I read about an incident in Iraq war where members of a US army squad had reportedly raped a 14 girl, slaughtered her family, shot the girl in the face and set her body on fire. How could these boys have gone so wrong In searching for the answers, I read soldier's blogs, books, watched soldier's home made war videos, surfed their web sites, and their Youtube postings. It was all there, and all in video–De Palma

I was watching a news story about the war in Iraq that featured the parents of soldiers who had been killed, and it struck me: what would happen to your belief system if you lost a loved one to the cause And I realized a story told from this perspective could be both timely and important for a lot of people–James Strouse

I first conceived a film that would investigate the 1960s. It had to penetrate all levels of the Beatles songs. From the love songs to the political songs, the music and the film would not just reflect the microcosm of a character's experience, but, from my perspective, would also represent the macrocosm of the events that are happening in the world–Julie Taymor

In a well-attended press conference, when a foreign journalist asked George Clooney whether there was a contradiction between his starring and producing a movie that critizes corporate America, while at the same appearing in commercials for “corporate” products, the mega-star said: “I don't have a problem with trying to make a living.”

One of the things that interested me about this project was that Tony Gilroy had been saving this script for himself to direct. Tony has had much success as a screenwriter (Jason Bourne movies), and has been around the block enough to know what he wants. He was clearly driven to make the film, and his confidence was inspiring–George Clooney