The real beauty in my professional experience has been friendships and collaborations with filmmakers.

Having a phone call from Steven Spielberg was just a fantastic rite of passage. I loved it, and he was very focused, very likable, strictly business, and really sharp.

I don't want to direct. I have no directing ambition whatsoever. And as long as I meet filmmakers like Tom Hooper, Stephen Frears, and others who allow that collaboration, I can't see why I would ever want to direct.

I never go back over something I've done and I never watch them again.

It's really a lovely feeling to write knowing that failure is taken off the table because if it's bad you just never show it to anyone.

Generally, I read nonfiction. Theres very little fiction that I enjoy enough to spend my time reading. I am generally a nonfiction guy.

The minute you become a leader of a country, you go into a very small club. You join that sort of pantheon of other world leaders.