We have this myth that if you work hard, you can accomplish anything. It's not a very American thing to say, but I don't think that's true. It's true for a lot of people, but you need other things to succeed. You need luck, you need opportunity, and you need the life skills to recognize what an opportunity is.

I'm a playwright by trade, and in theater, writers have complete control over everything. Nobody can change a word without your permission. I've had a couple screenwriting experiences that weren't terrible, but they were typical, where executives came in and gave you sometimes good notes and sometimes horrible notes - but they wanted to change the movie that everybody had agreed to make. After a couple of times, it's like, "Why are we doing this?" The story is not going to turn out very good when 13 people are writing it together.

I'm going to do whatever interests me. Look, writing 'Rabbit Hole' came out of an interest in diversifying my portfolio, frankly.

The Pulitzer has nothing to do with me; it's more about people's perceptions of me, whatever they may be. I'm not being humble - I honestly do not and cannot think about that. It's a lovely piece of crystal on my bookcase, but that's all it is to me.

My plays tend to be peopled with outsiders in search of clarity.

I'm just writing about people. People are dark and complicated. I'm trying to tell the truth; that's all that I do.

From a young age, I was rubbing elbows with a very different kind of person and social class, and I felt a lot of tension and conflict in my identity because of that.