I have a lot of land. I bought it because I had a very strong feeling. I was in my early twenties, and I had grown up in Los Angeles and had seen that city slide off into the sea from the city I knew as a little kid. It lost its identity - suddenly there was cement everywhere and the green was gone and the air was bad - and I wanted out.
When I was a kid, all I knew was that I felt more comfortable sitting in one chair than in another. And now I realize it was because one chair was older. I still respond directly to the age of things.
In fact you've got your hands tied behind your back when somebody chooses to take a low road in to you, there is nothing you can do about it, and so you just live with it and move on.
I spent two summers working at Camp Curry and at Yosemite Lodge as a waiter. It gave me a chance to really be there every day - to hike up to Vernal Falls or Nevada Falls. It just took me really deep into it. Yosemite claimed me.
All of the films that I've made are about the country I live in and grew up in... And I think if you're going to put an artist's eye to it, you're going to put a critical eye to it. I've always been interested in the gray area that exists between the black and white, or the red and blue, and that's where complexity lies.
It's good to say, 'Look, I can't always be right, but my gut tells me this' - and then you confirm with your gut.
I have the freedom to take chances, to say no. I have the freedom to be who I really want to be, rather than have to conform to this or that just to stay alive.
I was seen in earlier years by family members and people of authority as somebody wasting his time. I had trouble with the restrictions of conformity. It made me edgy.
Because, you know, you're in Utah. And because of its political conservatism, if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.
Storytelling is important. Part of human continuity.
Part of me is drawn to the nature of sadness because I think life is sad, and sadness is not something that should be avoided or denied. It's a fact of life, like contradictions are.
I'm not a lawyer, but I do know this: we need to protect our ability to tell controversial stories.
I didn't know the technical language of filmmaking, so I said, 'OK, I'm going to do my own storyboard,' because I had to explain to the crew and the technical people what I wanted.
Be careful of success; it has a dark side.
I guess I don't like the fact that my life is becoming less and less my own - the prevailing attitude that you have an obligation to deliver yourself to the public. Actually, you're delivered to the public whether you like it or not. I guess if you don't like it, you should stop doing what provokes it. In my case, that's acting.
Journalism has changed tremendously because of the democratization of information. Anybody can put something up on the Internet. It's harder and harder to find what the truth is.
If you talk about an issue, what comes back is a description of what you're wearing. Reporters only want to know how tall you are and if your teeth are capped.
The important thing about a sport is the people who devote their lives to it.
When people start thinking of you more as a persona, they are less inclined to allow you to move into different areas. Sometimes they're wrong. Sometimes they're just very stereotypical or restricted in their own thinking of what they'll allow you to do.
I think independent filmmakers, documentary filmmakers - they are journalists.
