I'd never painted anything before. I was quite content to take other people's work since I didn't care anyway about the subject matter. I approached subject matter as a scoundrel. I had nothing to say about it whatsoever. I only wanted to make these exciting paintings.
I'm always going to talent scout and try to find new artists to work with.
It's one thing to have a scouting report and not be able to execute it, and it's completely different if you're able to kind of work your way through that report, attack guys certain ways, use different sequences, and be effective with them.
When I'm doing a film, I love getting together after work with my costars. But we get back to L.A. and I'm like, 'I don't want to go to a club with you, dude. I mean, I think you're rad, and if you want to come play Scrabble with me, that's amazing.'
Any character can find an audience and work if you have passion for that character. You might have to just scrape off the dirt and the barnacles and pull it out and highlight it.
The work that I've gotten in the hiatuses seems to indicate that I will have a little more work after 'Mad Men' than I did when I was scraping by while I was temping in New York, but who knows? People very easily could be like, 'Meh, we're done with that. We've got Jon Hamm. We're good without the weird one with glasses.'
Humans are very aggressive and scrappy, and go to war at the drop of a hat. However, a standard land war is no longer going to work as it is no longer technically possible.
People often want the big dramatic works, not the smaller quieter ones, but I don't worry about how it fits together anymore; I just have to do it. I feel compelled to make a work: it's like an itch I have to scratch, and once it's been scratched, it goes away.
I don't think I believe in ghosts, per se. But, my nearest experience was when I went on a weekend away and was in a bar in England, years ago, with an ex-girlfriend. I heard this scratching. I was about to go to bed and I was thinking, 'It's an old ghost.' I could hear this noise, but I couldn't work out where it was coming from.
It was a real honor to be able to work with someone like that that I've been watching since I was a kid. I mean, to play his brother left some people scratching their heads but something about it really worked.
Sometimes airport security people recognize me. I'll go through the whole screening process and at the end they'll go, 'Hey, man, I really like your work.' That's so cool.
For me, when working on a film or play or television show, everything for me starts with the screenplay and I am devoted to that and that is what I work from. Any research I do or any preparation I do on my own is all ultimately in service of that.
Being a professional screenwriter is perhaps the hardest occupation. Because nothing is ever yours and, by the nature of the medium, you are never ultimately responsible for your work. It can be interesting - if you have another outlet.
I think if I've worked anything through with screenwriting it's that I'm not going to be able to work anything through.
You just make sure you don't screw it up. It's going to work as long as you don't mess it up. Hopefully you have plenty of those moments in a big comedy.
Comedians work great as actors because they're good under pressure. With a lot of actors, you have to make them feel like everything's going really well to get a good performance out of them. But, if you have a comedian on the set, you can tell them, 'Hey, you really are screwing this up,' and then they just get better.
I'm honest and tell it like it is. I've been around the horn a few times and learned valuable lessons from screwing up a bit. So, if I can pass off advice or make someone smile on the way to work, I'm for it.
Reading code is like reading all things written: You have to scribble, make a mess, remind yourself that the work comes to you through trial and error and revision.
I work in a room overlooking the river. I try to get to my desk as soon as I've fed my cats and chickens. I use a blue 3B pencil and scribble away for about 20 pages before transferring it to the computer.
When I know I'm going to work on a cover, I practically run to the computer! After working with words for so long, it's lovely to do something that's creative yet also the professional equivalent of scribbling in your own coloring book.
