We recently shared the highlights of the Hollywood Reporter's Oscar Roundtables
actors installment, featuring
Argo's Alan Arkin,
Django Unchained's Jamie Foxx,
Arbitrage's Richard Gere,
Flight's Denzel Washington,
The Sessions' John Hawkes, and
Promised Land‘s Matt Damon. The website recently
shared its writers installment, and we've got the hour-long chat with
Judd Apatow (
This Is 40),
Mark Boal (
Zero Dark Thirty),
David Magee (
Life of Pi),
Chris Terrio (
Argo),
Michael Haneke (
Amour) and
John Krasinski (
Promised Land) for your viewing pleasure, below.
"I assume probably I was having my own midlife… questioning, let's call it," Apatow admitted about his upcoming comedy, starring Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann as the crises-racked couple. "I'd been reading a lot about it. There's a moment where you just take stock. And that's a tough moment, and I wanted to write about that."
Haneke was also inspired to script his film after a dark personal experience. "Like so many of us, in my private life, my family was confronted with the suffering of someone I love very deeply," he told THR. "And one of the bitterest experiences in my life was having to look on helplessly and watch their suffering without being able to do anything about it. That was the starting point that led me to reflect on the question of mortality… "
Hurt Locker screenwriter Boal was on the scene in Iraq as a journalist, but admits that writing Zero Dark Thirty was an experience that hit closer to home. "It was actually a really personal thing for me because of 9/11 and being a New Yorker."
Watch the full set of interviews, and share your favorite moments with us.