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This is one of the only times Ive spoken to Alex Kurtzman by himself. Hes usually part of the screenwriting duo of Orci and Kurtzman. He and his partner Bob have written films like Transformers, Star Trek and Cowboys & Aliens, as well as co-created TVs Fringe. Forbes called them Hollywoods Secret Weapons and considers them the force behind $3 billion in box office.

Not only was I getting Kurtzman solo, but he made time for me at a moment I couldnt believe. He had just returned from a nationwide tour promoting his new movie, People Like Us, and as soon as he got home from the airport he called me. I know what it feels like to travel. I would not be coherent after a flight and a drive. I guess thats why Im not a screenwriter.

People Like Us is also Kurtzmans directorial debut. It is the personal story of a debt-ridden investor (Chris Pine) who grudgingly returns home for his fathers funeral. When the will is read, he learns he has a sister (Elizabeth Banks) and nephew, whom he meets but doesnt quite fully introduce himself to.

If you thought talking robots or space aliens were hard to explain, heres a situation that would take a Hollywood mastermind to sort out. Luckily Kurtzman was on the case. He couldnt keep his original title, which was Welcome to People, but Kurtzman explained how he dealt with a human drama. After we asked about all the other big movies hes writing and producing, Kurtzman left us with some screenwriting theory advice too.

Suicide Girls: How long have you had the directing bug and does Bob have it too?

Alex Kurtzman: I don't know, youll have to ask him. I definitely have it. Theres no question that I have it. I loved every second of it.

SG: Has there been a certain pleasure to just writing and not having to worry about the directing?

AK: The funny thing is weve been fortunate and we havent really been in that position, because were either producing the movies that we write or weve been very into it with the director as theyve been doing it so weve been there through all of the process. So Ive never actually had the experience of being totally divorced from the material. So no, the truth is you write something three times. You write it when you write the script, you write it when you shoot it and you write it when you edit it.

SG: As a writer, do you have a tricky relationship with exposition, in the sci-fi films where you have a lot of mythology to reveal, and now applying it to these family secrets in this story?

AK: Sure. I think exposition is a challenge for all writers in all different ways. The key is how do you build a story around the exposition falling in the right place so that the audience wants to hear it, and then how do you deliver it in a way that the audience wants to hear it.

SG: How different is it dealing with the human drama versus the pure technical stuff you need to get out in sci-fi movies?

AK: I think we always try and look at it both as a continuum. In the sci-fi movies, the same rule applies which is when youre getting out the exposition, you want it to be coming from an emotional place, as much as the story will allow it to be one. Sometimes one of the tricks can be you get your characters into a fight, because when people are fighting they tend to be more specific about what theyre happy or not happy with. That is a good way to hold an audiences attention. I think when it comes to that kind of exposition in People Like Us, its a very different thing because so much of that movie is about what people are not saying to each other and the movie is building up to a place of everyone finally reconciling and everybody finally speaking truthfully to each other. So by the time that exposition comes around, its a really necessary step in whether or not those characters are going to continue to be in each others lives.

SG: Are you dealing with the essence of drama in People Like Us where people are talking without revealing the truth?

AK: Thats right, thats right. These characters are all so damaged and they have built up so much armor over the course of their lives to keep them from having to deal with their pain. By doing that, they are not dealing with a lot of things. So the movie is really about them colliding into each other. I think the key for me too is humor. I really, really needed to make sure that there was a lot of humor in the movie because I think a lot of characters use humor, as I said, as an armor. But also because I think that pain is funny sometimes. Some of my favorite movies are very painful movies that are very funny. I think thats what makes us human. Capturing that is really a great thing when you can do it.

SG: Ive noticed several movies lately where someone cant reveal who they are. The Lucky One also dealt with someone who couldnt tell her how he found her picture. Is there something going on now that people feel like they cant reveal who they are?

AK: I don't know, I guess the first thing that comes to mind in answer to your question is that we live in a world where our identities are pretty much known to everybody and all of our information is more or less public. So I certainly think that it may be tapping into a zeitgeist-y thing that privacy has gone away for all intents and purposes. So what does that do to your sense of identity?

SG: What were some of the shots you just had to get as a first time director?

AK: You know, I didnt approach it that way. I approached it with a very strong sense visually of what I wanted it to feel like and the thing about my cinematographer, Sal Totino whos so brilliant, is that he is not interested in a beautiful composition, although his compositions are always beautiful. He is first and foremost interested in how the frame is telling the story emotionally. So what we would do was while we had a lot of ideas in mind and we planned for a lot of transitions in the movie, we would never pre-block a scene. I would bring the actors to set and we would talk through what felt right and then wed light around them. So it was about more the experience of being a fly on the wall and capturing the real lives of these people than it was about you being aware that the camera was even there.

