Last week Max Landis’ directorial debut Me Him Her premiered at the Seattle International Film Festival. Shortly before heading to Seattle, I sat down with the very busy screenwriter for an extended video interview. During the wide-ranging conversation, Landis and I talked about so many things it would be impossible to summarize it in an intro. Suffice it to say, if you’re curious about what it really takes to make a movie, this interview is definitely worth your time as he reveals a lot of the real inner workings of Hollywood.

If you’re not familiar with Max Landis, he’s written a number of projects over the past few years (like Chronicle) and he’s got a lot getting released soon like American Ultra, Victor Frankenstein, and Mr. Right. And this doesn’t count all the projects he’s working on that are still under wraps.

However, while I think the interview has a lot of highlights, I especially like his reaction when I ask him what it was like directing an Ariana Grande music video that has around 100 million views. It’s around the eighteen-minute mark.

Finally, while everyone these days is media-trained and always tries to say the safe thing, I do appreciate that Landis is willing to speak his mind and not hide behind a canned response.

One last thing…if you’re not familiar with Me Him Her, the dramedy is about three millennials trying to figure out love, friendship, sex, identity, and life in present-day Hollywood. The film stars Dustin Milligan, Luke Bracey, Emily Meade, Alia Shawkat, Rebecca Drysdale, and Haley Joel Osment. You can watch a clip here.

Here’s the interview followed by what we talked about. If you’d like to see Landis play “Save or Kill” you can watch that here.

Max Landis: