Do you often learn lessons from the material? The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, for example, examines our mortality.

"When we began the film, David [Fincher] had already dealt with the death of his father and Eric [Roth, writer] with the death of his mother, and about a month into shooting, Angie’s mother passed away, so… I tell you, the thing I walked away from that film with was, you know, time is short.

"I don’t know if I have a day or 10 days or 10 years or 40 years. Am I halfway, or close to the end? I don’t know, so I’ve got to make sure I don’t waste those moments in any kind of bitterness or laziness or so forth, and that I surround myself with what’s most important to me and with those people who are most important to me."

It sounds so simple but it’s not always the way, is it?

"You know, I had a friend who worked at a hospice and he said something really interesting. He said that people in their last moments don’t discuss their successes, their awards, their trophies, what book they wrote or what they accomplished; they only talk about their loves and regrets. I think that’s very telling."