JUSTIN KURZEL

The first time I went to Cannes, Gus Van Sant was there in competition with 'Last Days.'

As a white Australian, you're surrounded by this vast landscape you know isn't yours, so you're always intimidated. You expect to vanish up a mountain or get eaten by the ground.

I'm not a violent person; I'm not interested in violence.

I think 'Macbeth' was a play that I've always gotten so much out of. My wife played Lady Macbeth in a play, and I designed it. There are things in there that are just kind of extraordinary.

I'd said no to directing 'Snowtown' a few times and was quite scared of it, but I saw a story there that was worth telling.

I lost my father and went into a process of grief with it that was all about how to replace that grief, how to fill it, and I think there was something very desperate in the way that I was replacing it.

What happened in Snowtown was repeated many times in history, in a big scale and a small scale.

I love Steve Martin so much, even in 'Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.'

The idea that you're made up of the people that come before you and you somehow have some kind of conscious dialog with your genetics - I think it's really deep and interesting stuff.

When I was 17, I moved to Sydney to study set design at NIDA.

The first time I went to Cannes, Gus Van Sant was there in competition with 'Last Days.'

The great thing about first-time actors is that they listen. If you say something in a scene, they were listening to it. They weren't thinking about the return line.

I lost my father and went into a process of grief with it that was all about how to replace that grief, how to fill it, and I think there was something very desperate in the way that I was replacing it.

What happened in Snowtown was repeated many times in history, in a big scale and a small scale.

As a white Australian, you're surrounded by this vast landscape you know isn't yours, so you're always intimidated. You expect to vanish up a mountain or get eaten by the ground.

Directing is a whole series of things that would be awkward socially. But I love that. I love actors. Talking with them, touching, laughing, crying.

I'm not a violent person; I'm not interested in violence.

With 'Snowtown,' you either love it or you hate it; there's no middle ground. So I've come to understand and appreciate that's the kind of film that it is.

I definitely had very strong male figures in my life, who, when I look back, clearly laid the foundations to who I am.

I actually gravitate toward comedy a lot when it comes to what I'm watching, but maybe that's because I've been on such dark work the last four or five years.

The wonderful thing about cinema is you can bring a 3D world to life.

I love Steve Martin so much, even in 'Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.'

When I was 17, I moved to Sydney to study set design at NIDA.

The idea that you're made up of the people that come before you and you somehow have some kind of conscious dialog with your genetics - I think it's really deep and interesting stuff.

Oh, 'Step Brothers' is genius. I could watch that film a thousand times.

There's this classic car crash thing about 'Macbeth.' You can just see this car driving at 100 mph towards this brick wall, and you can't do anything about it, and the characters are desperately trying to stop it and can't.

In Australia, I think, there's so much baggage with it. You just mention 'Snowtown,' and everyone's got an opinion about it.

I think 'Macbeth' was a play that I've always gotten so much out of. My wife played Lady Macbeth in a play, and I designed it. There are things in there that are just kind of extraordinary.

I'd said no to directing 'Snowtown' a few times and was quite scared of it, but I saw a story there that was worth telling.

We all want to belong to something, and we all want to feel as though we have a legacy, and when you see two characters that have had that taken away from them, I think that just feels very real and very human.