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.

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.

I think about the college graduating classes and high school classes that are coming up now they're in a unique position. I mean they're entering one of the toughest economies of all time. At the same time if they're willing to work really hard the ability they have to learn something much faster than we ever did before is there and it's really a question of are you willing to put in the effort and go that extra mile. Because if you are I think there's actually more opportunities out there.

I think that you know you have experts in fields who spend their life studying one thing. When an event goes on that chances are they're going to want that specific expert who has done it to be on the show talking about it, not a writer or an artist of any sort, which I think is a mistake because you know we don't have... I mean we have them, but there is certainly not you know in strong force public philosophers anymore.

There's also just socially, personally. There is something naughty about pot. There is something that is rebellious and outlawish and a kind of, you know, a finger in the eye of the government saying, hey, you can't tell me what to do. That would be gone if legalize 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.

Having a mother who has had cancer and fought through it and at times used cannabis to you know fight off nausea and whatnot. I mean it's not really her thing, but there were times when she needed it and the idea that you can't have it because it's an illegal drug, but OxyContin is legal. That's you know that's just insane to a level that I think most people understand.