I'm a moderate Democrat. I've always been fascinated and maddened by the way things get done in our system, which as an ideal is so extraordinary, but the way it actually works can be mind-boggling.

I grew up in Hollywood. Saying my name here is like mentioning Ford in Detroit

My mother's whole family had been from the theater, really. Because I grew up in Hollywood, I wasn't that interested in Hollywood. But the New York theater was completely exotic and fabulous to me.

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.

Life is a very emotional experience.

I think the problem with polemics is that it's general and it's lazy. When you say, "This is bad," that's a general thing. We're more interested in asking the question.

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