had spent their entire careers here, did. I attribute that partly
to discipline, partly to desire, and partly to the old transfer-
ability of skills. You use many of the same muscles in molecu-
lar biology, politics, and the movies. It’s all about making
connections.
“One thing I did when I first got here was to sit in the office
of the studio head all day, day after day, and watch and listen to
everything he said or did. So when writers would come, when
producers would come, I would just be there. When he was
making phone calls, I would sit and listen to him, and I would
hear him contend with what a person in his position contends
with. How does he say no to someone, how does he say yes,
how does he duck, how does he wheedle and coax? I would
have a yellow pad with me, and all through my first many
months, any phrase I didn’t understand, any piece of industry
jargon, any name, any maneuver I didn’t follow, any of the
deal-making business financial stuff I didn’t understand, I’d
write it down, and periodically I would go trotting around to
find anyone I could get to answer.
“There was no situation that I could fail to learn from, be-
cause everything was new to me, and therefore no matter what
it was, however obtuse the person I was meeting with, however
stupid the idea, however low-powered the agent pitching me
something, it was a useful encounter, because I would be for
the first time in that position. Every single thing was new, and
so I had a complete tolerance for every conceivable experience,
and as I learned from what other people would regard as real
tedium, and stupid and avoidable experiences, I would then be-
gin to filter those out of my input until I was ultimately only
doing what I thought was useful and important for me, or
things from which I could learn, or had to do.”
Knowing Yourself