One of the things that sets Oliver Stone apart though is he is commercial. He is mainstream. He makes big movies and he is one of the last guys that can make big movies that actually have something to say, that you know challenge the audience in a way while entertaining them.

It's a certain kind of human compact that obviously you lose as soon as there is a screen and a camera there, so I think we'll always have theater. I think theater will always be a powerful force because we need that human touch, particularly as we spend more and more time with machines, cell phones, computers we start to lose our humanity.

It seems to be the sense that once you throw guys in prison they're not going to come out. No, they're going to come out and, you know, what kind of beast have you created from that process?

That was my dad's sense of, you know, laughing at himself, laughing at existence, the universe, all of it and not being too serious about what we do with because at the end of the day if you're here it's a blessing. It's you know life is hard. Life is hard for everybody at some point, but it's those who are able to laugh at it and laugh with it and roll with it that ultimately I think live the fulfilling lives that we're all trying to do. You know, and big step there is to not take yourself too seriously from the start.

As each generation comes up that doesn't have the habits for paper it's just easier and cheaper to get your stuff online. You know, people go to what they're used to. Certainly our generation, you know, we'll always want to have a magazine in our hands. We like that, but millennials didn't see the value in that necessarily.

I think that ultimately when life is not tragedy it should be a party and if you've faced the real stuff, if you've faced the ones closest to you being at death's door, passing on, you know, not to let the small stuff really harsh your mellow, as you put it.

My father, Norman Mailer, expected a lot from us and he really pushed us and you know one of his favorite lines was, "If you think I'm being hard on you, wait until life hits you because life is a hell of a lot tougher than I am." And I took everything he said to heart. He taught me how to write, which was scary and intimidating and hard, but ultimately one of the biggest gifts I could have ever asked for.