Charlie Kaufman On Being — And Directing

Charlie Kaufman won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay in 2005 for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty Images hide caption
Charlie Kaufman won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay in 2005 for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty ImagesScreenwriter Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich, Adaption) is known for his disjointed narratives and quirky characters. Now he brings that off-beat sensibility to his directorial debut, Synecdoche, New York.
The film features Phillip Seymour Hoffman as a theater director who builds a life-size model of Manhattan's theater district in a warehouse in upstate New York. As Hoffman's character becomes increasingly obsessed with his mock-up of Manhattan reality, he starts to lose control of his own.