Well, if I had studied theater, I would not be making the kind of theater that I’m making. My theater came about by living. My first play that had text was written with another 13-year-old young man named Christopher Knowles who spent 11 years of his life in an institution for brain damaged children and was composing text that were arranged mathematically and had to do with geometry. I was fascinated by his mind and the way he was putting words together. Not only was it interesting to hear, but it was also very interesting to see. It wouldn’t be necessarily right for someone else, but for me it was something I was drawn to. It came about by living, not by reading a book.

I’d read Something Happened, by Joe Heller; I’d read “A Fan’s Notes,” by Frederick Exley; and I’d read The Moviegoer, by Walker Percy.

Charles Dickens. Jane Austen. And then, when I finally learned to read her, Virginia Woolf. Shoot for the top, always. You know you’ll never make it, but what’s the fun if you don’t shoot for the top?

There’s a huge amount of chefs that I find inspiring and have been influential in my career from early days. People like Marco Pierre White and the Roux brothers are amazing, but even now there's some fantastic young chefs that are creative and exciting.

It can be combining something disparate. With Greenberg , for example, I had the idea with the character and I wanted to make a movie in L.A. and about L.A. Then I put the two things together and that was the movie. With Francis Ha I wanted to do things in black and white, in New York, and with Greta Gerwig. These are the more conscious things.