We as a country, our lust for entertainment has sort of superseded our sense of self-preservation.
So I think it's important to just keep in mind that the work doesn't end when the scene ends. You want to check on someone to make sure everyone's good, and also create an environment where everyone is rooting for one another.
As a child I'm sure I was no different from any other human being struggling to navigate the difficulties and complexities of their childhood and adolescent years. I feel it's a time when all of us need an escape, a place where we can leave the world behind and just disappear. For me, it was film.
If you're working in close-ups, then an actor is only able to act with his head. I like an actor to act with their entire body.
Sometimes you can just have a dialogue with an actor beforehand and shape the performance then, but other actors need more guidance on the set.
I don't really plan too much ahead when I write, because otherwise, I get kind of bored.
I can't wake up every day and not thank Sundance. They're a great beacon of light for any independent film. Just to have a film that you made shown on a screen for an audience in a theater is beyond me, so I owe them everything in the world.
Everything is spectacle. Everything is entertainment, whether it's shame, invasion of privacy, abuse, no matter what it is it's become almost a sporting event. It's like the new Roman Coliseum in a way.
There's always certain actors that are interested in certain things and other actors who aren't.
I remember John Waters's 'Pink Flamingos,' that was the film where I realized you could do anything you want - there were no boundaries.
For me, there's far too many close-ups in film. They're a television technique.
When 60 - 70 percent of all interpersonal conversations and relationships exist through text messaging or social media, it's hard to get advice from a parent who didn't grow up in that world.
I spent the majority of my teenage years in hospitals, rehabs and halfway houses.
And the nature of split screen is a disconnect: It's a line between two characters, two images, two realities.
I think what's different about this time is that at least pre-Internet there were more similarities between one generation and the next. And now, I think that gap has grown in a very significant way.
I am always curious to sit down with the actor who's playing the part after the casting process and get to know them, get to understand their life a little bit more.
Sobriety has a way of allowing a person to begin to realize that the things that you do have consequences for the people that love you.
I tend not to approach things intellectually at first. Maybe after the fact i can look at it and see ultimately what it's doing. I start with the characters and their inner lives.
If you look at 'Network' or any kind of satire, it's fundamentally unemotional in some ways.
I don't really outline. I just kind of know where I'm going in my head, so I'll write and discover it for myself. Or I'll just write an entire episode and throw it out because I land on an idea and realize that's where I should jump off from.
