The actors in 'Eight Men Out' really know how to play, and the background athletes are all professionals.

I like hanging around the set and learning how people do things, how the set runs.

I have never been one of those actors who say, 'Oh, my character wouldn't do this,' or 'My character never wears an orange shirt,' or any of the number of inane things I've heard on movie sets throughout my career.

DeNiro did a good job playing a catcher in 'Bang the Drum Slowly,' but he's great in everything he does.

It's the people who are more insecure who feel the need to control and micromanage. But that's true of any profession and hierarchy with a boss. You have people who know you are competent enough to do your job, and then you have the ones that just hover around.

I won't speak for the entertainment industry. I speak for Disney. I've seen people in the industry come to work every morning paranoid about what the other person or other company is doing. That means you're spending time and focus on somebody else's business instead of your own.

As soon as I finished 'The Finkler Question,' I was in despair. I'd changed my English publisher because they'd been lukewarm about it and not offered enough money. The American publisher didn't like it. The Canadian publisher didn't like it... I'd been bleeding readers since my first novel, and I could see my own career going down.

I work for ABC. If the thing that ABC is paying me for is storytelling - not to make sure that a costume is exactly right or all those other things - then it is up to me to find the most creative space possible so that that function of my job can happen.