Jeff Baena

Not to be negative, but I think the biggest lesson is don't trust anyone.

In Judaism, the temple was the most holy site in the world. But if you extend that argument as a metaphor, and you say 'The world is a holy place,' and you're treating this holy place like a money-lending psycho, then Jesus says, 'This is hypocrisy!' and he'd point it out and flip it over.

In my mind, if you went back to the Middle Ages, in Italy they'd be speaking Middle Age Italian. And at that point, it would obviously be indecipherable for us, but for the people of that time, it was just normal talking.

I was reading a lot of Jacques Derrida at the time, writing 'Beth.' He actually talked about zombies.

You show a movie to your friends when you're working on it, but you don't have any real objectivity. You just don't know. So that moment when it's shown for the very first time at Sundance, it's just terrifying. I'm so anxious. And then every screening is different.

For us, when we think about the Middle Ages, it's sort of this rarefied, distant time that we have no connection to, especially if you grew up in America.

I don't know if it's because my sensitivity is through the roof, but I can't stand contrived dialogue anymore.

When you have new people coming in and you sort of want to show them the ropes, it's always easier to have people that know the process and are able to sort of just do their thing, and then everyone can kind of follow their lead.

I usually just do, like, studio jobs, re-writes and stuff.

My first job after graduating was working with Robert Zemeckis. I got a job a week after graduating and moving to L.A. So I got to work on 'What Lies Beneath' and 'Castaway' as a PA, which is basically like a gopher.

I've been a writer for years, but it was mainly as a function of trying to be a director, so I just got work as a writer. I want to keep directing.

It's life, so you're a constant evolution of tragedies and achievements and ups and downs. You can probably get a little bit more immune to things, but whatever is the most amount of pain you feel at any given moment feels like the most amount of pain you'll ever feel.