Guillermo Arriaga on writing Babel

So, I referenced a pretty neat screenwriting podcast in an earlier that I find helps my motivation during periods of creative drought. I am in the process of listening to the interview with Arriaga, the writer of Babel, and he was asked how he wrote this complex script, his answer was interesting nonetheless:
"I never have notes, I never write notes...I don't write notes, I don't have index cards, I don't write outlines, I don't do any kind of research, I've never been to Morroco, I've never been to Tokyo"

"My producer told me to go to a screenwriting guru meeting, the guy kept talking about how we need to know everything about your characters...well...I didn't know anything about my characters, I want them to surprise me"

While it sounds extremely cocky to me, it's also really inspiring to hear something so fresh. The part that resonated the most with me is when he was saying how he's never been to Morroco or Toko yet the film would have you believe the writer to be quite worldly and culturally educated considering it takes place across two continents. Anyway, just a little food for the brain, what do you guys think about the statement?

Sidenote: Arriaga also claims that his re-writes, of which there are 25, were each blank page re-writes. Pretty incredible.

I'm not saying that I'm adhering to his own personal writing methods and techniques, it was just interesting to hear. For me, I need to have a synopsis or outline of some sort in order to comprehend the stories I come up with.