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.

As far as casting, I'm there for every single person that's cast. Even if it's one word, I'm there for their auditions.

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.

It's very hard to turn writers against each other, believe it or not.

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

Opinions can't be inaccurate.

That's the miracle of telling a story in film: You can express something inside someone's mind.