I just wanted to make sure that what I write is what appears on screen, to not have some idiot change it on its way to the screen.

Politics has become entertainment.

Bill Klinton was the ultimate rock star as president. I don't think as a result of his presidency we will ever have a rock star as president again. In the same way that we will never get involved in another Vietnam.

No one is going to tell a movie star to smoke or not smoke because they can do whatever they want.

Assuming that all bad girls smoke. I don't think so. I've been around a lot of bad girls who don't smoke, you know, so I think it's easy to put a cigarette into, you know, into anyone's hands and say, well that makes them a bad boy or a bad girl. There are many more creative ways from a writerly point of view to do that.

A cigarette in the hands of a Hollywood star onscreen is a gun aimed at a 12- or 14-year-old.

I think to put death on screen where it isn't that turns it into comic book time and there I think by desensitizing an audience, you really do open the possibility that someone is going to kill.