It's almost a work-shopping process to create the characters with the actors.

There are actors who just bring an enormous amount of empathy. They just have that"it" that makes you want to follow them and root for them.

What I really found was that the one similarity between Covert Affairs and Fair Game is a deep love and admiration and fascination with the home life of a spy.

I think making a great action movie is one of the hardest cinematic endeavors. By definition, smart characters avoid action. Smart people don't go down dark alleys, but if you're making an action movie and you want to have an action sequence, somehow you have to get that character into that dangerous situation.

The movie I end up with is the movie I aspired to make.

It's no secret that my process is a little bit loose and can be a little bit infuriating to a studio if they don't know what they're signing up for.

It's hard to get a movie made about characters these days. We're in a climate where, unless it's based on a toy or it's a superhero where somewhere it ends in man - like Spider-Man, Superman or Iron Man - it's hard to get it made.