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Writing is getting killed by too many chefs. Back in the Bogart days, it started with great scripts. You had a writer, and he wrote a script, and that was your movie. I think that's been watered down a bit lately.

My Brilliant Career was beautifully directed, but I had a bit of trouble with myself in it. It was a silly script, based on a book this 16-year-old girl wrote.

My brother is a screenwriter. He likes to say, 'I like to take on a genre when it's dying, because then people are ready for you to shake it up a little bit.'

I started in the psychological thriller side of feature filmmaking with 'Spiral,' which was the first one that I wrote and directed and played the lead in.

I wrote my first script, which was 50 pages, at age 15. It was about two brothers in love with the same nurse while they're convalescing in a Civil War hospital.

Nelson McCormack on 'Killing Kennedy' was really terrific because I wrote the script, and he had some terrific ideas. We went over the script together, and I was with him on set. So it was a collaborative effort.

My God, there are so many mediocre screenplays out there.

Many of the writers who have inspired me most are outside the genre: Humorists like Robert Benchley and James Thurber, screenwriters like Ben Hecht and William Goldman, and journalists/columnists like H.L. Mencken, Mike Royko and Molly Ivins.

'Among Friends' was really well written and had strong characters, and while all the elements were there to make it a great genre film, it also left room for me to put a creative flair on it that wasn't your typical slasher or psychological thriller.