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I did not like 'The Hurt Locker.' It's a lazy way to make a movie, frankly. I could put you on the edge of your seat quite easily, and have you feel the tension for 2 hours, if every other scene practically is, 'Should we cut the red wire or the green wire?'

I did learn that some of the things that are great for locker rooms are inappropriate for political discourse. That's a wisdom I've garnered.

Use plot to buttress a story.

I'm a right pain in the hole for my agent. I won't take certain parts if I think they're offensive or banal. For instance, I won't do a film if I think it's full of violence for violence's sake, or a television drama if I don't think it's intelligent writing.

I don't like to hurt people's feelings, and I don't like to knock other writers as a matter of principle.

The success of my comedy has been not being afraid to touch on subject matters or issues that everyone else is politically scared of.

I'm not much of a plotter. I start off with an inciting incident, and in classic crime fiction what happens is that all the action flows from that incident. It's very comfy when it all ties up and feels like a complete universe, but my stuff doesn't always work that way.

In the 'Hurt Locker' there's a lot of me in there, a sense of humor, a man of few words and a lot of action.

When I'm directing actors, I often find myself slipping in sports metaphors, like: 'Don't go for the punch line here, just put it up on a T-ball stand so she can hit it out of the park.'

A lot of readers want characters to behave in a responsible way, or they want to understand the characters' dilemma and act, in a way, on their behalf.