We usually break the story first. For instance, on The Monuments Men, and this one is more complicated because there's a lot of history, so before we started, we sat down with Robert Edsel, the author of the book, for about a week, and basically, he just gave us a lecture and went through everything. And then, I had a researcher, somebody who we had actually used on Argo.

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

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

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.

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

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.

You really have to get out of an actor's head to write because actors only care about their part and it revolves around their part so "This is the important part because this is the part where..." .