I didn't like writing just articles and things. So then I wandered around. I tried my hand at film and television and that was a worse fit because I don't really have a mind for that.

There's physical adversity, that if you are someone that likes exercise like I do, I exercise everyday. When you exercise, there's pain involved and so you're putting yourself through adversity in that situation. It's never totally pleasurable and there are moments where it's kind of boring or painful and you know that in doing that, you're making your mind and body tougher and more resilient. So must be able to deal with the boredom that happens in life.

When I think about the new film, I think I can do whatever I want with fiction, but the more documentary it is, the better it will be because that's what I'm good at. I'm good at observing people's behavior and putting these unspoken things into movie contexts in ways that other people can sometimes miss.

The big difference is, as a man, I can go to a bar at two in the morning and people will be like "He's just a fun guy! That's cool that he can balance all these things." But if you see a person that you know who has two young kids and is a mom, there's no way those perceptions are the same. It's like "Oh, there must be a problem." That's usually what women face.

Actually learning ancient Greek was a brilliant practice of mine because you'd sit there and you'd read a sentence and sometimes it would take you a day, an entire day to figure out one sentence. But it really trains you to be analytical, to think in a certain way to try and interpret what something means. So I've been thinking like that my whole life and then I love Machiavelli and I love thinking about politics that way. So it's sort of all that put together and then the good luck to meet a man who is sort of interested in the same thing.

There's a real tension between it being a collaborative art process, which is almost like performance art of yourself, and, as we talk about the movie, it's kind of a mix between melodrama and cinéma vérité. This involves ideas about playing the role of yourself and the movie of your life and all these other things.

There's no more of an excuse for blaming other people or the world for at least not trying what you should be trying.