I was running the risk in Adventureland, even though we stayed close to the script, because I wanted it to be not a schematic movie. For better or worse, it's not a wish-fulfillment movie. It's got a kind of happy ending, but it's not like I forgot to put on the "Ten years later," and they've got four kids and a dog. Those guys are not together today. It always was leading up to the moment of "Oh, I have my first girlfriend." Credits.

The first person I met in the business was David Heyman, who was a producer on Daytrippers and who went on to produce the highly-unsuccessful Harry Potter series.

I was naïve when I was young, I was sheltered. I had illusions about who I was going to be, delusions, and a little bit of pretentiousness. And I thought, "I'll write the guy like that. It'll allow me to make fun of everyone else if I make fun of myself."

Jon Hamm is incredibly good at playing people who have secrets and are hiding aspects of their personality, and obviously Don Draper had a lot of that.

I feel like I came from a generation where... We didn't have Vietnam. We didn't have World War II. Nothing cultural was thrust upon us to make men out of us, so you're kind of free to not grow up that way if you don't want to.

I feel like I'm long overdue for a "one for me" movie, so I've got two low-budget indy personal things I'm working on.

I am very interested in the small decisions people make that do set you on a different road in your life. As much as we have influence over what kind of person we're going to become, there are little tests along the way.