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.

That's why we had Louis C.K. portray the harder line Communist, to accuse [Dalton] Trumbo of being a hypocrite.

I wish I was sort of someone like Woody Allen who can stage everything in one long master shot, no coverage; just, you know, that's it.

My biggest role as director on the film is keeping a sense of the overview - how to cast the movie and shoot it in such a way that it will cut together. And how to design the style and tone.

We had to do the same thing here. To top that sequel was quite a task. Mike had a couple of good conceptual humour and character ideas, which got me back into it.

The first thing we noticed was how flamboyant [Dalton] Trumbo was in real life.

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