I didnt want to be 50 or 60 and auditioning for a three-line role.

Writing a screenplay is like writing a big puzzle, and so the hardest part, I think, is getting the story.

I acted for so many years and sat on a million sets and worked with a million different directors so that is to me some of the best training you can get.

Look, a lot of directors were actors, even if they were unsuccessful actors which I think is helpful. I think it's a really helpful thing for a director to have experienced that. It helps you know how to talk to actors and how to get what you need from them.

There are times when you work with directors on set, and things are a bit rudderless, and those can be good directors.

As a writer, you know what the purpose of the scene is. It really has nothing to do with the actor so you have to really get out of that space because for actors it's a micro-focus and then you figure out your arc through what the writers have given you to say. But that arc is just one little piece of the huge arc of the whole film. It took a while to get out of that.

The Ides of March was a fairly cynical film.