I Just Like Working With Smart People.

I Have This Embedded Faith In The Process Through Which Films Of A Certain Type Get Discovered On Longer Timelines.

Even My Wife And Two Of My Children Are In "leaves Of Grass". Because I Love The Source Material So Much, It Was Really Easy To Write And An Utter Delight To Get To Direct Because I Had People Like Edward [norton] Elevating The Material And Surprising Me In Their Interpretations Of All Of This Stuff That's So Close To Me.

I've Been Friends With The Guys In Radiohead For A Lot Of Years, And I Watch The Way Those Guys Work With Incredible Envy. Because Whatever The Slings And Arrows Of Dealing With The Record Business, At The End Of The Day, They Have Total Creative Autonomy. They Don't Need A Lot To Do What They Do, And Thom [yorke] And Jonny [greenwood] And The Guys Have Their Own Joint In Their Hometown.

What We Set Out To Do With This Movie [leaves Of Grass] Was To Create Something That Was Funny And Serious And Had Large Tonal Ambitions. A Movie That Could Be Poignant And Funny, And Suddenly Quite Violent. To Have A Character Utterly Sideswiped, And To Learn That Life Is About Balance.

The Elegance Of Staying With A Moment, Without Needing To Stop And Change All The Lighting, Made [the Alternative] Seem Lazy And Indulgent.