Yes, Pete was about junior-high age and always around. He would come to practice and he was a wise guy then. He was skinny and shot from the hip and he would always challenge us to games of H-O-R-S-E. He was pretty good even then.

I've seen my practice mature and probably 50 percent to 60 percent of the pregnancies are over the age of 35, especially over 40.

He's doing real good, especially for his age. I think it's because of all the practice he's had through the years. He's been in it since he was a kid. He's just a smooth driver.

[Being of a certain age made things clearer.] I'm 48, that's helped enormously, ... I have a much fuller understanding of relationships than I did when I was 20. A central thing about the relationship between Stanley and his wife Martha [played by Emily Watson] is that they don't have a kid. Arthur Burns, who they are trying to obliterate, has a family. I could never have written that relationship without an understanding of what it means to actually have a family, and the incredible emotional pull that that has on you.

These are coastal communities, and it's an age-old practice.

So my father was a person who never lied to me. If I had a question, he answered it. I knew a lot of things at a young age because I was intrigued.