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.

I had written four scripts before I wrote Recount. Each one progressed my career a little bit, but I didn't make a dime off any of them. Recount was the first thing I sold, and I actually sold it as a pitch to HBO. They bought it as a pitch, which was a miracle. I thought, "Wow, this could be the last time I'll be paid to write a script again, which would be too bad because that was an amazing experience I just had."

My strangest auditioning experience was when I was reading for a TV show, and right when I started the audition, the casting director left the room and yelled at me from the hallway to keep reading.

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.

Screenwriting is definitely the majority of my time, but I do still act when stuff comes up. I do a few jobs a year.People ask me that all the time about written something for yourself to star in, and it's strange. I just approach it as two separate careers.

I started writing when I was 26, so I don't even know what year that was. I wrote a script for me to star in. A friend of mine, who was an actor that I would compete against a lot, had written a script and was taking all these meetings. He just kept pushing me and was like, "You got to do it. You're going to love it!" He's a very successful screenwriter now. His name is Michael Bacall and he wrote 21 Jump Street, Project X, and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. So it was a few factors.

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