Chance favors the well prepared. The more stuff you throw in, the more chances you have of looking like, 'I did that.'

Writers need restrictions. If somebody just says, "Hey, do you want to write a novel, or an article, or a movie, or a short story, you get shut down."

They say to just write about what's happening in your backyard because that's where you find the most creativity. It's in the DNA of the show. There's no question.

We figured the interesting question for them is, "Where has the family been since 2006, since the last time we saw them?" So, part of the time, we had to spend answering that question. Then, inevitably, it goes up to a point of crisis, in everyone's show. There was just no getting around that it was about 2006-2012.

Violence has not really been an issue. Even in my wildest hopes, I wasn't trying to get violence in.

There was so much talk about the movie and we thought, "Wouldn't it be great to still do the movie, but to give everybody this thing they didn't see coming?" Even with the number of episodes, it was reported that there was going to be 10 episodes, and then there was talk about adding more.

Well, at the time, you have to remember that we were not successful. The Showtime offer, as it was presented to me, was half the money for half the show. I was not interested, at that point, in doing a smaller cast and a more simplified Arrested Development.