Dan Gilroy

My screenwriting credits in my career are probably not dissimilar to some other ones in the sense that a lot of the scripts you write don't get made, and the ones that do get made are certainly - as a writer, they're not your vision.

Everything I've ever written, I had a very distinct vision of what I wanted it to look like. But, other directors never do it that way.

A script like 'Nightcrawler' gives me an opportunity to truly realize a vision that's mine, which is exciting.

I don't know too many people who, when the TV announcer says, 'Viewer discretion is advised', then turn the TV off. Those are code words for, 'Turn the sound up; this is gonna be really good.'

Has Werner Herzog ever said anything that wasn't true? What a brilliant fountain of wisdom. Everything he touches I'm just fascinated by.

The friends we have, these are choices that - unlike family, which we have no choice in, and I love my family, thank God - we've given ourselves, to some degree.

I think there's a connection with 'Nightcrawler' and 'Blowup' and other films where visual imagery is integral to the story. It allows you to play with images.

I find Los Angeles to be a place of great physical beauty, in which you have the oceans and the mountains, and there's a vertical sense and a desert light that you can see forever.

The spirit of L.A. is untamed wilderness. It's earthquakes and wildfires and oceans and mountain lions and fog. There's great physical beauty.

Every film you're commissioned to write is all about an arc; usually, the arc is that the world creates a change in the character, usually for the better. To not have an arc, the messages and ideas in the film became more prominent.

All of us have a bit of a sociopath inside of us, and it's wrong to think that somebody is just clearly sociopathic, because they're not. It's interesting to explore the shadings and nuances within a person. Those feelings exist within more human beings than people may want to acknowledge.

A sociopath is not just someone who doesn't care about human emotion. They're someone who understands people to the point that they can manipulate them to an extraordinary degree.