You don't drink and smoke that much, and womanize that much, unless you really want to be punished, I think.

It's an ugly thing to see ambition and to see people satisfying themselves.

Every single word that's on the screen, I oversee. There's nothing that's shot, I'm not involved in. The scripts go through multiple drafts, and I work with the writers on all these things. And I'm extremely involved in the writing process.

The weirdest thing with friends, the way you measure it is if you go without communicating for months at a time, you can sit down and within five seconds be right where you were. I know it's a cliché, but quality not quantity, and that bond will not disintegrate. It does need to be tended to but it won't go away. It's amazing, though - I'm here in New York where my best friend from college lives, and we see each other twice a year and we're right where we were and a lot of it's unspoken.

All human stories are interesting. You don't put a kid in a show because you need a device. They have a story, too.

If you've ever had somebody try to sell you something - people who can sell, they really are not manipulating you. They are selling themselves.

The other thing - and writers can say whatever they want - is casting. You need to find a person who can inhabit that role, who can not sugarcoat the bad stuff, and not be too hard on the good stuff, but who can come across as a three-dimensional human being with some depth and some thought about what they're doing. When you find James Gandolfini or Jon Hamm, someone who can inhabit this role but still has a natural humanity to them, no matter what they're doing? It's a gift.