The more decisions you make, the better, statistically, your odds of success are. And what I also learned was, it doesn't matter: anything can be fixed. When you're directing, you can agonize, but you can't indulge. Stuff has to happen

I directed and produced Conviction, a movie about a man who spent 18 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit. I got to know Innocence Project co-founder Barry Scheck very well - he's a character in the movie - and I got very passionate about the cause. It's just so inherently dramatic.

The network was fantastic, but you get a lot of anxiety with any production. It was very helpful to have both of us because we could back each other up. As a creator, a director and a filmmaker, you often get assaulted and you lose perspective because you have all of this pressure. It was so nice to call him and say, "What do you think?"

Even when a pilot goes, you shoot it in March or April, and then you have to rush it through post-production by May. If they greenlight it, then you go and there's no time to think about it. And then, you've gotta start shooting in July, so you're off to the races.

If you're in a popular TV show, you can attract attention, and I like to help focus that on stories that deserve to be told - which is what politicians do. But I would lose my autonomy, and to get things done I would have to compromise and get into the weeds of policy. I don't know if I'm smart enough.

Capital punishment? It makes no sense as a policy: It's not a deterrent, and economically it's a disaster. It's very clear that there are innocent people on death row. And if I put an innocent person to death, that's murder.

You can say the president's private life takes up so much of his time that he doesn't focus on his job, so therefore he's terrible. But in my imagination, the 23 hours of the day that we don't experience, he's very hard at work. He's quite an effective and successful president - in my narcissistic imagination.