Quotes

Making a big Hollywood film that really affects people is as hard as making a small movie on a credit card.

It used to be, like, the sanctity of rock was that you could never let a song of yours be used in a commercial. It was like, 'Oh man, we'll never let our music be exploited that way.' Now they'll call you up and say, 'You gotta use this song in your movie, man. It's the new VW ad! People love it.' And you realize, boy, have times changed.

I'm proudest of the fact that I've been able to make a few movies in the studio system that are slightly unorthodox and personal. But it's never quite as easy as you dream that it could be.

Little did I know that work-in-progress is a code for many things. In a press situation, it can mean the movie's not going to come out. It can mean the movie's not going to change at all, but if you don't like it we'll change it. Or it can mean the truth, which is it's a work-in-progress.

I mean, Internet radio, which is basically a guy with his iTunes putting it over the computer, is the only way you're going to get true eclectic music programmed.

I just sort of fear that everybody does it now. Everything's hip, every commercial's hip. It almost makes you want to do a Mancini-type score, because nobody's doing it. It would set itself apart more than a pop score now. So the goal was, in this movie, to try some different things. [on the score for Elizabethtown]

"You can't blame the actor [for a film's failure]. It's not math. It's like catching lightning in a bottle." On Orlando Bloom and his role in Elizabethtown (2005).

Stars arrive on their own timetable.

[on Elizabethtown (2005)] Well, people who love it, love it. And people who don't love it, they don't love it a lot. And that's fine. It always goes back to, "Why did you make that movie?" It was a pure thing for me - it's for my dad. The memories he left behind.

[on the character Allison Ng from Aloha] We worked on the character for about a year. The fact that she would find any turbulence and that that would happen is heartbreaking to me. So, lessons learned. And you'll see them in the next movie.