I write in the mornings. During my down time.
Like Joseph Mitchell, I would scour the streets of New York and find little pieces of what other people think of as junk - and collect it.
So yes, I hope to act in other people's movies, big and small, because that's how I make my living, really.
I can remember the World's Fair in New York in 1964; I was three.
I was always attracted to the past as a kid.
The constraints of melodrama can be a great blessing, because they demand that all the characters involved - as absurd and extreme as they may initially seem - must stay utterly rooted in their own reality, or the whole project collapses.
I've always considered myself an actor first and foremost.
When I write a screenplay, and when I direct, I always pull lines out.
I didn't know you had to change diapers so often. I couldn't believe it - we must change them 10 times a day - each. So that's 20 diapers a piece a day.
I like to see how I can do it for less money.
I wanted to be an actor when I was a kid.
I'd read Up in the Old Hotel, and I wanted to do something with Mitchell's stuff for a long time.
I'm not interested in wasting money on a project.
I'm actually one who will encourage directors to cut my lines.
I mean, Scorsese's a genius, and that's one way of shooting.
I wanted to be an architect, an artist, or an actor.
Even The Impostors, as silly as it is, is a very intimate film, in a way.
I don't like to move the camera that much anyway.
Big Night and The Impostors are both things that I wrote.
And I love doing my own projects; that's what I've always wanted to do.
