Having started in sciences, I then turned around and said, 'Oh, I don't want to do sciences. I want to do philosophy.' And to their credit my parents said, 'if that's what you want to do, then go for it'. Then I got the scholarship to Stanford, which was very nice for the parents to talk to their friends about.

I'm fascinated by people who have to reinvent themselves. I did it a few times - I was going to be a physicist before I was passionate about philosophy - and I realized that one more change, and I'm going to start looking like a dilettante.

I'm not setting out to adapt books and work with books, but when really amazing stories come to you in that form, it's really hard to turn away from that.

Ireland is a good place to start out as a filmmaker. If what you do is good, even at a very small scale, it will get recognized.

As one of the first employees at a small cellular phone start-up called Nextel, I gained firsthand experience in how a business grows from an idea to a company that, at its peak, employed many thousands.

Being the son of a filmmaker, you are aware of a career as a director. You don't think of it as just movies, but as a life.

I was raised in, and presumably to, the cutlery business. I really didn't think that that's what I wanted to do for a career. But I felt a certain obligation to give it a try.

I exercise; I have a big career. I'm a parent, and I run a music school.