The arts are a green industry with a very high rate of return. This is not money thrown away by any stretch of the imagination. This is money that creates jobs. This is money that brings life, financial life, to communities.

There's the inherent value of the arts in terms of what that does for the quality of life and culture. The arts - in my case theater, play-writing - is all about community.

I think if you look at where things are in this current political climate, you'll see that everything is polarized. Everyone has their own eco chamber that they can operate in there aren't a lot of people interacting with each other. For me, with something like film, that's an opportunity to try to bridge those gaps.