“Emotion will always win over coolness and cleverness. It’s when a scene works emotionally and it’s cool and clever, then it’s great. That’s what you want.”

Just because I was at an anti-police brutality protest, doesn’t mean I’m anti-police. We want justice, but stop shooting unarmed people.

I want to have the fun of doing anime and I love anime, but I can’t do storyboards because I can’t really draw and that’s what they live and die on.

When people ask me if I went to film school I tell them, ‘no, I went to films.’

I don’t think there’s anything to be afraid of. Failure brings great rewards – in the life of an artist.

To be a novelist, all I need is a pen and a piece of paper.

Violence in real life is terrible; violence in movies can be cool. It’s just another colour to work with.

Movies are my religion and God is my patron. I’m lucky enough to be in the position where I don’t make movies to pay for my pool. When I make a movie, I want it to be everything to me; like I would die for it.

Don’t write what you think people want to read. Find your voice and write about what’s in your heart.

I write movies about mavericks, about people who break rules, and I don’t like movies about people who are pulverised for being mavericks.

Violence is fun, man.

I want to top expectations. I want to blow you away.

I loved history because to me, history was like watching a movie.

The easiest way to kill a cult is to make that cult accessible.

To me, movies and music go hand in hand. When I’m writing a script, one of the first things I do is find the music I’m going to play for the opening sequence.

If you want to make a movie, make it. Don’t wait for a grant, don’t wait for the perfect circumstances, just make it.

I’ve always thought my soundtracks do pretty good, because they’re basically professional equivalents of a mix tape I’d make for you at home.