The public doesn't know what to believe anymore. We don't know what stories are supposedly true, this idea of 'fake news.' We watch it on what I guess you would call a split-focus. It's half entertainment and half mystery.
I got a chance to work with Mel Brooks on two of his films: Silent Movie and High Anxiety.
It's those moments, those odd moments that you look for and sometimes by creating this kind of loose atmosphere you find those little moments that somehow mean a lot to an audience when they really register right.
'Wag' is not some kind of documentary; it's just looking at the tools that are available. Now you've got more tools - you've got social media - and just post stories through all types of back channels that can get some traction.
The interesting thing about movies, it's not always - y'know, you have to have structure etc and all those things, but an audience responds, in many ways, we walk away and certain things stay in our heads that are memorable.
I'm thinking, this is Robert Redford. You know, he's won an Academy Award, he's talking to me about directing a movie he's in. So you just think that it's Hollywood stuff or whatever.
If you create a visual that actually captures the imagination, that's not real. It will look real, and that will spread at such lightning speed that by the time it's found out, it has already done its damage. It's a very, very scary time that we're living in. I say it's an age of absurdity.
We are a divided nation in the worst sense of the word, and we don't hear the other side.
You have to do a version of somebody that's the essence of Paterno. I think that's what Al is so great at. You have to create a man, a life, and the emotions that go with it. He's truly brilliant.
It's finding those nonsensical pieces of conversation that we all do all the time. We do all the time. When we're talking on the telephone, there are arguments with people who agree when they both think that they disagree.
All I try to do is create an atmosphere that seems comfortable enough, that it removes tension and everyone feels free. If they feel free then behaviour happens, small moments happen and that's what ultimately works the best for me.
I never really wanted to be an actor. And that was the beginning of it, I began to write things down and eventually became a writer on a television show.
You have a movie and it proves itself and then certain things happen.
When I began to think about the head of the family, the storyteller, the rise of television which became the new storyteller, the break-up of the American family as an idea and then Avalon came.
Well it was sent to me, well because almost everything that is written in Baltimore is sent to me. And David Simon, who was a writer for the Baltimore Sun, spent one year following the homicide squad in Baltimore and he chronicled that period of time.
Some actors are supposed to be very difficult, but I've not found that to be the situation.
I worked at a local television station and I got a chance to direct and do all those things - worked kiddie shows, Ranger House show with the hand puppets and things like that.
I got involved with an acting school and studied for a couple years. They used to have improv exercises that you would work on and you would do improvs.
First of all, just to get Diner made would have been an achievement in that I got a chance to direct.
Craig Nelson who is an actor and is in a show called Coach in the United States. We began to do some improvisational stuff and we used to get laughs and things.
