[Dalton] Trumbo wrote this incredible pamphlet, almost on the level of Tom Paine's 'Common Sense,' called 'The Time of the Toad.' It's an exquisitely written treatise regarding the black list era.

I'm not one of these directors, so far, that wants to have a whole separate director's cut of these things. So far they've turned out to be kind of the length that they wanted to be.

[Lyndon Baines ] Johnson is a big and larger-than-life guy, we just tried to give him the dynamic range that he actually had.

I don't stay in the genre because I just like all stories that have a smart hook in them and I can find a comic way through if it's a comedy or a suspenseful way through it if it's a drama.

It's hard to imagine in this day and age the accent in Dalton Trumbo speaking voice, the Mid Atlantic mixture of an English and American dialect, so flowery and oratorical that it almost sounds theatrical. It would be uncool today, no one would ever speak that way.

It was an interesting process trying to get Bob to talk about the film because he's such a shy person. He generally likes to talk when he really knows he has something to say.

[Dalton] Trumbo wrote this incredible pamphlet, almost on the level of Tom Paine's 'Common Sense,' called 'The Time of the Toad.' It's an exquisitely written treatise regarding the black list era.