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.

Writing and acting are almost diametrically opposed in terms of being an actor it's in your interest to be in shape and to be healthy and to have a strong voice and to be flexible. As a writer you're sitting in this position for hours on end. You get up and you can't put your shoulder down. It's not a healthy existence so to speak and it's probably not healthy for the person that lives with you either, but you do the best you can.

Work ethic is one of the biggest things my father taught me. That man worked like every day, every day, 9 to 5, well 9 to 9 in his case, but he would treat it as if it was a 9 to 5 job. He would clock in. He would put in his hours. That is how you can write those you know incredibly long books that unfortunately there is not much market for anymore, but that is also how you can explore an idea on a deeper level than we get in our media surface these days. It's tough.

My hope is that the film Wall Street 2 will actually serve as a way for us to bridge that gap between Wall Street and Main Street. Certainly that's dealt with in the film of how it does affect everybody, so, you know, I always find that when you can create a movie or a play or a book that gives somebody a safe theoretical place to discuss what is really going on in the day it tends to forward discussion, so that would be my hope coming out of the film.

I had a lot of preconceived notions going in the Wall Street. It wasn't an industry that I really respected much. My feeling was kind of like look, you're not making anything. You're taking money from one place, putting it in another and taking your cut and that's just not really kind of soul-satisfying at the end of the day, but what I learned is, on a larger scale is how much the Wall Street industry funnels and fuels so many others. There is a lot of good that these guys do, and to lump all traders into a category is as insane as lumping any group of people into one category.

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.

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.