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.

When I started to allow the characters to go where they wanted to go, I just had to follow.

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.

We are manipulated by fear and the fear of others, and how we're often manipulated into doing things and voting in ways that are against our own best interest. Look at healthcare. People will tell you that healthcare is socialism and communism, and they're doing this while their wife needs an operation and their kid needs braces.

I wanted to do a political film that is as nonpartisan as can be, because I wanted to do a story that was American. I wanted to tell an American tragedy.

When we're threatened, it's very easy to appeal to our basic natures.

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.