Ti West quotes:

I don't think you want to preach to people. I don't think In A Valley Of Violence, and the same with The Sacrament, there's a social commentary and a political element to both the films, but it's not like, "Think this because I think this."

[Valley of Violence] was written for James Ransone. PJ's a friend of mine, I've known him for a long time, he's always like, "Dude, when are we going to make a movie together?" I finally called him.

I always feel like the less you say when you're making a movie, as a director, is the best. That means everything's going great.

It definitely could have been a horror story [Valley of Violence], oh my God, if the dog was impossible. So could the horses.

It is a very classic Western [Valley of Violence], and if you like Westerns, you'll like this movie, but there's a tone to it that's all its own that I think is unique and memorable.

I think having funny characters is just one way of having three-dimensional characters.

Everything Jumpy could do [in Valley of Violence] was too much. If I put it in the movie you would all check out. When he wraps himself up in the blanket, that's as far as I could go, and that's not even close. The dog's amazing.

From a performance standpoint, it just gives [actors] so much - I had such a great cast [ in Valley of Violence] - and it gives them the ability to go wild with it and to have performances that are memorable.

I don't generally watch the movie [ The House Of The Devil ]. It's sort of like hearing your voice on tape.

I don't go to see movies to see plots. I'm not interested in puzzles like an Agatha Christie story.

I just really like seeing mundane stuff in movies. It's realistic.

I like movies that leave things in the hands of the audience.

I mean PJ - James Ransone - he was a friend of mine, he probably heard all this stuff, but for the rest of the cast [Valley of Violence], we mostly just talked about their characters and things like that. That was the business at hand.

It's a combination of yes - making a movie about the characters - and then, also, budget.

All those awkward moments - that's on the cast for doing such an amazing job. I think it was funny on the page, but when they did it, you definitely went, "Oh!" Watching it with a crowd that, like you said, was not expecting it to be funny, but then genuinely finding it funny, is totally a credit to their performances.

Ethan [Hawke] just - they got along great. He got to act with a dog, for real, and it felt like Jumpy was acting with him. It was a surreal thing to watch. When you watch the movie [Valley of Violence], you just kind of accept it. But if you do think about how we show - there's a dog and a movie star interacting - and you buy it. That's crazy.

Humor is more so. For this, there's definitely moments that I think, "I know this part is really funny and I want to see people laugh." And they do and you go, "Yesss." That's really satisfying, because I'm so proud of the performances in the movie and everybody worked so hard.

I always talk about movies a lot beforehand, and then we would get there, and I'd say, "Let's play around and see how it goes." And they would do it, and I'd go, "Well, that was awesome." It was really - I don't know, it was really special to watch them.

I did the movie [Valley of Violence] from two perspectives. You're with Ethan [Hawke] the whole movie, but for the first half, you're really with Ethan. For the second half, you're with him, but also you're with the bad guys because he kind of becomes the bad guy. No one's really good in the movie.

I do think, even though I've made these genre movies, there's what happens in the movie and then there's what the movie's about. And for me, what the movie's about is so much more interesting.

I don't really get that nervous about whether people like it. You can't do anything about that. It's more technical. You spend two years of your life obsessing, picturing sound details, and you work so hard to make a movie a certain way, that you get there, and you're like - is it loud enough or whatever, so that this experience with everybody in this room is the fairest chance I can get. And then if you like it, cool, and if you don't, whatever.

I found Jumpy on YouTube. I wrote a movie about a guy with a dog and was like, "What have I done? This is going to be a nightmare. We're a small movie and we're never going to be able to do this."

I wrote [Valley of Violence] entirely with James Ransone in mind. I get such a joy out of watching his performance and seeing people watch this. He's so great. The bravado thing and the foolishness, he does them both so well. It's weird because he's so hateable in the movie, but in the end, you're also going, "I feel bad for him." That's hard to do. It's hard to do that to where you're like, "This guy's the worst, but I know why he's the worst, so it's a shame this is happening." That's the whole thing.

I'd been all hyped about it, I was like, "Please come," and to have that and know Tommy Nohilly is probably going like, "This is cool," it makes me feel good.

If people don't like [my film], the ship's sailed. There's nothing I can do about that.

If you ever see the director pulling people aside, that means something's not working. Because you're trying to figure out why it's not working. But we would show up, we would talk about it.

If you make just a straight scary movie, people are just - you don't know what they're thinking.

I'm doing an over-the-shoulder shot on a dog. I'm putting the camera behind the dog's shoulder. This is craziness. You just accept it in the movie [Valley of Violence], but when you make the movie, it's the weirdest thing. There's dog coverage, like it's a person.

I'm not sure I understand the compulsion to label things.

In general, I go to see the stuff that for me is, "Thank God for that actor, he's doing something that I never imagined; thank God for this filmmaker, because if this person didn't exist, this movie wouldn't exist." That's why I go to the movies. That, to me, is what's so exciting about this movie.

