It gives you more freedom, the digital camera.

I decided to not just be about protesting or speaking out against certain things, but actually trying to get things done. That has been tremendously fulfilling for me.

My fear is that the Tea Party gets a charismatic leader. Because all they're selling is fear and anger. And that's all Hitler sold. 'I'm angry and I'm frightened, and you should hate that guy over there.' And that's what they're doing.

Hollywood is one of those places where, traditionally, money has come from - along with New York, Texas, Florida, Silicon Valley in northern California and the unions. But because of the Internet and the way campaigns are financed these days, you don't need traditional financing as much as you used to - and Barack Obama has tapped into that in a big way. But at the end of the day, people in Hollywood care more about [the presidency] than just the trappings of it and the surface type stuff. They care about the issues.

I was certainly a child of the '60s, and I came out of that era, and as a young actor, I got cast as a lot of counterculture hippie types.

Usually, I have in mind what I want to do. I shoot pretty economically, so I'm not shooting tons of stuff that I could change, all that much. I'll cut something or add a little something back, but not too much. This is maybe the producer part of me, but I'm always worried about the budget, so I shoot what I know I need to shoot for the film.

I like writing because you can make things happen and turn out the way they never do in real life.