The director is a bit analogous to the conductor of a symphony orchestra. It's a collaborative adventure.

Sure you can; the only question is whether you do it well.

A screenplay is not a finished product; a novel is. A screenplay is a blueprint for something - for a building that will most likely never be built.

I'm mainly interested in people trying to figure s#!t out.

Movie studios, Hollywood studios, by and large are not making the kind of movies that I go to see.

There are moments in one's life where you look back and you say, 'Well, I wish I had done this differently.

If you look at the heroes of antiquity and myth, they all have flaws. It's something that they have to overcome; their flaws are something that they have to act in spite of. The challenge is not to defy your fate, but to endure it. That is heroic.