What's the difference between writing and directing? Do you think you can get more of what's in your head on the screen when you're directing?

CK: I wanted to try. I think directing and writing are very different jobs, and that is very apparent to me now. It probably was before, but now I understand more so why they're different. Obviously, directing is a more social and managerial job. The other thing about directing is that it's a very, very pragmatic job, and writing isn't. You spend most of your time as a director trying to move forward with the movie. It happens on a daily basis, if not more than once a day, that you are struggling with budgetary constraints. Whereas when you're writing, the limitation that you have is your imagination. So it's decidedly non-pragmatic.

Charlie Kaufman (second from left) on the set of Synecdoche, New York.

Synecdoche, New York seems a lot darker than the other stuff you've done. That's not to say your other films were necessarily light-hearted...

CK: Depending on the audience, it seems to get a lot of laughs. But yeah, I think I know what you're saying. One of the things is that I'm moving -- as a person and as a writer -- through time. I'm a different age now. I'm thinking about different things. I have different life experiences. I'm trying to get closer to being honest. And by closer I mean that at different ages I have different ideas of what the truth is, and at any point I'm trying to express that at that moment in time. I think one of the things I wanted to do in this movie was not have an out for people. If there are any expectations for things that I write, I think there's an expectation that there's going to be some sort of thing that the audience gets at some point that is like a clever thing that is kind of an out, like, "Oh yeah! I get it now. OK, I can go home now. That's clever," if they like it. I decided not to do that this time. I wanted to tell the story, and I wanted it -- within the realm of realm of the dream logic and the surreal stuff in the movie -- I wanted it to be true. And the truth of it was, this man goes through his life, and there isn't a moment where you go, "Oh! That's what this is about. Now I feel safe." This would be a like a free fall until the end of his life, and that's what I did.

What are you working on now?

CK: I'm trying to write something new, but it's very early on. I don't know what it's gonna be yet.

When I was watching the film, it kind of reminded me of Luis Bunuel's That Obscure Object of Desire, in that there was a certain fluidity to some of the characters; some would seem to act as proxies for others.

CK: I'm not sure that I've ever seen that movie. I'm getting these things that I've never seen. A lot of people say [the film reminds them of] 8 1/2, which I've never seen. I've heard All That Jazz [as well]. And in fact, if I see another movie, and I see that I'm thinking along the lines of something else, I won't do it. For example, I really like David Lynch. He deals with dream reality a lot. But my dreams and David Lynch's dreams are not the same. I didn't want to incorporate his dreams. As much as I love them, they're his. I'm trying to find my own. I want to do my own thing, and I'm trying to get closer to realizing that as a filmmaker.