I'm a film maker who started on the Atari and then went onto the Commodore 64 and the Amiga. So I possibly have a different sensibility to people who didn't play games growing up.

I love J. G. Ballard. I love authors who take the world as we know it and just tweak one thing and say, 'What if the world were like this?'

J. G. Ballard is just an example of the writers I like. Philip K. Dick is obviously one of them. I'm a big fan of William Gibson as well. He started cyberpunk with 'Neuromancer.' I've come to know him a little bit over Twitter, of all places, and I was always a huge fan of his. It's very cool to know he even knows I exist.

I view myself still as a director. That's what I do.

I have a sense of humor, and sometimes it gets me into trouble.

I'd love to do a Western.

I was a big fan of Luc Besson and obviously Ridley Scott.

Terry Gilliam, he's a really interesting and amazing film maker, and when he gets it right, it's really powerful stuff.

I'm not the guy who does slo-mo, or I'm not the guy who does splashing rain or doves flying or anything; that's not me. Every film, I try and make it the way I see it in my head, and it really just depends on the script and the people I'm working with or whatever interests me at that particular time.

I thought 'The Social Network' was fantastic.

My priority is having the ability to be creative and to come up with the right decisions and not be fettered. If there are a lot of people involved in decision making, it can become frustrating.

If you do something with acceptance and kindness, you can create a true friendship.

Gay people are more powerful when they work with lesbians. We become more powerful when we're L, G, B and T.

In this miraculous, beautiful universe of ours, where it's an absolute miracle that our eyes and ears can witness it all, we somehow have bought into this lie that the highest plane of existence is whether we put an R or a D on our voter registration card. That's insanity.

Although my mom and I had often disagreed politically and personally, she'd led our family by example, instilling in us a can-do attitude that often defied reason - an optimism many would call foolish, ignorant, and naive, but an optimism that occasionally shocked our neighbors and our world with its brazen veracity.

My mom achieved so much more than the doctors said she ever would. I miss her.

We love and adore our surrogate, we speak to her and her family constantly, I'm sure our son will speak to her for the rest of his life as well.

'Milk' had to be a financial success, following the success of 'Brokeback Mountain.' It had to make money so studios would develop other LGBT projects.

When I got the deal to do 'J. Edgar,' which was really the brainchild of Brian Grazer, 'Milk' hadn't come out yet. We had just completed principal photography, and it was still basically this little film where we just really hoped someone would see it.

There has been this resurgence in anti-LGBT language in the U.K. and the U.S., and the rest of the world. In the U.S. we've heard it with Trump's rise. Here, I've heard language borrowed from the most conservative anti-gay voices in the U.S. used by some gay and lesbian people against trans people.

The drive to be a parent is strong. It's one of the most ingrained human traits there is.

I get emotionally attached to someone if I talk to them on the street corner for five minutes.

I hope we build a son who's strong enough to stand up for other people. And if Donald Trump is out there teaching folks how to build walls, we're hoping to instil in our son the ability to know how to take them down.

Mom came from what has been called the poorest place in America - Lake Providence, Louisiana. She was born on the south side of the Mississippi which was mainly African American and even poorer than the rest.

Tom and I have never claimed to be perfect, whatever that means in a relationship. We're not trying to be anyone's example. We're living our lives and building our family and doing what we love.

Mom got very heated about the new government policy of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. In her view it was going to allow closeted gay people into her military and she was really against it... she just assumed I agreed with her opinions.

Eventually my courageous Mom did something we do all too rarely. She got on a plane and she came to see me in L.A. - this place where we'd always been told sinners lived. She came to see my gay friends.

I have incredibly sensitive hearing. I often hear people talking about me. Sometimes it's amazing and sometimes you hear gossip you'd rather not.

I turned in a script that meant a lot to me and an executive at Warner Bros said he was disappointed in me. I took a hit of confidence and stepped away from film-making for some time.

One of the great things about being married to my husband, who is also an impossible dreamer, is that we just do things.

I grew up quite poor, and the Mormon church was always there for us as a family.

My father, my Mormon father, took off when I was a young man and, or actually very young, I was like six years old, so a young boy.

You know, for a long time I became almost atheist. I believed in nothing. And it was tough for me to believe in anything at all because I had believed so strongly. And I divorced myself of spirituality, I think.

I grew up in the Mormon Church and I have a very strange relationship with that.

I watched Sean Penn, you know, bring Harvey Milk to life. I was on the set every day.

I think it's very important that, you know, gay actors get to play gay characters.

You know, growing up Mormon, I always got the sense that it was hard for the leaders of the church to feel like they were outside of Christianity. I think, you know Mormon people believe that they are Christian, and a lot of people outside of the Mormon Church, you know, don't see them that way.

Growing up Mormon, you learn how to be very, very organized, and it's a passionate group. I mean, in that way, it's prepared me very well for Hollywood.

I think for too many decades, the politicians have driven a wedge between the gay and lesbian communities and the religious communities for their own benefit, and I think it's time to start to broach those divides.

I always thought that the film would be successful if we captured Harvey Milk, like the way Harvey really was-the personality, the humor, the corny bad jokes, all of it.

Most of my family is still active in the Mormon Church. They live in Utah and Provo and Orem and Salt Lake City.

I am hopeful that there are three or four Harvey Milks. It would be nice to have one in California and one in New York and one in Texas and Oklahoma-it would be fantastic. Maybe even one in Salt Lake City. I would like that.

I probably saw 'When Harry Met Sally' for the first time in college.

And the film that I've seen a million times is 'When Harry Met Sally' with Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal, and directed by Rob Reiner.

Here's the thing with 'When Harry Met Sally,' it doesn't matter how many times you watch it, it's always interesting, and you're always identifying with a different scene in the movie - at least I am.

The things that I'm interested in directing are fiction, because then you're not married to a particular reality.

I had a lot of success for many years, and the critics had been so kind. Sometimes it's good to get cut down to size a little bit.

I love Jennifer Connelly.

I love the true life stories and the biopics - people say I'm pigeonholed, but it's a fantastic kind of pigeonhole - but it's tough to then go and direct it because I know all the real people.

Some people only look at the good stuff and some people only look at the bad stuff.