# Interviews

Scott Neustadter discusses the challenges of turning a true story into a cinematic experience, how he and Michael sold their first script, and his search for the story he “can’t not write.”

Dustin Guy Defa discusses how he approached the structure of "Person to Person," writing genuine dialogue, and the benefits and drawbacks of complete creative control.

Hollywood families aren’t a new thing, but it’s rare to see a movie where the co-stars are twins in real life who also wrote the film together.

A conversation with the director and cast of "Ben-Hur" on practical effects, strong voices, and the power of forgiveness.

Luxor tells the story of a British aid worker taking a hiatus in the ancient Egyptian city, where she bumps into a former lover, Sultan, an archeologist.

An interview with James Schamus, the writer of the "Indignation," on his writing process, screenplays that aren’t over-written, and the violence of adapting great books.

Diana Henriques is an award-winning writer for The New York Times. Her book, The Wizard of Lies, is the basis for HBO’s Emmy-nominated project by the same name.

In hindsight, it’s easier to find the meaning of suffering because you are removed from the cloudiness that suffering itself can cause.

Harrison Ford's role, playing the legendary John Thornton from Jack London’s The Call of the Wild, may be his most personal project to date.

I was busy imagining other worlds where gravity was different and people grew differently. I was inventing stories in these other realms. It wasn’t science I loved—it was science-fiction.

My whole process of writing the story was just imagining, what kind of person would actually do this? And what kind of person would pay for this?

If I were going into a meeting with a potential agent ... I’d try to be familiar with every title the company has recently produced, and learn as much as I can from social media about anyone who I know will be in the meeting.

It was really therapeutic to have something I could throw myself completely into and take my mind off of whatever was giving me stress during day-to-day life.

Honestly, I listened to a lot of Tupac. How he is able to make each song an ode to a person or an ideal or a memory was the magic I needed. I paid attention to his meter, to how he is able to captivate an audience.

I ended up inserting a lot of the challenges I faced growing up as a Chinese American into the character: expectations from my parents, from society, and even from my Asian American peers on “what” or “how” I should be.