I've had to change my lifestyle radically during my two-year struggle,

And the inner dynamics of Hollywood are like politics. Say you give a script to a group of executives - they all sit around, afraid to voice an opinion, saying nothing, waiting to know what the consensus is. Just like focus groups, opinion polls or a cabinet.

My father could have been deported because on his immigration application he said that he was a printer, obviously because he didn't want them to be checking his writings.

Every time I flicked channels, there I was, talking. I was talking too much and writing too little. So Naomi and I went to Hawaii. The phone was cut off and we lost touch. This gave me the chance to have a good think about my life.

Cigarettes are not a part of human behaviour, they are a habit.

Actually, I didn't know that. I like to name my characters after baseball players. Alan Trammell of the Tigers is one of my favorites.