Sam Esmail

“Looking back at 'Taxi Driver' or, really, any of the Martin Scorsese films, he really filmed New York City in a way that I saw New York City.”

“I remember growing up in suburban New Jersey, and all the computer stores were like, 'Motherboard Mayhem' and all these cheesy names.”

“I always suspend logic for emotion. If it feels real, or it feels like what I'm going for, we should abandon reality a little bit and go for that. I'm not a documentarian. We're not trying t...”

“On 'Mr. Robot,' because I run the writers' room and know every decision behind every line of dialogue, I'm able to be nimble and adapt with the scripts and the moments. I never have to quest...”

“I think I was told numerous times in the industry that nobody wants to watch a guy on a keyboard.”

“With some actors, if I have upward of 10 notes, I don't want to give them all 10 notes and overwhelm them. I usually parse them out three or four at a time.”

“The one thing that I know from the personal experiences that I've had with hackers and from people in tech who are brilliant at this thing, is there's a lot of angst.”

“I don't mind Twitter. I think it's a lot of nonsense, but at least, to me, Twitter is just more of a public forum to have conversation.”

“In a weird way, I never wanted - I don't consider myself a very good writer. I consider myself okay; I don't consider myself great. There's Woody Allen and Aaron Sorkin. There's Quentin Tara...”

“I did have friends who have suffered from schizophrenia and mild dissociative identity disorder, as well as more extreme cases of social anxiety disorder.”

“I'm very protective of my online life, and I try and take as many security measures.”

“One of my favorite Tarantino films is 'Jackie Brown,' and 'Jackie Brown' does it so well, where I'm watching the back half of that movie, and I don't know which side Jackie Brown is playing....”

“'Taxi Driver' is one of those films that is groundbreaking in how much you're inside this character's head. It uses voice-over in a revolutionary way where the audience is invited as a co-co...”

“The world is so heavily influenced by technology, and it has started to feel like it's not on solid ground. The world has become unreliable, unknowable. Facts are vulnerable, and things you...”

“We frame things in an off-kilter way because it's unsettling. In the 'Mr. Robot' world, that's the norm, and it's the norm for the point of view that we're looking for, which is Elliot's. Wi...”