Jason Bateman

And that first thing you actually put to film that you...

from your own words?

It's funny, that seems to be a recurring theme with a lot of filmmakers and writers.

I know, you know, Kenny Lonergan used to do, back at Naked Angels, this theater company in New York in the 90s, he did...

various scene nights on Monday nights where he would do the scene about a brother and a sister and then just this guy who was kind of lost in his 20s in New York, et cetera, et cetera.

And it took on a bunch of different incarnations, a bunch of different scenes, which eventually then became This Is Our Youth, the play... Right.

...that my then-girlfriend Missy Yeager was in with Mark Ruffalo and Josh Hamilton that then became kind of...

Really, I think the inspiration for You Can Count on Me, you know, but it was like this similar story, similar theme that he told in various ways over at least 15 years before he kind of landed on that.

I'm sure you can probably relate to that.

One of the, if we can get into staying on the idea of themes, one of the themes, it seems to me, of your films is that they're very specific.

visually and stylistically, each one different in its own way, but you... They do seem so specific in the writing, and so what is your relationship like, again, going deeper into the weeds on filmmaking, but what is your relationship like with...

your production designer and your DP leading up to when you actually shoot because it does seem like all of your films, I told you once at risk of further embarrassment to myself and to you, you know, for instance, There Will Be Blood, I feel like it should be just hung in MoMA and left there for people to watch.

It's an incredible piece of art in every way from the writing to the direction to the art direction, you know, production.

What is that like for you leading up to actually rolling film and working with those departments?

What's the music that you put on when you go, like, pick up the kids from school or whatever?

Like, what are your bands?

But, Paul, I think that what you're... Maybe you're saying, and I don't want to put words in your mouth, but there is a little bit of, well, of course they're not going to come back because look what you're putting in the theaters is part of the problem, A. And I can say that, and I know it's hard for you to say because of your position in the films that you make, and you probably don't want to be that guy who says that, but...

you make the kind of films that you want that are really incredible films.

And at the same time, you don't seek out recognition for yourself in a way that a lot of other filmmakers seem to do.

It's never about your own sort of, you know, increasing your personal fame.