Screenwriter

I don't think screenwriting is therapeutic. It's actually really, really hard for me. It's not an enjoyable process.

I think of myself as a guy who tries to write screenplays and now has tried to direct one. Anything more than that is meaningless and it gets in the way of being a real human being.

My time on the set is the least of my involvement. Most of my time is in pre-production and post-production.

I like actors - I used to be one.

I'm not into extreme sports or something. I just live a quiet life.

I graduated from college in 1980.

In a lot of movies, especially big studio ones, they're not constructed in any other way than to get people to like them and then tell their friends. It's a product.

I have ideas written down some places, but usually I can't find them. I'm not very organized.

I was trying to figure out what a memory feels like.

I think you just assume that your memory is just sort of a video playback of your experience, but it's nothing like that at all. It's a complete refabrication of an event and a lot of it is made up, because you're filling in spaces.

I want to try it to see what it's like and see what my stuff looks like when I take it from inception to completion.

I have a tendency to hire people who tend to be unattractive to the studios. Maybe this is a bad idea.

I hate a movie that will end by telling you that the first thing you should do is learn to love yourself. That is so insulting and condescending, and so meaningless. My characters don't learn to love each other or themselves.

I wanted to deal with someone's idea of their relationship.

I do have some theatrical background. I've written plays and seen plays and read plays. But I also read novels. One thing I don't read is screenplays.

I'm in my mind a lot. I live there.

The way I write is very much without kind of a goal. I have something I'm interested in and then I decide I'm going to explore it. I don't know where the characters are going to go, I don't know what the movie is going to do or what the screenplay is going to do. For me, that's the way to keep it alive.

Constantly talking isn't necessarily communicating.

I do like escapism. I like going to the movies on a Friday night and seeing something fun.

We have the script, we have the actors, and we're trying to figure out what this is, and you don't know what it is. You have to be open to what it's going to become rather than have this thing that you're trying to get to, which is boring.