I have a hard time sometimes watching my own work.

During the mid-1980s, I felt my work was getting monotonous. I was shooting continuously, sometimes for 25, 30 films at a time.

In my own work, I tend to cover a lot of time and to jump back and forward in time, and sometimes the way I do this is not very straightforward.

My favorite work is The Full Monty because I got an Oscar for it. But it was really hard work at the time. Sometimes comedy is not a bundle of laughs to actually do.

On American sets, you work 12-, 14-, 16-hour days sometimes. All that volume over a short course of time can actually be less conducive to telling a story accurately.

Most artists have experienced the creative block. We get stuck in our work. We beat our head against the wall: nothing. Sometimes, it is because we are trying something at the wrong time.

I sometimes joke - but the joke is not so wrong - that after my time in East Germany, I could either afford therapy to work through what happened under the Communists or move to New York.

Sometimes the intensity and the grind of doing television can wear you down, but at the same time there's something about the repetition, the sheer mass of work that you do that's also liberating.

I don't like just traveling in for a short time. I've done that before, because sometimes you work for magazines and they have a budget, and if you're working for them, they want something by a certain time.

I never quite understood these actors - though I envy them sometimes - who can lie out for a year or two. I feel as though time is a real pressing issue, and I want to get as much work done in the time that I have left.

We use the Heidelberg Catechism in our worship. Sometimes we read it responsively. Other times I'll work it into my communion liturgy. I'll quote it in my sermons from time to time. I've seen the Catechism used effectively as Sunday school material.

It could be hectic sometimes when you're being an artist and running a label at the same time. But there are times when you just have to say that this my time period to work on my stuff, and then you say this is the time to concentrate on my artists.

Usually we have pick-up shots to film after all the main work is done; sometimes we even do them after our wrap party. Just like when you're packing up and moving, it's the little things that end up taking the most time, and there is no romance in the clean up.

Some of the stories I admire seem to zero in on one particular time and place. There isn't a rule about this. But there's a tidy sense about many stories I read. In my own work, I tend to cover a lot of time and to jump back and forward in time, and sometimes the way I do this is not very straightforward.

The pace is different on a film set. It's slightly slower, allowing for a little more wiggle room. Sometimes there is a bit more room to explore and work on the floor. On a TV set, you really have to be ultra-prepared and ready to deliver because time is so tight. Not that you don't have to be prepared for film.

Sometimes recruiters and scouts are missing on players. Going after the guys who are really hyped, five-star players and guys that are playing in grassroots and are seen all the time. Then there are the players that developed internally. They go to small schools and they continue to work on their games and they blow up later.

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