The spotlight was on me. I pretended it wasn't, but it was, and for every wrong reason. It was all about money, it was all about my supposed competition with Joe Eszterhas over who'd be the highest-paid screenwriter. I didn't care. I just wanted to write stories, try to become a better writer, improve my style, change genres, even try new things. I didn't like action so much any more.

You have to keep surprising your audience.

I have these guilty pleasures, these failed films that don't work at all, but I'll watch them if they're on. Like 'The Game'.

Once I started selling scripts for a great deal of money - action scripts, no less, which people tend to pooh-pooh anyway - then I started to get some backlash. Which I didn't mind.

I felt that in a way, I hated the writing process so much. It's excruciating, as I'm sure you know, and so lonely being in the solitary prison of my office. A lot of brain-wracking. It just felt like it was so much hard work, and I would send it away. I felt as though I was doing all of this heavy lifting, this weightlifting, every day, all day. It was excruciating. And I stayed skinny, and someone else got all the muscles. I was eating all my vegetables, but then I wouldn't get dessert. To me, directing is the dessert.

The only way you can stay on top is to remember to touch bottom and get back to basics.

I think it's very admirable, in a superhero movie, to be able to take a few risks.