Usually the characters are where I start. Then I continually ask myself, 'What's the worst thing that could happen to this character?'

Independent films are very hard to get made, but I'm lucky enough to get them made, so I'm going to keep doing it. I like my independence. I like being able to tell a story the way I want to tell a story. I don't like developing it with a team. I like coming to a story and deciding whether I want to do it or not.

I try not to think of actors as I'm writing because I think you do them a disservice by writing for things they've already done.

Unless I'm really uneasy with what I'm writing, I lose interest very quickly.

I don't think it's the job of filmmakers to give anybody answers. I do think, though, that a good film makes you ask questions of yourself as you leave the theatre.

I was fired from my own television show, CBS's Family Law. It was the second time this had happened in my career, the first being when I was fired from The Facts of Life. I had been grateful to work in TV for so long but had always been chasing a career as a feature writer-director and had completely failed.

You don't do pictures because the audience is ready for them. You do them because there's something gnawing at you, something inside.