Every good story is about who we are and our struggle to define ourselves.
— Kelly Masterson
I had written for the theater and didn't know that I knew how to write for film. Ultimately, I think it's just trusting your voice, trusting your characters, and then telling them in a different medium.
None of my movies have ever made any money, so it's not about commercial success for me. It's always the same thing. I want to create something valuable, something unusual and different that the world has never seen.
I am always drawn to father/son stories.
The work I did on 'Killing Kennedy' was very meticulous and, in some ways, actually tedious. It was hard work because there is so much known about John F. Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald. To try to distill that into a clear narrative that's interesting and tells two great stories was a real challenge.
Stage is so important because it teaches me how to convey character with words - how to convey how a character reacts by the way they appear on stage. I can usually tell a playwright from someone who has never written for the stage. Did the character work? Did the dialogue reveal who the character is?
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.
All my work is always that exploration of human nature.
I think of events like the Challenger and 9/11 - events that move us so much that we never quite get over them. So it's important to go back and relive those feelings in order to remember how important those events were to us.
The thrill of doing 'Good People' is I love those kinds of stories, and I'm good at them, and it's wonderful to see that material given to a terrific director and a terrific cast.
As a writer, I'm limitless.
Actors are such wonderful creatures and such wonderful instruments. It's always different on the page or in my head. I hear it differently. I see it differently. And then, you give it to an actor, and it comes alive in a way that you didn't expect.
I wrote a few unsuccessful screenplays before I wrote 'Before the Devil Knows You're Dead.' I wrote them as television plays that never got made. I'm glad I wrote them - I think it was a good experience.
I will tell you that I'm a bit of a snob. I love film, and I would like to work in film, and I'm disappointed that indie film is as hard as it is to work in now. It's hard to get things done, but that sort of work is being done on TV. That's what I do; that's what I write. It's what I love, and hopefully, that's what my future's going to be.
Success, to me, is something new and vibrant.
'Snowpiercer' was out of this world. It gave me a chance to do something I'd never done before, to create a whole new world.
I came to success very late in life.
I'm not well-versed in the science fiction world. I'm hoping that I'll get more opportunities in it because you get to create a new world.
I'm not always interested in Hollywood norms and boy-next-door kind of characters.