SG: Were there certain local haunts you wanted to be sure to get in the movie, like the Taco stand?

AK: Absolutely. That was actually Chriss idea. As a native Los Angeleno I often feel like my Los Angeles is never represented accurately onscreen. I think if youre from L.A., what you come to understand is that L.A. is about the small intimate spaces that you create for yourself and everybody has different things that mean something to them. For me its a lot of coffee shops because I like to write in coffee shops. Its a lot of just little spaces. I felt like L.A. was a very specific character in the movie because in many ways, the movie is also a ghost story and this man who is unifying all these characters, who has all the answers to the questions that theyre asking, is dead. So they can never get those answers and theyre kind of traveling through his space trying to understand who he was and why he did the thing that he did. That means that every location that we went to was significant because it had to represent the father in some way.

SG: Can you still write in coffee shops now that people know who you are?

AK: Oh, I do it all the time. Fortunately Im actually not in that place. Im very rarely recognized which is great.

SG: Has your lifestyle changed a lot with the success youve achieved?

AK: You know, I tend to come from a pretty conservative family when it comes to the way that we live so for me its mostly about making sure that my son is comfortable and that hes getting what he needs and we dont like to live grand.

SG: How about your lifestyle in the industry when youre a power player or go-to guy?

AK: The funny thing is that Bob and I are actually pretty shy when it comes to the industry. We very rarely go to industry parties and we dont take lunches all that often and we tend to just work through the day. So our space is really just about work. I guess were just not the kind of people who do all the other stuff. No judgment to the other stuff. Its just not really who we are.

SG: What was the process of the title changes and decisions?

AK: Well, I loved the title so much, Welcome to People. When we were doing the testing on the movie, the movie was testing really well and the one thing people were having trouble with was the title. We had all worked so hard to pour ourselves into this movie, I think we all felt that we wanted to give it the best chance of success. The studio really felt strongly about it and in their defense, they really let me keep it for a long time. They were pushing me on it for a while and I didnt want to change it. Then finally it just became clear that it probably was the best thing to do.

SG: With experience as a producer, were you better able to comfort your director self with that change?

AK: I think because I had held out for so long, it wasnt like I either just caved immediately [or held out stubbornly.] We really thought about it. At the end of the day, what I didnt want was for people to hear the title and be confused, and I felt like thats what was happening. Now that said, what I think we all loved so much about the title was that it suggested that people was a destination and that was really what was going on with the characters. They were sort of half people, going back to the idea that they were living in massive states of denial and not dealing with a lot of things. The idea that theyve become whole at the end of the movie was what that title suggested to me and I loved that.

SG: The big Star Trek rumor is whether its Khan or not, and Simon Pegg even went out and said, Benedict Cumberbatch is not Khan. What do you make of that?

AK: My lips are absolutely sealed. Weve all sworn a blood oath to the Star Trek gods that we will not reveal any information, other than I can tell you we held off on shooting the second movie for a year because the studio really wanted it and of course they did. I think we just didnt feel ready yet. We put so much thought into the first movie that what we didnt want to do is obliterate it by rushing something into production. So Im really excited about everything. J.J. just directed the hell out of it and were editing it right now.

SG: But what did you make of Simon telling the The Telegraph that its not Khan?

AK: Its the first time Ive heard it actually. Ive been traveling the whole month with the movie. I havent been reading anything. Wow, I don't know what to make of it. Well, okay.

SG: Ive been waiting for someone to do Enders Game. Can the movie get into the political theory thats in that book?

AK: Oh sure, absolutely. Look, people have been trying to make Enders for a long time. Gavin [Hood] did a beautiful job really protecting and building walls around the beating heart of it. Bob worked very closely with [author] Orson Scott Card in making sure that the novel was reflecting all of the things that he intended it to. So I think he did an extraordinary job and Im really excited to see how its going to come together.

SG: Another interesting thing about it is if it does well, the sequels to the book are very different. Would Speaker of the Dead still be the next film in that series?

AK: I think its a discussion, but youre right to point that out. They are. Thats a conversation but we dont like to count our chickens before they hatch so were really just focusing on this one and we want to make it great. Ask me in a year. Ill have a better answer for you.

SG: Im just worried the studio would want another battle movie.

AK: Possibly. Lets see how this one turns out and lets see what people react to the most. I think based on that well know.

SG: Did Amazing Spider-Man leave it open to you to fill in Richard Parkers secret with that easter egg they left in the credits?

AK: Thats another movie Im sworn to secrecy on unfortunately. I just loved the new one so much so were really excited to be doing that.

SG: Great news that Fringe has a fifth season. What is still to come?

