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 now that I've tried directing, I'm not interested in doing adaptations anymore. I could do an adaptation of someone else's work that I would write, but the idea of taking someone else's material entirely doesn't interest me. One of the things that I found really helpful, at least in my mind - and I've never discussed this with the actors or with the people I work with - is that being a neophyte in directing, I feel like I have a kind of authority simply because I'm the writer as well.

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

Scary is time passing and sickness and dying and regret and isolation and loneliness and relationship problems - as opposed to a guy in a hockey mask, which didn't seem that scary.

If you ever got me, you wouldn't have a clue what to do with me.

I think everything I do is based on my experience in the world in one way or another.

The difference between a movie and a play is that the production you end up with is the production. If a movie that I spent time on turns out to be crap, it's never going to be made again.