’The X-Files’ Turns 20: ’Breaking Bad’ Creator On What He Learned From Mulder And Scully – So I went into this meeting very relaxed with Chris Carter, because I was not trying to impress him. I just wanted to shake his hand and say, “Man, what a great show you have.” And he said, “Yeah, well, thanks. Do you have any ideas for it?” And I said, “Well, gosh no. I mean, I just wanted to say hi. But I was in the hotel last night, and I was looking at my shadow cast against the wall, and I was thinking, wouldn’t it be weird if it suddenly started moving independently of me?” And he said, “Yeah, that would be creepy.”
Paul Schrader talks about The Canyons – I told him the essential structure, the Renoir structure of the rotating triangles—you take two triangles, connect them at one point, and let them turn. So you have the triangle of Christian, Tara, and Ryan, and then you have the triangle of Christian, Cynthia, and Ryan. That puts Christian at the center of the two triangles, and whenever the points of the triangles meet, you’ve got interesting scenes. Bret worked very quickly. Probably no more than a month.
