He was enormously manipulative, very ambitious and not always truthful.

Capote had these dueling motivations for being involved with this guy. He genuinely was fascinated with (Perry Smith), but he also saw him as a ticket to writing this great book.

He went to every fund-raising meeting vouching for a first-time feature director and first-time screenwriter. It was Phil who said, 'I believe in them; you need to trust me.

Yeah, look, he's known me since I was getting into car accidents ... Then I was an actor for years. And I wrote an outline, a pretty detailed outline, and gave it to him, and I'm pretty certain he has yet to read that outline.

He was enormously manipulative, very ambitious and not always truthful. I didn't want a biography that worships the title character. I wanted a movie that portrays the truth.

His persona was what people responded to with shock.

He's also one of those friends who doesn't impress easily. And so if you get a good reaction from him, it actually means something. So it was important for me to hear from him something about the script, whether it was good or bad.

But at the end of the day, it was his call. So I would go off and do rewrites while they shot.

It's an incredible honor, and it's so unlikely. I took a stab at doing this, and it's been extremely well received. ... Phil has gotten an enormous amount of attention, all of it well deserved. I think we've gotten our fair share, and whatever shakes out in terms of Oscar stuff is fine.