It felt like the first thing, but when I first started out, I got a job adapting a book by Russell Banks called 'Rule Of The Bone.' I didn't do a very good job. I didn't really know what I was doing in general, let alone how to adapt a book.

My dad was this sort of avant-garde guy who did all kinds of weird things. He was a true original and anybody who met him never forgot him.

I don't get a sense of American pride. I just get a sense that everyone is here, battling the same thing - that around the world everybody's after the same thing, just some minor piece of happiness each day.

I really subscribe to that old adage that you should never let the audience get ahead of you for a second. So if the film's abrasive and wrongfoots people then, y'know, that's great. But I hope it involves an audience.

My older sister was at the cusp of new wave, and I had older brothers from my father's first marriage who were rock 'n' roll guys, so I was exposed to a lot of popular culture.

I have a feeling, one of those gut feelings, that I'll make pretty good movies the rest of my life.

I had the standard movie geek childhood, because for as long as I can remember, all I wanted to do was make movies.

I don't think the competition's so rough, within the majority of movies made in Hollywood.