It's Ethan Hawke and John Travolta [in Valley of Violence]. It's awesome. They're awesome.

It's funny, because I don't think of my films as "slow-burn." I don't even know if I was familiar with the phrase until people started labeling me with it.

It's not the plot [of Valley of Violence] - the plot is the reason to get all these things to happen, all these character moments to happen. It was always meant to have these two perspectives.

It's one of those things, when you look back on it, you'd go, "Oh, I could've done without that. If I could go back in time, I would do it different." That's the thing with violence in general.

It's this long monologue [in Valley of Violence] with Ethan Hawke talking about life and everything with a dog. That's not in movies. Hopefully when people think about the movie when they go home, they're like, "That's weird. He's maybe crazy. He's talking to a dog the whole time."

It's unreal. I mean, the dog backflips. It's amazing. Google Jumpy on YouTube - I had seen the dog first and I was like, "Y'all don't even know."

It's very important to me to find ways to relate the audience to the characters. This is the first thing to go in most mainstream horror films.

I've done it with all my films. I always keep an eye on the first time I show it because... I don't know. Neurosis.

Jumpy is the most incredible animal of all time. The movie [Valley of Violence] is the tamest example of what that dog is capable of.

Of course, we talked about Westerns we like with [James Ransone in Valley of Violence] , but it was always thematically in relation to the movie and what the themes of the movie were.

One of my favorite scenes of the movie [Valley of Violence] is when Ethan Hawke is sitting at the campfire with the dog.

Really, I wanted to make a movie [Valley Of Violence] about: How does violence affect people? This is a take from me on how violence affects people.

Sometimes I look at it [Valley of Violence] and go, "How did we do that?" But it's a credit to Ethan [Hawke], he had done White Fang, so Ethan is like, "Oh God, that's right."

That's what's interesting about people. It can be funny, but when [John] Travolta got there and did [comic moments] you're like, "Oh! This is really funny." Or when Karen [Gillan] and Taissa [Farmiga] do something, I'm like, "This came out so much funnier."

The bad guys, when they start getting picked off, they're upset that their friends died, too. But that's the thing. That's what life is. It's that weird gray area.

The first half [of Valley of Violence] was to endear you to all these people and give you all these archetypes that you're familiar with, and then the second half, just to see all those archetypes unravel like real people.

The hardest animal was the vulture. But the horses were great, the dog was great [in Valley of Violence]. It was really easy.

The Innkeepers were two nerds in a dead-end job and then they try to get involved and they get in over their heads, and how does it affect them? That, to me, just seems like what happens to people.

The movie [ The Innkeepers] is in no way a comedy, but I would put some of the funny scenes up against some of the funnier comedies this year. I think it's genuinely really funny, but it's out of the gallows.

The second half [of Valley of Violence], you're with the guys that you should hate, but when you start seeing what their real lives are, you're like, "I do hate you, but at the same time, all right - maybe take it down a notch." The complications of all that are what's so interesting to me, those esoteric details - that's what people will hopefully take away from the movie.

They're both [Ethan Hawke and John Travolta] so good. It's hard to explain. But they're consummate professionals and you see the little choices they make - you see it in their eye. You see these little details they do where you go, "That's why they're them."

To me it's not so much that the movies are slow-paced as much as they are about spending time building a relationship between the audience and the characters. If you don't spend an adequate amount of time doing this, then how can you expect to scare anyone?

Toby [Huss] gets shot, or that part when [John] Travolta says this, or the part where Ethan [Hawke] says that cool thing - those details are the things that are interesting to me. So just acknowledging we don't have a lot of money [for Valley of Violence], so we're going to make a Western that's kind of contained, but we're going to make it super charismatic and we're going to make it memorable for what it is as opposed to what we couldn't afford.

Tommy Nohilly, who plays Tubby [ Valley of Violence], he came down to see the movie for the first time and I was like, "You've got to come just to see people react to your [big scene]." I knew that would go well, but it's satisfying to me when he's sitting there and it actually does.

Typically, in Westerns, people who are in a Western feel like they're in a Western. It's almost like they know they do all these Western things.

We can't make a giant sprawling movie. We're going to make a small movie. And what we got is what I could get, performance-wise.

With my horror movies or with this movie [Valley of Violence], same thing. The subtext of this movie is what to take away from it. Plot is never something that's been my driving force as a filmmaker.

You have to. But I generally try - I'll creep in the back. I'll be outside. I'll pace around. I don't really get that nervous about whether people like [my films].

You want to be able to say [to Ethan Hawke's character], "Dude, it's okay," but maybe it's not. Maybe he's not a good person. I don't know. That's the thing about people. There is no real good guy or bad guy [in A Valley Of Violence]. It's all context.