Quotes from Joe Carnahan

I always look for... hopefully look for a challenge. And you're always looking for the next summit to hit. Even if it's a personal one. It needn't be some great sense of monumental... It just has to be important to you and big enough and special enough and individual enough that you get up for it. And that can be anything.

I have a very warm feeling about Kickstarter 'cause I think it's the best of what we can be. It's people who actually help out our fellow artists. We actually kind of go into our pocket for something. It's very rare.

I wish I'd made 'Warrior,' and I wish I'd made 'Drive.'

Lack of money always means a surplus of creativity, in the best case.

You can't stand at the Bellagio and watch these seven story fountains and not go, 'That's something of extraordinary man-made beauty.'

With 'The A-Team,' it was like, 'Alright, I'm going to do a big popcorn movie and see how that feels.'

I can never kind of fathom a character's journey beyond the moment when you go to black, any more than when people ask me what Jason Patric did with the tape recorder at the end of 'Narc,' you know what I mean? Even in 'Blood, Guts,' like, what happens down the road with these characters?

There's a duality of a guy calling on God: 'Where are you when I need you?' and then, at the same time, 'God helps those who help themselves.' I think that contradiction does exist in all of us, those of faith and those who profess to have no faith.

I think as a filmmaker and as a director, you shortchange yourself if you inhibit the ability of your actor to bring their own personal experiences to the characters.

There's a vast difference between marketing a movie and the movie itself. You try to cast as wide and broad a net as possible.

In terms of big spectacle, I thought 'Captain America 2' was phenomenal. I really loved that movie, and it was a great movie as a stand-alone.

'Raising Arizona' is maybe my favorite comedy of all time. What's great about it is that as slapstick as it gets, it has great moments of emotion and caring. Them bringing the baby back and Trey Wilson's character. I love that, man.

To me, the bones of 'Smokin' Aces' is in the Coen brothers. 'Barton Fink' and 'Raising Arizona.' Those two movies, if you look at them, that's where a lot of that comes from.

It's like I don't have any one genre, I guess. I think you'd be hard-pressed to get me into a rom-com, but who knows?

In TV, you can carve out a beautiful little niche like 'Breaking Bad' did. Like 'The Wire' did. Like 'Homeland' did.

On 'State of Affairs,' we're going after some names that you wouldn't think would traditionally do TV. A show that shoots in Los Angeles is such a rare bird in hand that I think we're gonna have the pick of the litter.

I don't know if I'm the most religious guy, but I think I'm a spiritual man, and these are the things I think about a lot. In terms of the film, I think 'The Grey' is very much a non-denominational kind of film. I don't think it's something that relies on a particular religious bent to tell the story.

I got 'The Grey' made because Liam Neeson wanted to make that movie.

I obviously love 'The Grey'; that was a pleasure to make. It was also very difficult. Listen, I love 'Smokin' Aces.' That was a lot of fun to make. Completely different part of your brain, I guess. Some would argue the part that they don't want you to use.

My hope, my real hope, is that whatever you hold in your heart, whatever you truly believe, and you've put your faith in, that that's what 's waiting for you. I think that'd be wonderful. You know what I mean? I think that would be the culmination of the life of the devout, or the believer.

I always thought that as much as I love 'White Jazz,' it became almost unfilmable at some point, because there are so many strands, so much, and it became so psychotic... that's what made it such a great book, but those things would not carry over into the filmic realm, I thought, with ease.

I hope I can become a good enough filmmaker where I can take a script that I'm not 'heart and soul' into, but I could still make something really great out of it.

I'm pretty rigorous about the drafts I turn in. I don't turn in something that's so ungodly they go, 'What the hell is this?'

To be honest, most of the time you leave the theater, and you're like, 'Well, that was nice, but where did I park?' It doesn't really stick with you.