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I did a grad film but that ended up hurting me more than it helped. My grad film was this over the top, gonzo, completely absurd sci-fi thing with non- professional actors. When you have actors in their fifties who are still doing student films, you're not going to get top-of-the-line. It was a thing with a teleportation chamber, with a mad scientist and it was completely absurd. It cost $60,000, but it was completely campy, Mystery Science Theater 3000 (1988) kinda stuff, so when people looked at the short, they went, 'Well, is this how the acting is going to be in Donnie Darko (2001)? We don't think you can direct actors if that's anything to go by.' I was like, 'Give me a good actor, and I can direct.' It became really frustrating when the short came up and it gave people a reason to pass. I would recommend that if you want to do a short, then do a short that's one or two scenes from the feature you want to direct, so they can see it. They really can't think outside the box. If you want to get a feature made, I would go and scrape together whatever money you can get, find an actor who can really pull off one of the parts and shoot a few scenes from your feature screenplay that can serve as a short. That's the best evidence that you can give them. That's what Wes Anderson did with Pura Adrenalina (1996), it was originally a short film. And it worked.

I'm very confident on a movie set. I know what I'm doing. I feel like that's what I've been waiting my whole life to do.

I don't ever want to make an impersonal film.

I was literally losing five pounds per week on the set of Donnie Darko (2001). I was turning into this walking skeleton. I was sort of becoming Donnie Darko! I started channeling Donnie and Jake [Jake Gyllenhaal], playing Donnie, started channeling me. So it was sort of a subconscious thing going on between director and actor that I can't even explain.

[on Donnie Darko (2001)] The director's cut is a lot closer to what premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Then the movie didn't sell for four months, and all the sudden the movie is STV, going straight to video, and it's going to debut on the STARZ! Network. ...... at this point I was just desperately trying to salvage the film before they take it away from me and it debuts on the STARZ! Network and my career is over.

[on Terry Gilliam] Having discovered Terry's work and seeing that he followed a similar course, beginning in the visual arts as a cartoonist working with Monty Python, I felt a kinship to him and felt like he was someone I wanted to emulate in my career. The visual design in Brazil: O Filme (1985) is so astonishing, my head almost exploded.

There's all this talk of ADHD, but kids are lazy and have always been lazy.

[on his Cannes experience with Southland Tales: O Fim do Mundo (2006)] Everyone's your best friend when you get into competition at Cannes. But then the movie is widely ridiculed, and all of a sudden, your phone stops ringing.