The truth is, writing and directing are two very different jobs. They're not even remotely the same job. It took me a while, as a director, to understand that.
If you're producing a movie you're involved in every aspect of the movie and that can be daunting and then going and doing a movie where you're just an actor for hire, and you can kind of sit back and giggle where you can see somebody sitting over there wasting time and wasting money.
Show-running is a very difficult job that includes so many responsibilities; I'm working with the actors, working with directors, writing, making decisions like, 'What fabric is that sofa gonna be?'
If I have to wear a hat as a producer to do that, then I'm willing to do that. An actor's, producer's and director's point-of-view is all the same to me, as long as the story's being told.
I was not, and am not, officially a producer of that film [I am love] but the work of what a producer does I learned at that stage and to a certain extent I've been a producer ever since.
The "executive producer" title either means that you're the person who created, or co-created, the show, or you're the person who's in charge of day-to-day operations. Whereas "producer" is often just a writing credit.
When I write a film, the film gets handed off to a producer and a director and I go my merry way. With television, I am expected and contracted to stick around and actually produce what I've written.
Showrunning is a thing where you have to work with tons of different people. You have to schmooze people, you have to talk to network people. I don't want to do any of that.
