A writer doesn't really have much of a function on a movie set.
When I worked with Billie Jean King and Craig Kardon, and we would be working on something, Billie would show up and say, 'What about this?' Neither one of us had seen it.
See, I am not a writer. 'Nach Baliye' has its own creative team and a brilliant one at that. But I will give my own inputs if I feel I can improve something.
'Boneless,' even though we were thinking about servicing it to radio, it made more sense putting a vocal on there. This was actually the first time that I really looked at doing a song for radio and kind of let go of some control and listened to a lot of different radio pluggers and had Ultra come in and help out with ideas.
It's ludicrous to think people work for you: 'a film by...' doesn't exist. Directed by, maybe, but it's a film from a collective, a group of people whom you consult and seek your counsel and advice and vice versa, too.
Piper reads the scripts, and we email a lot. Most of her comments are on the more technical side, like "This wouldn't happen. This is against the rules." She's been extremely respectful of our taking her story, and then veering left with it and taking it in its own direction. But, I always want her involved because she's the mother of all this.
I love to write, so I think writing would be the next natural step. And if I'm making something that I'm writing, it would also probably make sense to be a producer and have some creative input from that perspective as well. Eventually, I do want to direct, but I want to get comfortable in those two jobs first. I want to dip my foot into this pool before I dive in I guess.
I think film is collaboration, and I always want to hear everyone's input.
There are a lot of global decisions that you can make as a co-publisher, and only publishers can make those kind of decisions. At the same time, there are some things you can do only as a penciler or creator. I want to keep my hands in both pots, so to speak.
As an actor, you're only one little piece of the puzzle; you're fulfilling someone else's vision. If you're involved earlier on, you're kind of creating your own.
I mean, Joel talks to the actors more than I do and I probably do production stuff a little more than he does.
It's madness to hand in a script to a director, leave them alone, and for the director not to want the writer there with rehearsals and the shoot.
I've worked with a lot of great directors and often times they solicit your ideas.
TNA has been great as far as allowing me to have more input creatively on my character and the direction of my character and promos.
Even when I have someone playing the song I give them the idea. I'm learning. I'm getting better over the years.
It's easier for me to sit with the producers and the writers and I give them my feelings and my thoughts and what I think I feel like singing about and then they go away and write it.
The mask of the character was already written into the show, but I actually lobbied for a denser and more complete mask than they initially considered.
If I have a better idea, I say, 'Can we try one like this?' I try not to step on writers' toes, but ninety-nine percent of the time, it ends up in the movie, and sometimes it's the line that everyone remembers and quotes from the movie.
I think getting the rest of the guys in the band to write is important.
I think we want to see new voices and new ideas emerge - that's part of the reason why term limits are a really useful thing.
My scripts are always heavily noted. If I can take a director to one side and say, "Do you mind if we try this?," a few days before, that's usually a better way of doing it then on the day.
When I show up to act in a movie for somebody else, I just want to be nice and helpful and do what they want because I know how difficult it is to make a movie. I don't want to cause any problems. So you show up and do your job, and I think if a director understands that, you don't make a lot of demands.
I wasn't involved, except to the degree that they sent me drafts of the script as the writer turned them in. They asked me at one point to write a memo about what I thought of it.
Over the years with movies, I've given directors notes.
Tom [Cruise] is a great producer himself. He's got great sense of story. It's always great to have the perspective of the person who's playing the character in your film.
