she lives her life. I love the Cat Stevens music. I just remember watching it as a kid, and just some part of me thought, “I want to be like her.” I wanted to be this person who lives life and enjoys life, and no matter what happens, she is finding the positive, beautiful aspects of life. She’s kind of this unconventional woman who’s just enjoying her life. I thought she was super inspiring. I love Harold’s character too, but I think it’s just, as a woman, it’s very inspiring to see that kind of a character in a movie because you don’t often see a movie about an 82-year-old woman who you just really want to be because she’s so cool, you know? I also kind of like a movie to kind of inspire me and make me feel hopeful in a way, and I feel like that movie does that. There are so many good movies, but they just leave you totally depressed. But I feel like, with that movie, you’re like, “That’s a good movie that makes me feel excited about life.”