GRANT HESLOV

Generally, screenplays suck.

It takes a long time to get a film made.

'The Ides of March' was a fairly cynical film.

I find writing really difficult - definitely the most difficult of all the things I do.

I was a big fan of this guy named Art Bell - I don't know if you've heard of him before. I listened to his overnight show for years, and he had all these guys on at one time or another, and they talked about psychic spies and remote viewing and all that stuff. I actually was fascinated by it - more about the guys than about what they were doing.

I acted for so many years and sat on a million sets and worked with a million different directors so that is to me some of the best training you can get.

I'm very superstitious.

'Monuments Men' is not a docudrama. It's not a documentary.

There are times when you work with directors on set, and things are a bit rudderless, and those can be good directors.

There are films that cost a lot of money that might be decent films. But if they don't perform in that first weekend or two, they're gone.

You have to make films you feel strongly about. And then hope you can find the audience.

A film like 'Good Night And Good Luck,' you make that for $7 million because you know it's a black-and-white film, and it's not an easy sell. If you make it for $7 million, then everybody can have a chance to make a little bit of money, and you get to make the film you want to make.

What you learn when you direct a film, even more so than as a producer, it's a marriage. It's like a relationship with that film so you've got to make sure that it's really something that you want to live with for three years or however long it is. So I haven't found the right thing to marry yet.

Look, a lot of directors were actors, even if they were unsuccessful actors which I think is helpful. I think it's a really helpful thing for a director to have experienced that. It helps you know how to talk to actors and how to get what you need from them.

I didn't want to be 50 or 60 and auditioning for a three-line role.

Creatively, it's great, because when you write your own movies, you get to create whatever you want.

You work with great directors and terrible directors, and so you learn; you take what you think will work for you.

When I write, I make decent money doing it, but I don't wake up dreaming about writing.

I don't make my living writing; I make my living as a producer and as a director.

Actors know how to talk to other actors in a way that sometimes other directors just don't.

'Monuments Men' is a movie... I don't want to say for grown-ups, because some young folks could appreciate it, too. But if you're expecting 'Transformers,' you're going to be disappointed.

Writing a screenplay is like writing a big puzzle, and so the hardest part, I think, is getting the story.

I think it's more interesting to throw people into a story and let them catch up instead of explaining and feeling like you have to slow down for them. I think audiences, for the most part, they don't want to be ahead of you.

When you look at a film like 'The Ides of March' or 'Good Night, and Good Luck' even, those are really contained pictures.

As a writer, you know what the purpose of the scene is. It really has nothing to do with the actor so you have to really get out of that space because for actors it's a micro-focus and then you figure out your arc through what the writers have given you to say. But that arc is just one little piece of the huge arc of the whole film. It took a while to get out of that.