When you first get opportunities, suddenly you get surrounded by a lot of people who want to make money off you but also are there to help. But they start telling you so much what you need to be and what you need to do to maintain some idea of career maintenance.
Where I grew up - we started out in Oklahoma and then moved to Missouri - it was considered hubris to talk about yourself. And the downside of that was that ideas rarely got exchanged, or true feelings.
I always liked film as a teaching tool - a way of getting exposed to ideas that had never been presented to me. It just wasn't on the list of career options where I grew up.
[Robert]Ford had the idea that through fame he would receive some personal validity, but he didn't. I feel that these are not the main themes, but certainly themes that are at play in this film [ Assassination of Jesse James].
This idea of perpetual happiness is crazy and overrated, because those dark moments fuel you for the next bright moments; each one helps you appreciate the other.
I didn't understand this idea of a God who says, "You have to acknowledge me. You have to say that I'm the best, and then I'll give you eternal happiness. If you won't, then you don't get it!" It seemed to be about ego. I can't see God operating from ego, so it made no sense to me.
The idea that marriage has to be for all time - that I don't understand.
You can’t trap justice. It’s an idea, a belief.