I spent so many years of my life as a stage actor and when you do all these plays, a lot of really great plays are very politically driven. They deal with deep social issues, and that's the kind of stuff that I love, as an audience member.

I'm very political. Because I read politics every day, so I'm familiar with the world. I approach the films is I'm trying to write what is true, so that supersedes partisan spin, in my opinion. I find partisanship is a thing for cable news and newspaper articles, but it's not interesting for art. I think we all believe what we believe, and I don't think a film is going to change someone's mind.

Little Christian Bale. It was one of my favorite movies as a kid, and I re-watched it not too long ago, and my jaw just hit the floor. The whole time I was like, "Who wrote this? This is unbelievable." And then the credits came up at the end and it was Tom Stoppard, my favorite playwright. It's just an amazing piece of writing.

It seems to me that our presidential elections have turned more into a popularity contest than a real analysis about who really should be President of the United States.

I don't use my writing career as a vehicle to get me acting work or to write roles for myself.

Usually if a scene's really hard to write, I just don't write it. Nothing's coming to mind.

I don't even know if people are familiar with my name as an actor. It's not as if I ever was an über-famous actor.