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

I think there are a lot more writers who are actors than you know; they just don't have roles on famous TV shows that you recognize.

Certainly, for me, and it's gone this way on every project I've worked on, the "writing" never ends until you're done with the movie.

I don't see myself directing things I don't write because, to me, directing was just an extension of the writing process.

I was alone a lot as a kid, because my parents were divorced.

Even from a really young age I was a huge movie buff - five, six, seven, eight. Just loved movies, but in a more in-depth way than most kids that loved movies at that time. I'd find a filmmaker or something and want to see all his movies.