Quotes from Jeff Nichols

I'm really calculating when it comes to these scripts - I'm really calculated about character behavior and dialogue.

I think the way you make a movie dictates the movie that you make.

I'll say this: I think from a directing standpoint, 'Loving' is my most accomplished film. Strictly from a technical, directing point of view.

People ask me about past projects I've worked on, and other things; I'm just really bad at lying. I have a bad poker face, so I just try to tell people how I'm feeling in the moment and really what I was trying to do.

A lot of independent filmmakers are really catty.

The films that have influenced me most are: 'The Hustler', 'Badlands', 'Hud', 'Tender Mercies', 'Cool Hand Luke', 'A Perfect World', and 'Laurence of Arabia'. I also really like 'Fletch'. I feel like all of these films reached an honest place in regard to the human condition while also stringing together really entertaining stories.

Nature is the purest thing we can touch and observe. It can be the most beautiful and also the most devastating.

I loved, in 'Starman', the use of anamorphic lenses, the creation of blue light, and Carpenter's use of the widescreen format.

I've only seen one snake out in the wilderness, not behind glass, and I froze. I literally couldn't move. So to say I have a fear of snakes would be true.

Sometimes as writers, we try and put narrative development above character development. We try to move our characters around like chess pieces that do our bidding. The problem with that is sometimes the characters do things they shouldn't do. Things that are inorganic.

I am not going to approve the home-screening format for my film just carte blanche in lieu of a theatrical screening when I cannot trust that it will ever be seen in the format that it's intended to be.

'Midnight Special' is, like 'Starman', a government chase film - in the government chase film genre - about a boy who has special powers and the government agents' quest to find him.

We have a problem with dealing with race in our country. We have a problem with dealing with marriage equality and equality in general. These are complex, divisive issues in our society, and I think that the only way we further this conversation is to take them down to a very human scale.

I have gained a lot of confidence in my process of making films. It does't mean I'll make a successful film or even a good film, but I know how to make my film.

Your whole life is changed with that first child. Your social behaviors are all turned upside down, you're sleep deprived, but eight months in, my son had this seizure, and it just woke me up to the idea that, oh, no, this can end. And it can end in a way that will destroy you forever.

Your reaction when you lose control in a situation is to try and hang on tighter.

If you want someone to show up and execute your script for you, seriously, there are a lot of great people out there. Don't call me.

You can watch any Hitchcock film and be blown away.

I don't think 'Shotgon Stories' or 'Take Shelter' have hopeless endings. I think there's hope in both those films, no matter how hard you have to search for it. It's there.

I'm not as worried about the process of writing, simply because I think I've got that one down, you know? I think I know what brings specificity to these ideas, what brings specificity to the genre elements, or anything else, and it's personal emotions.

There's a reason why I use film. It's because it's the best representation of how our eyes work. I really believe that. I think it's better than digital.

If I can drive down the road in my car and listen to XM satellite, and when a song gets beamed into my car, it can tell me who wrote the song and what the damn lyrics are, why, when you broadcast a digital signal of a film, can't it speak to your television to set up a list of settings to show the film in the way that it was meant to be shown?

One of my favorite directors is Clint Eastwood, and I hear about the way he works, and I think I'm of a similar style. Very few takes - you get what you take, and you move on. It's very much a job and work.

I've been really lucky when it comes to casting kids, and I don't particularly like child actors. Too often, they just show up, and they've had whatever real innocence that's in a child just beaten out of them. They start to perform for you, and you can just see it coming. It's no good.