I can't imagine directing from someone else's script.
I think it is best that if you are the writer you just leave the director to it. With the caveat that you state, 'Be gentle with the script. And if there are changes, consult me.'
I would never want my name on something that I did not write most of. Part of television is you get rewritten.
To be honest, I would never have imagined myself acting on a sitcom that I didn't write.
As a writer, it's very difficult to just hand your script over to someone else, especially if you have to watch them hurt it, and that's when I decided I would direct my own work.
I won't work on anyone's else's script. I won't write for anyone else. I write my own stuff and make that when the time is right.
Interestingly enough, there is a really different dynamic when you're directing something that somebody else has written compared to when you're directing something that you've written. And there's a good and a bad side to it. I think the bad side is that you never feel the same level of connection to the material - you just don't.
I thought one way to try to hold on to the power was to write the script myself. That way, I could say to filmmakers, "I'm not asking you to hire me unseen. I'm just saying, 'Here's my script. Can we work together?'" So that worked out well.
I have no interest in ever making a movie I didn't write. If they were going to take my house away, then I guess I might have to. But my agent knows not to even bother sending me the scripts.
Sometimes when you do a whole script, you hand it off, and it gets rewritten by a bunch of people, and people don't really get that much of a sense of how funny you can be.
