I got a degree in math, from not a good school in Texas, and then I went to work as a software engineer. Just not glamorous at all.

Everybody's saying we've got to go 3D or virtual reality or choose your own adventure. But there are other ways forward. I don't think we're done with film by a long shot.

I never got into 'MacGyver,' but 'All the President's Men' and 'The Conversation' were big for me.

My favorite films are the ones that I walk away from and I know I saw a story. I saw the core part of the plot. But if I ever take another look at it then I can see that there was some more stuff going on in there that I didn't realize.

When I started writing short stories, I thought I was writing a novel. I had like 60 or 70 pages. And what I realized was that I don't write inner monologue. I don't want to talk about what somebody is thinking or feeling. I wanted to try to show it in an interesting way. And so what I realized was that I was really writing a screenplay.

The thing that is most important is to feel like you're at the front of the line, to be prime or primer. I definitely never wanted to say that in the films, but that's where it comes from.

Many of my favorite films, if someone were to tell me simply what they're about, I probably wouldn't be that interested. Plot often has so little to do with what's at the heart of a film.