Traffic is about drugs. As detailed a portrait as I can muster about what is happening in the drug world, from top to bottom, from policy to how things move on the street.

I think I'm good at amplifying an actor's strengths, and minimizing their weaknesses. And they all have strengths and weaknesses.

When a film like Chris Nolan's Memento cannot get picked up, to me independent film is over. It's dead.

To me the director’s job is to leave it in better shape than you found it, literally.

If you're sitting around thinking what other people think about your work, you'll just become paralysed.

We [people] are a species that's wired to tell stories. We need stories. It's how we make sense of things. It's how we learn.

I want to thank anyone who spends part of their day creating...anybody who spends part of their day sharing their experience with us-I think this world would be unlivable without art and I thank you.

You’re supposed to expand your mind to fit the art, you’re not supposed to chop the art down to fit your mind.

There are three major social issues that this country is struggling with: education, poverty, and drugs. Two of them we talk about, and one of them we don't.

What are the stories you want people to tell about you?

The ought to be a worldwide cultural taskforce that just stops you when you have ideas like combining The Red Desert with an armored car heist movie.

You have to see the good in yourself before expecting someone else to see the good in you. Be aware of who you are and what you can truly be.

Nearly everything that happened had happened before. The grand lesson of history.

There are skeptics who do not come to their view because they have a source of income from carbon polluters.

I started off as an actor thinking that I would be this Romeo, this dashing leading man. It turns out that I'm a character actor.

Clarence Darrow was a unique and courageous man. Several of my favourite actors have played Darrow... Henry Fonda, Orson Welles and Spencer Tracy.

I think 'growing up' would mean that you are incredibly tolerant and easygoing, liked everything, curious about the world because you weren't so egotistically driven.

My dog, Puffy. The dog is the perfect portrait subject. He doesn't pose. He isn't aware of the camera.

There is a Jewish tradition of family, too, but then not all Italian or Jewish families are close.

I wrote on a show called Johnny Bravo when I was at Hanna-Barbera and he guest-starred as himself.

During that space walk there will be some repositioning of the power so that the arm can be fully controlled by the robotic station that is in the Lab.