A biography for Zal Batmanglijhasn’t been written yet.
“I never think the ends justify the means.”
“I loved 'Terminator 2' as a teenager and 'Sound of Music' when I was a kid. I also loved 'Requiem For A Dream' as a college student and 'Mulholland Drive.' And I have loved 'Lincoln' as an adult. They are all the same, as they are all good stories and extraordinary actors.”
“I think if I was interested in writing on my own, I would be a novelist - then you could write about yourself, and that would be it. You wouldn't need anyone else.”
“Faith requires a leap; otherwise, it just becomes science.”
“It's so hard to shoot wealth. It doesn't show up on film.”
“I wanted to be a filmmaker, so my parents helped me by encouraging me to save my allowance. So I bought my first video camera, and I would make movies, but I never made a movie that I finished until I was in college. There was no expectation, but I would make movies every day.”
“We would meet truck drivers, and they were like, ''Orange Is the New Black' is my favorite show.' And we're like, 'What? This looks like a Red State, Trump-voting guy, and he loves 'Orange Is the New Black?'' I think that's the power of storytelling.”
“The best dumpster meal I has was the first one I had.”
“I don't want to make a 100 hundred million dollar movie I have no stake in.”
“If you want to make an anarchist film, make it with a corporation.”
“We're taught that food in a dumpster is waste. But when you find bags of bread that are perfectly good, all of a sudden that waste turns into bounty. That's an important shift in perception.”
“People are frustrated all over the country, whether they're in Oklahoma or Oregon or San Diego or San Francisco or L.A. or D.C. or New York or Omaha or wherever.”
“We explored cults in 'Sound of My Voice.' I think cults have an underlying spiritual quality.”
“It's funny how quickly human beings adapt.”
“A lot of people dub our work as New Age. But for some reason, they don't dub Stan Lee's work that way.”
“'Sound of My Voice' had been written before 'Another Earth.'”
“I'm very fascinated by genre.”
“Whatever you think of Edward Snowden, it took bravery to do what he did.”
“Any director who's willing to be brave not only in terms of subject matter but also in terms of being emotional and moving you is what inspires me.”
“That's the beauty of filmmaking: it's extremely humbling because you do it all over again all the time.”