I love working with actors. I love visual things. I always intended to be a writer who directs and a director who writes.

I have a lot of anxiety about medical things for example. I don't think I'm particularly good at it, but I'd had the practice when I went into shooting Synecdoche. It can be somewhat gratifying, too, because I don't have that relationship with other adults where I need to comfort them or they come to me for that.

If I were doing somebody else's script or I adapted a book by Philip Roth, on set there could be a million different interpretations of the material and people could argue with me. Certainly on Synecdoche, New York we had discussions and arguments, but I felt like I had authority because I'm a writer.

I think dreams are metaphors. Everything you do in writing is metaphorical. So it seems like the same arena to me.

I think if something resonates, even if it's surreal, it's because it is relatable and I think that that's a core issue for me.

I choose to write characters from the inside because I feel like that's the way I'm gonna get the most honest version of them.

The end is built into the beginning.