I sometimes have to think about that because if I think about these five things and think of them all, I'll drop the balls, so I really have to prioritize and use every free second I have and maximize it. I wake up early, try to get sleep, but try to write for at least three hours every day. A really nice day for me is writing ten hours. I love that. Hasn't been a lot of that recently, but every free second I have I'm doing that.
James PonsoldtI don't think in terms of what's going to be successful. I have plenty of friends who make very small movies and friends who make giant, $150 million blockbusters, and the thing that I really admire is, the ones who do it well do it very sincerely.
James PonsoldtWith Rodham, for instance, it has to work on an emotional level. It has to work on a character level. If it's only "Look, it has famous people," then it's a wax museum come to life and that's really boring. It's sort of like what they say about science fiction and horror where the really good ones, if you remove that element of it, it still has to work. That's the reason The Shining works or Rosemary's Baby or Blade Runner.
James PonsoldtInnovation, sending civilians to outer space, mapping the mind, curing cancer - all these things, they're great. Obviously these same companies are also making a lot of money and accumulating a lot of our data at the same time, which seemed like independent things and one is beneficial and one is problematic for us as individuals, but in the rush of the new I think a lot of the philosophical, ethical, moral, and legal questions don't get asked in time. It's not in our nature to pause, sit, meditate, question, debate. We move forward. Technology generally answers itself with more technology.
James PonsoldtYou just work really hard and scrutinize. What is it called in politics? "Opposition research"? You want to do the detective work on your client so to speak before your opponent can dig it up. We're vetting everything thoroughly.
James PonsoldtI think now more than ever there's so much available honesty that you can find on the Internet. You can go on to YouTube and find really, really vulnerable, really veritรฉ stuff. It's not even veritรฉ, it's real! It's people confessing very private things. In a world with "It Gets Better" videos where people are trying to keep themselves alive and speak out to other people and are really brave and courageous.
James Ponsoldt