Emotional Risk Is Where It's At

"Starting Out in the Evening...takes on a character who, in his daily grind [as an author], approaches the question of transformation. He looks at character, he looks at life, and he's looking for the collision between the two in order to speak about what humanity goes through. But the irony here is, in his own life, he's removed himself from the intimacies that put him at risk.

"I suppose one of the things that the struggles of my own life have taught me is that emotional risk is where it's at. That's where real change comes from. That's where real growth comes from. That's how we stretch our life muscle as artists and that's how we make our relationships work. We avail ourselves. We open ourselves. And I find that theme dominating almost everything I've been working on for the last ten years. This idea of surrender. This idea of opening rather than closing."

--Director Andrew Wagner in conversation with Elvis Mitchell on KCRW's The Treatment (12.12.07)