AK: Well, its our last season and theres a lot of liberation knowing that you are writing toward a specific destination. I think that the whole point of creating that show for us was to do something really crazy and unlike anything else on television and also to harken back to the shows that we love so much and I think that the finale will hopefully do that for everybody.

SG: Is it also a relief that you got there, when some seasons you didnt know?

AK: Yeah, absolutely. Ive got to say, Fox was extraordinary in their support for the show. They really were, kind of from the beginning and all the way through, I think they were very proud of it. You dont always get that from a network when theres questions like that, but they were awesome.

SG: Van Helsing is an interesting choice to the reboot. Is that one where you dont have to be so precious to the original?

AK: I think to some degree thats sort of true. For me its actually about going back to the actual source material and some comics from the 70s that we discovered that are very interesting. So were literally just in the middle of starting the process of figuring that out so I dont have any real answers for you on that one.

SG: Its an interesting combination of something very recent, but it had a mixed reaction so theres opportunity there.

AK: Yeah, I think thats right. The character is really, really interesting. The DNA of the character is interesting so thats what we responded to.

SG: And youve written for Tom Cruise before so do you need to set up crazy stunts hes going to want to do?

AK: You know, we tend to do the stunts last. We dont think in those terms from the beginning. We actually learned on the first television shows that we did that you have to structure your story first and figure out what you want that to be and then you start to figure out how the story can open up the action sequences because you want the sequences to be organic in terms of the storytelling. You want them to lead you to some new revelation or progress the story in the right way. So if you start just from action sequences, I think it tends to be a somewhat empty experience.

SG: You went to college at Wesleyan. Was college vital to your screenwriting experience, because I dont know if its even an option for todays aspiring writers?

AK: It was in a lot of ways. Wesleyan I think is a very unique place in that it didnt have a proper screenwriting program. When I was there, thats not what it was. It was really more about film analysis and understanding. We had this glorious teacher Jeanine Basinger. A bunch of us when we were there asked her if she would help us find a way to do a screenwriting seminar. So basically what we did is she got us access to a lot of screenplays. We would sit down, a bunch of the students, and we would analyze the scripts and wed break them into genres and we would pick different categories and wed sit and talk about them. And we talked about writing styles and we talked about dialogue. It was a really great thing because rather than sit down and give us the assignment of writing a screenplay when we didnt really understand what it meant to write a screenplay, she had us looking at the source. Going back to people like Preston Sturges for dialogue or the Marx brothers for dialogue or Billy Wilder and then asking, Okay, what is the modern day evolution of that kind of dialogue? Whos doing that now? Whos referencing that now? So we really got a real saturation in the history of screenwriting and I think that was a lot more informative for me personally than to sit down and write, which at that point I had no idea how to do. I think learning the rules before you start is really important and thats what Wesleyan gave me.

SG: Now a new generation can see those scripts online.

AK: Completely. My God, when we were there it was pre-internet. I had to make friends with a librarian at one of the agencies to get scripts because that was the only way to know what a screenplay actually looked like. Now every script is available online, like everything, which is pretty amazing.

SG: Sometimes before its made.

AK: Yes, frequently before its made, which I dont think is a good thing.

SG: We get to talk about movies like Star Trek, Spider-Man, Enders Game and more. What is your feeling of being one of the keepers of these fantastic stories?

AK: I think that Bob and I both feel a tremendous responsibility actually. When we were kids, I think that we were influenced by a generation of filmmakers who so deeply loved genre material. Whether you loved all of their movies or not, there was no question that they were coming from a place of total reverence. They clearly couldnt be doing anything else with their lives, it was that important to them. And I think thats how we feel. I think we feel like youre never going to please everybody but you want to try and stay in touch with the reasons why you tell stories. You want to try and stay in touch with your inner kid and you want to try and do better than you did last time. I think its a lot of fun and its a real privilege and thats how we see it.

SG: And someone needs to do it because these things dont make themselves.

AK: I think so. When you make a movie of the scale of some of the movies that weve made it is totally a collaborative effort. I think you go with your gut and you go by the things that influence you and you try and stay in touch with the moments that you remember from your childhood of sitting in a theater and just having your mind blown, and why that happened. Thats a big part of it for us. For me thats why I do it.

SG: Do your kids know what you do?

AK: Oh sure. I have a son. Thats part of the joy of it too is I cant break story anymore without thinking about him now. Everything is filtered through his eyes in some way. Its like being in constant touch with wonder, and hes six years old. Thats the beauty of having that at your house and also doing what I do.

SG: Does he think dads cool?

AK: He does now but I pretty much guarantee that will not be the case when hes a teenager.

SG: He might become one of those internet haters.

AK: Yeah, he will, he will. Itll just be in my house instead of on the internet.

People Like Us is now playing in theaters.