Sam Levinson

“To put it simply, I'm not interested in making comfortable films, and I don't want to crush the audience's imagination. I want them to feel like they might have missed something.”

“I was never interested in acting on film or in television, but I was always more inclined to writing and directing, and the exploration of character.”

“I tend not to approach things intellectually at first. Maybe after the fact i can look at it and see ultimately what it's doing. I start with the characters and their inner lives.”

“I don't really outline. I just kind of know where I'm going in my head, so I'll write and discover it for myself. Or I'll just write an entire episode and throw it out because I land on an idea and realize that's where I should jump off from.”

“I don't design stories to fit some political ideology. I design stories about characters who I love and care about, while trying to make sense of an increasingly mad and toxic and insane world.”

“I can't wake up every day and not thank Sundance. They're a great beacon of light for any independent film. Just to have a film that you made shown on a screen for an audience in a theater is beyond me, so I owe them everything in the world.”

“We as a country, our lust for entertainment has sort of superseded our sense of self-preservation.”

“Do I think that, when we're teaching a book at school, should we go through a myriad list of trigger warnings? No. But I understand why people desire it.”

“Sobriety has a way of allowing a person to begin to realize that the things that you do have consequences for the people that love you.”

“Anything can be taken out of context and anything you say or do is not necessarily an accurate reflection of who you are in your totality. There are small moments of your life that when taken into account with the rest of your life start to paint a picture.”

“I feel very strongly as a writer and as a director it is not my job to crush the audience's imagination.”

“I don't want to make a comfortable film. I'm not interested in that. I'm not interested in answering people's questions; I'm interested in posing questions. I'm interested in sparking a conversation between two people about what something means. That's enough for me, as a writer and as a director.”

“I've always wanted to write, I've always wanted to direct. The conscious decision was always to not be an actor.”

“As a child I'm sure I was no different from any other human being struggling to navigate the difficulties and complexities of their childhood and adolescent years. I feel it's a time when all of us need an escape, a place where we can leave the world behind and just disappear. For me, it was film.”

“If you keep your heart open you can meet people who change your life.”

“I am always curious to sit down with the actor who's playing the part after the casting process and get to know them, get to understand their life a little bit more.”

“If you're working in close-ups, then an actor is only able to act with his head. I like an actor to act with their entire body.”

“And the nature of split screen is a disconnect: It's a line between two characters, two images, two realities.”

“When we go to the cinema, we bring all of our preconceptions of actors with us.”

“I think what's different about this time is that at least pre-Internet there were more similarities between one generation and the next. And now, I think that gap has grown in a very significant way.”