We wanted to move people emotionally, not intellectually. There’s no message in the film except that life is hard, and that’s universal. You cannot get away from the fact that it’s two men, but we’ve...

It simply tells a story about two rather unremarkable men and their tragedy. It doesn’t wave a banner of triumph over any lifestyle. It is a story about life. A realistic story, and a very...

And it’s still only 50 pages of the screenplay. It’s only half of the screenplay. So we did have to make up the rest.

Not win awards, win people. Win audiences. I’m honestly not surprised people like it, but I’m rather startled by the widespread, rapid word-of-mouth. We both believed it would be a film that would eventually find...

It’s a movie, I just don’t know what they’re so afraid of. Whatever preconceived notions you have, you need to set them aside, the film will shatter those notions. It really isn’t what people are...

Michelle picked up on every beat in the story. She’s from Montana, she has that background; there are things she grasps intuitively. The phrase ‘still waters run deep’ completely applies to her.

Emotional truths can sometimes be conveyed more effectively, more compellingly, through fiction.

One of the jobs of art is to inspire discussion, and Brokeback Mountain certainly has done that. It’s like a window and a mirror. You’re looking through a window at lives you may or may...

A friend called me up and said there’s a story in there you really need to read. So I read it, and I was just stunned, it just struck a chord in me. Then I...

He said it was a masterpiece. That’s the only time in the 20 years that I’ve known him that he’s agreed with me on the first time.