How has Greta influenced your writing?

Greta has influenced me in all ways. When we write together, it’s great, because she’s somebody I really want to impress, so I’m always trying really hard. I feel funnier when I’m with her, and wiser. When we’re working together, it’s the energy of being in a room with someone. You don’t know who started the conversation; you just know that you arrived somewhere. That’s what a great writing collaboration feels like. I had it with Emily Mortimer, too, on “Jay Kelly.”

How did that come about?

I got to know her better when we made “White Noise,” because her kids are in it. I’d had the idea for “Jay Kelly,” but I didn’t know quite how to do it. I was telling her about it, and I just liked everything she was saying. So I called her the next day and asked her if she wanted to write it with me.

I’ve always been curious about how co-writing actually works. Is one the talker and one the typer?

I think the one who’s going to direct it is more the typer, because they’re the one who’s harnessing it. The other one can be a little bit more far-reaching. But it happens both ways. I think ultimately the director knows what kind of story he knows how to tell. That was true when I wrote “Life Aquatic” and “Fantastic Mr. Fox” with Wes Anderson. With Greta and me, it’s different. With “Barbie,” we were essentially trying to write something that wouldn’t get made. And then we liked it so much that we felt like we should make it, and that she should direct it.

What’s a movie you saw recently that made you feel excited about cinema all over again?

When we’re working on a movie, once a week we screen films for the crew, in a theatre. It’s often a movie that has had some sort of influence on us or is a companion to what we’re all working on. After Robert Redford died we showed “All the President’s Men,” and I think that’s a near-perfect movie. I also really liked Rick Linklater’s new movie, “Nouvelle Vague,” about the making of Godard’s “Breathless.” I thought it was not an easy thing to do, making a movie about real people. I love those New Wave directors, and I love those movies. And it could have felt like, That’s not my Godard! That’s not my Truffaut! But he did it so well. There was such an affection for the making of movies.

Talk about how you fell in love with movies as a little boy.

I had parents who were both film critics, so I had movies all around me. I loved “The Adventures of Robin Hood.” I love “The Wizard of Oz,” which was always on TV around Easter, I think. And then all the ape movies were on around Thanksgiving. There was “King Kong,” “Son of Kong,” “Mighty Joe Young.” I was a great age for “Star Wars” and “E.T.” At some point early on, it was a language that I internalized—the movies—and, more than any art form, I felt very connected to them. I loved books about movies, when I could get my hands on them. But there wasn’t a lot of information. I didn’t know how to get Variety or anything like that. I was intimidated—I wanted to do something that I’m not sure regular people got to do. I wish I had read Lillian Ross’s “Picture” back then, about the making of John Huston’s “Red Badge of Courage,” because it really tells you everything. It’s an amazing telling of what it was like to make a movie. There was also the book Lillian wrote—interviews she did with actors where she took her voice out, so it’s just the actors.

That’s called “The Player.” She wrote it with her sister, Helen Ross, in 1968.

The documentary that Jake Paltrow and I did about Brian De Palma in 2016—in my head I was using Lillian’s technique. We had a long conversation with Brian over many days about his whole career, and that’s what the movie is. But we took our voices out, so it’s just him telling the story.