Everybody's trying to hold onto some shred of dignity in the process of it all, and, at the same time, never talking about how they don't have the power. No one has the power. So, you know, producers - we always think, "Well, producers are very powerful," but producers don't really have the power.

I thought a great line in the What Just Happened movie said, "We're just the mayonnaise."

I worked at a local television station and I got a chance to direct and do all those things - worked kiddie shows, Ranger House show with the hand puppets and things like that.

I play around with human things, human relationships and that, and allow that kind of talk to work in that way, on that level.

Ronald Reagan was this actor who was going to be president, and he was very charming. What he had was, he talked about America in ways that got people all caught up in it. He was creating this America - it could even be the mythical "America" - that we subscribe to.

When I began to think about the head of the family, the storyteller, the rise of television which became the new storyteller, the break-up of the American family as an idea and then Avalon came.

A lot of time mistakes are very interesting - you look for the behaviour that's not the one you expect.