John Hillcoat

It's the aspirations that capitalism is promoting as beautiful, positive attributes that are dangerous. All that is in the bedrooms of the poor and in the villages of the Third World, and it's like a cruel carrot that's being waved in front of people's noses. It's a seduction, an unattainable dream.

What I like is finding new angles on genres.

I've realized I've become a bit reactive to each film I do. After 'The Road,' I was desperate to do something that had color and warmth to it and a stronger sense of community.

I think it's human nature that if we don't have our own family, we will create a family, because it's human nature, and it's that element of trust and dependency and love and all of those sort of things.

I'm actually a humanist, believe it or not, and I believe even when people are corrupted, even when they've gone to the dark side, they are still human beings.

I consider myself a humanist. Even if I do very dark worlds, I try to make those characters real humans as opposed to just cartoons.

I know the power of going to Mount St. Helens, and to see that level of devastation is quite something - the power of tsunamis, etc. But it's human cruelty, the base level of humanity, that scares me most.

The last time I played video games was 'Space Invaders.'

What's amazing about 'White Heat' is that, even for its time, it's very truthful in the way it deals with violence.

Any way you want to slice it, the thing about the apocalypse is, since the beginning of time, it's the projection of mankind's worst fear. The day that, as a race, our number is up.

Certain films, when shot digitally, the detail is like CG: you can't feel the sweat. I feel like digital is alienating. There's something superficial to digital compared to the richness of film.

I've learned a lot about getting film sensibilities on digital.