Sweet and Low: Louis Pepe

The co-director of 'Lost in La Mancha', chooses his best and worst scenes of all time

Best scene: You Can Count On Me (Kenneth Lonergan, 2000)

I've picked a scene that is very true to life. Towards the end, Sammy (played by Laura Linney) is at a bus stop saying goodbye to her wanderer brother Terry (Mark Ruffalo). Orphaned as children, they've become very close, but they don't get along now they've grown up. Still, they love each other very much and it's an emotional moment. Sammy is crying and asks how she'll keep in touch or know where he is. Terry says: "Don't worry, remember what we used to say to each other when we were kids?" And that's all he needs to say. They look at each other, hug, and he gets on the bus and leaves. The way they are tongue-tied is very true to life because naked sentiment can sometimes feel awkward when you're an adult. It plays out like real life because they don't need to actually voice the sentiment to understand each other. The characters are very alive because of what they're not able to say.

Worst scene: Pollock (Ed Harris, 2000)

I hate the scene when Lee Krasner (Marcia Gay Harden) comes to see one of Jackson Pollock's (Ed Harris) new paintings and she says something like, Pollock, you've blown it wide open. She's saying he's about to change the course of art history. But her line is stilted, and it's ridiculous how she calls her friend by his last name and it makes a genuine moment seem quite trivial. In reality people aren't always so quick with the quotable sound bite. It also rings false because it uses the myth of the artistic process: the reality of creative work is repackaged and reworked into this tiny neat moment when someone recognises genius. I made Lost in La Mancha, which is about the creative process, and I'm incredibly critical of anything that perpetuates the myth that genius and inspiration are mythic moments.