In his life, [Dalton] Trumbo uses wit and comedy to fight these very high-stakes battles.

Sometimes perfecting the one thing can be the enemy of getting any traction on anything else.

I learn so much from watching films like that with commentary and then when you get to hear another filmmaker talk about their films it's a really great experience.

For Bryan [Cranston ] to go back in time and become this larger-than-life and somewhat theatrical guy, who performed his ideas and rhetoric in public in a melodic and flashy way, was a bit of a risk.

Hedda Hopper was a better direct opponent to [Dalton] Trumbo. We wanted to use Trumbo's battles to represent the larger battles, so the audience could understand the personal sacrifice he went through and the personal damage to his family. The choices were about who were the best representations of his antagonists, which is why we chose as we did.

Sometimes I would like the opportunity to do character-driven comedy and that's really what I was trying to do in Meet The Parents. I think in a way this is a more old fashioned type of comedy.

People have an actual bias against there being some kind of popularity for political films, and when they get acknowledged, it helps keep the conversation going.