What is your creative process? Is it different when you’re writing compared to when you’re directing?

When I write, everything starts with an idea. The idea is king — as the creator, you have the creative liberty to do anything you want. I can sit down and brainstorm anything that comes to mind. But the hard part is coming up with ideas that are sellable. Usually, I’ll bang them around with my colleagues before settling on one.

When it comes to producing, it’s not so much about an idea but a concept, a central theme that then lays the foundation for your plot.

Part of a producer’s job is to work with screenwriters and shape the final product. In your opinion, how does this big-picture role differ from actually writing a book, and which role do you prefer?

I don’t necessarily favor one over the other. For me, it’s more about understanding my role: different projects require different approaches, and so some things I’m better suited to screenwriting, whereas some I’m better suited to producing. It’s really about understanding the nuances of both disciplines. Novel writing is very free and creative. When you come to a fork in the road, you can choose which direction to take. On the other hand, screenwriting? It’s hard, very hard. Even if you have an amazing, million-dollar idea, you have to master the craft and form. It’s very difficult to show a character’s emotions and actions from an eagle-eye standpoint, but that’s what screenwriting is.

In my work as a producer, I try to understand every discipline by doing it — whether it’s taking acting classes or doing camera work. That way, I can understand what my crew needs and what I need to do.

Your book, Letters from Hollywood, is an acclaimed collection of correspondences between some of the biggest names in the film industry. As a Hollywood director and producer — a big name, yourself! — what was reading these correspondences like?

The inspiration for Letters from Hollywood started when I got a letter from the Academy [American Academy of Motion Pictures]. The Assistant Librarian of the Margaret O’Hara Library (now the Acquisitions Archivist) wrote, “I’m not sure you remember me, but I found this letter and thought it might be of interest to you.” And I opened the letter, and it was a letter my father had written in 1929, when he was 24 years old. He had come to Hollywood with $100 in his pocket, looking for a job, and had written a letter to a very famous agent asking for a job. I could see his humor and his ballsiness, and it moved me because this was before he had begun his career, before he would go on to become a very successful agent and producer.

After I took the archivist for lunch, I thought how interesting it would be to tell the story of Hollywood through letter writing. I called my agent and partnered with an archivist, and that was how Letters from Hollywood was born. What was fascinating was getting in touch with the children and grandchildren of these famous people. When they read these letters from their loved ones, they were able to hear their voice in a way they had never heard before. From a personal, emotional standpoint, it was a very moving experience for me.

A lot of your books, like Letters from Hollywood, are collections. What inspired you to begin “collecting” stories?

Are you talking about [Confessions of Emergency Room Doctors] and [If You Thought Your Divorce Was Bad…Wait Until You Read This Book!]?! Honestly speaking, part of it is because I don’t want to be pigeonholed. I don’t want to do one thing for the rest of my life. I’m a curious guy, so I go where I’m curious. My first wife, an E.R. doctor, would hold dinners with other doctors and surgeons. And the stories they told were nutty, really nutty! So I just started writing these stories down, in the hopes I could use them to inspire a drama character. Once I had 40 or 50 stories, I realized I had a book. The divorce book happened, well, because I had a divorce. My divorce was painless, but during the process I heard many, many stories of just horrible divorces. There was this couple who didn’t know how to get divorced, so they built a brick wall in the middle of their house, and the husband would blast speakers across the wall. Both of these books are humor books that poke fun at serious things.

What inspired you to pursue filmmaking?

At the end of the day, my dad was in the film business, and he was the one who inspired me. In 6th grade, my teachers assigned a book report, but I asked them if I could write a screenplay. They thought, “Well, that’s writing,” and so I wrote the screenplay. Throughout my childhood, I wrote little bits of film and screenplays. When I was your age in high school, I had already directed 60 television shows through my high school for the community. I became a producer out of need because after my divorce, I had to support myself and my two girls. Fortunately, everything turned out okay.

Do you have any advice for aspiring screenwriters, filmmakers, or writers?

Learn as much as you possibly can. Write from your own experience. Writing is a process — you have to be patient, accepting, and willing to take criticism without being demoralized by it. All great writers have been turned down many, many times. Nothing is ever dead. Your thoughts, opinions, and perspectives change with time, and that truly adds to the material you have. You know, there’s a 60s term, “Right On.” It was used to go against societal norms, the establishment, that sort of thing. I like thinking about that saying with a W — Write On. Just keep writing, and you’ll go places.