The Nice Guys movie was the first time in my career where what I wrote on the pages is on the screen. I'm more proud of it than anything else I've done. It is effectively what I wanted. If this movie's bad, it's my fault. It's not somebody else who changed or censored or edited it. This is the stuff I wanted, and that's what's on the screen, and if you don't like it, it's my bad.

I think the most important thing is to, without belligerence, stand up for what want. Argue compellingly if someone tries to change your script.

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

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.

Here's what I didn't know when I was starting out that I now know…I thought when you were starting out it was really hard to write because you hadn't broken in yet, you hadn't really hit your stride yet. What I found out paradoxically is that the next script you write doesn't get easier because you wrote one before…each one gets harder by a factor of 10.

The other thing being at UCLA was just being in California and around the movie business. Which I honestly believe, and I've told this to screenwriters, you have to do. You have to be there in order to write or direct movies.

I have no power, and that's what's so humbling.