Alexander Payne

“There's a bizarre insistence on how a story should be. 'The protagonist must be sympathetic!' they say. Whatever that means. I never engage in that discussion. I never use that word, 'sympat...”

“I always wanted 'Sideways' to be like a great 1960s Italian film.”

“Jesuits encourage an intellectual rigor in a way that I like.”

“The kindest thing a director can do is look with open eyes at everything.”

“There is an audience out there for literate films - slower, more observant, more human films, and they deserve to be made.”

“A book suggests a whole world and story that I could have never thought of in a million years.”

“Omaha, like Rome, is built on seven hills.”

“If you're trying to recreate life, the life that you best know is the one you grew up with.”

“The most heinous shift in American films is that they reinforce good things like 'couples' and 'relationships.'”

“I think cynicism lasts. Sentimentality ages, dates quickly.”

“Life mixes tones all the time.”

“I like voice-over in films, and most of my films have been voice-over films.”

“They say you can do honest, sincere work for decades, but you're given in general a 10-year period when what you do touches the zeitgeist - when you're relevant. And I'm aware of that, and I...”