Jeff Baena

I don't try to make actors play crazy characters. I like where there's a certain element of who they are and truth to their performances.

I think there are a lot of actors who are excellent at cold reads, and they go to an audition, and they read the part and nail it, but then when it comes to the performance, they don't have something.

If you look at zombie movies throughout history, they're always making adjustments. Even the idea of the virus zombies and the back-from-the-dead zombies... there's been tons of tweaks.

For me, the whole idea of performance is not being self-aware, and then sort of just experiencing.

I think one of the bigger issues with modern-day people is that we don't give enough credit to people from history as being real. We almost treat them as these rarified beings that didn't exist the way that we do with emotions and urges and drives.

I don't like the idea of seeing a movie and it feels comfortable because you've heard it before.

Zombies sort of typify this ambiguity, that they're not dead and not alive.

Motherwort.' 'Great Leopard's Bane.' These are awesome band names.

You can't avoid being an egotistical person and ultimately somewhat narcissistic. You can try to curb it by recognizing that behavior. But at the same time, your repetitive behavior has its own psychology, and it's impossible to get out of that.

I remember when I was in film school. It was my second year, and some kid did - had this really over-religious symbolism; like, it said 'John 3:16' and had angels falling over, and it was just this insane - it wasn't that great.

People were always like, 'Oh my God, you're going to be working with your girlfriend? Are you freaking out? Is that going to, like, destroy your relationship?' I think it emboldened the relationship.

I am interested in all aspects of filmmaking, so I have an opinion on every aspect, so sound design, score, cinematography, editing - all that stuff I have experience doing myself, so I had a very strong idea of what I wanted, and I got, for the most part, people that were able to articulate that idea, which was nice.