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I try not to think about any of the production side of things. If you do, you tend to get unfocused and distracted. I just try to think about the character and the scene and what I'm doing.

I don't like to over-intellectualize scenes that are working. I tend to think when you do that you may lose it.

I try not to do scenes a certain way, because then I become conscious of it, and it dosen't come off as realistic. I try to make it so that I'm not really aware of what I'm doing.

For me, I never take a job thinking it's going to grab ratings or that it's even going to be a success. I don't. I just take the job because I love the character. Or I love the script. Maybe I love the director. But whatever I do, I never think about how it will do. That is not in my hands.

Writers divide fairly cleanly into those who only work through what they hear and those who are more visual. I am the latter, where I lie down on my office floor and play scenes through my head to - cinematically, several times with different elements - to see what works. I can't write a scene until I can see it.

In film, you're so much in the hands and at the mercy of the editor, so sometimes it's good to watch it just to see how it turns out - it can be so different than how you imagined it. But sometimes it's better to just let it go for your own sense of self worth.

For me, when I start a novel, I only have a general sense of what I am going to do - usually three or four big scenes or something to which I can really respond emotionally.

I am inspired just by the way a scene can be interpreted by the actors. It can make a huge difference on the type of music that you write. It's best for me if I don't work at all on a project until the movie is shot and I have some sort of edit in front of me.

When I sit down to write a scene, I have a plan in mind, and I'm thrilled when a character disregards my goals and takes the story to a place I hadn't imagined.