A criminal has a kind of freedom by definition that the ordinary citizen doesn't have. The criminal's able to realize himself in ways not available to the general population, if you want to put it that way. They're interesting and unpredictable. Characters always have to break some sort of bound or other to be interesting. It also helps if they're paradoxical.

Actors are players and if they're hot, or onto something, you let them go, or you and the actor can both get on to something. I always run out with lines as I think of them.

They're done by guys who have talked a good game and then have scrambled together the simulacrum of a drama, so actors are habituated to sometimes having to save a picture on the floor because it's usually part of their job, but they'd rather have a writer doing his job, so that they can do theirs. But I like nothing better than working with actors.

I never viewed screen drama as a vulgar form, or a lesser one, and I've never written it left-handed.

Out of all of the Star Trek movies, I happen to like the most recent one the best. I think it was the best one ever done.

It's interesting to think that my children know more about the process than many mature critics.

I think probably everybody works most on the beginning and the ending.