"Well, it was an actor playing Othello. It was written by Garson Kanin, who later married a teacher of mine, but he was married to Ruth Gordon, who was a favorite actress of mine. And it was a movie about the theater. I love those kinds of in-house things. I love political movies or plays, but especially plays about the inner workings of the business, or that give you insight into the process of what actors go through."

"Kurosawa’s High and Low is one of the greatest and most contained crime thrillers ever made, with the first half largely confined to one location, and the second half venturing out into a real and deeply divided world. Brian De Palma’s Blow Out is a nihilistic portrait of political corruption, featuring John Travolta at his most blazingly charismatic. These are without a doubt two of the films that made me want to make films. They’re that inspiring."