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I think too often in films, people think endings are a summation of plot, and I don't like that. Because once you know where you're going as an audience member, then it's like a video game. You're just waiting for them to get through the levels and beat the bad guy. And I just think that's boring.

It's a tough job to tell a story when the audience already knows the ending, and the ending is bleak.

Endings are really hard to do, and it's hard to do an ending where it's sort of collaborative with thousands and thousands of people, and to satisfy all those people is impossible.

In film, you can have sad endings.

I hate when a movie just sort of ends and is so open-ended you feel like it wasn't finished. I appreciate leaving things up to the interpretation of the audience and letting them make decisions about where things will go in the future - but the director has to make a decision; otherwise it is sort of a cop-out.

There's this thing in TV that I find hysterical where the writers and creators will ask us if you want to know what happens to your character or if you want to experience it episode by episode. In the theatre, we always know the ending; we always know where the character is going.

The most-asked question when someone describes a novel, movie or short story to a friend probably is, 'How does it end?' Endings carry tremendous weight with readers; if they don't like the ending, chances are they'll say they didn't like the work. Failed endings are also the most common problems editors have with submitted works.

If you're telling a story it's always best not to play the ending.