I'm not supposed to be the one that's caught with his pants down.

And I think one way or another it's evident to those who work with me that as a writer, a director, a friend, as somebody's there that's very anxious to get the movie made.

I think Los Angeles certainly grew out and grew up, but I don't think it matured. It lost the appeal and the hunger and the beauty of its adolescence and went straight to a middle-aged ugly, overfed monster seeking mindless pleasure and being obsessively acquisitive. It's so materialistic. It grew up, but it didn't mature.

In dramatic writing, the very essence is character change. The character at the end is not the same as he was at the beginning. He's changed-psychologically, maybe even physically.

You're dumber than you think I think you are.

What makes screenplays difficult are the things that require the most discipline and care and are just not seen by most people. I'm talking about movement - screenwriting is related to math and music, and if you zig here, you know you have to zag there. It's like the descriptions for a piece of music - you go fast or slow or with feeling. It's the same.

But time has caught up with it and I think vindicated it. Shampoo, too: very dark, very ambitious movie.