We all experience power struggles in our lives - at the workplace, with our friends, in our love lives. In a way, we're all politicians.

Is self-interest a bad thing? We want our leaders to be pure and good, but at the same time we want them to be effective, and to be effective you often have to be ruthless and not bound by ideology or the same morals that we pretend to hold ourselves to.

The checks and balances is a way to prevent government from either devolving into an autocratic tyranny or an autocratic mob mentality.

In politics, it's very theatrical. There’s a lot of stage craft. The campaign is trying to tell a story that they want people to believe in, and candidates are playing the role, like actors, by a creative personae that people will be attracted to.

Film is much more visual, a scene is typically a lot shorter, you’re dealing with a lot more characters, a lot more locations and you’re able to rely on things that you just can never do on the stage.

When you're creating new roles out of scratch in my opinion working with the actors is a great asset. You can learn a lot from that.

If you work hard and play by the rules, you'll have a better life than your parents did, and your children will have a better life than you did.