Quotes from Zal Batmanglij

I remember being a kid, I was a little kid when my dad took me to 'Munchausen.' I guess he took my whole family, but I kind of didn't want to go for some reason. Then we got there, and I was so mesmerized by the movie, and I was really taken by the young Sarah Polley. I didn't realize until many, many years later that it was Sarah Polley.

The country gets so beat up in the media. It's worth remembering how much we love America.

It doesn't really matter what someone's hair looks like or if the sound is perfect. Every director who's made a couple of movies knows that, because you can replace the sound. Or, like, any one shot is not that important, because they all add up together.

People don't really believe that their computer or sneakers are made by small hands, a child's hands, or a person who is living such a miserable life. They somehow think that, no, that person has a tough life, but it's an OK life.

I remember in grade school having a group of friends and enjoying that sense of community, enjoying living in an imaginary world that wasn't just by yourself or your sibling but a whole group of people.

I want to make the iPhone of movies.

I love James Cameron. I love what he does.

We want to make a 100 million dollar movie that we have created, in the way James Cameron or Chris Nolan does. It's so inspiring when high-quality auteurs are writing and directing those movies. That's pretty cool.

People are longing for tribe and community.

Whatever you think of Edward Snowden, it took bravery to do what he did.

I never think the ends justify the means.

What I'm drawn to most as a filmmaker are these tribes that are seen as 'fringe' cultures. We live in a society where many young people feel alienated, and these family constructs are an antidote to that.

We would meet truck drivers, and they were like, ''Orange Is the New Black' is my favorite show.' And we're like, 'What? This looks like a Red State, Trump-voting guy, and he loves 'Orange Is the New Black?'' I think that's the power of storytelling.

'The East' could easily be a TV show.

I always think that 'Sound of My Voice' is a movie about the crumbs in 'Hansel and Gretel.' You know, those crumbs. It's about finding your way out of the claustrophobia and alienation of modern life.

The California tract houses are like the mundane meeting the mystical. Sometimes if you're driving at twilight, and you see those houses, and they're starting to light up, there's something so beautiful, so ethereal about the fact that they're all pretty similar, set against this desert landscape and the light just hitting them a certain way.

Sarah Polley's 'Stories We Tell,' James Ponsoldt's 'The Spectacular Now,' Destin Daniel Cretton's 'Short Term 12' - these are really important movies.

I love being on a movie set.

You think it's so cool to have movie stars in your movie, but they become people.

We explored cults in 'Sound of My Voice.' I think cults have an underlying spiritual quality.

I don't want to make a 100 hundred million dollar movie I have no stake in.

A lot of people dub our work as New Age. But for some reason, they don't dub Stan Lee's work that way.

The beauty of Netflix is, their job is to put stories out there, and not stories that appeal to everybody, which is maybe NBC's job?

It took us nine months to write 'The East'; we didn't start writing it on the computer until seven and a half months into it.