Joel Coen

 Joel Coen: "In the late '60s, when [brother Ethan Coen] was 11 or 12, he got a suit and a briefcase and we went to the Minneapolis International Airport with a Super 8 camera and made a movie about shuttle diplomacy called 'Henry Kissinger, Man on the Go.' And, honestly, what we do now doesn't feel much different from what we were doing then."

The Coen Brothers are noted for their unusual writing process of not only eschewing outlines, but of not even concerning themselves what their story is about or who their characters are before beginning to write their screenplays. They will simply begin writing any scene they think up that they find to be interesting. Then, if they think of an interesting idea for a following scene, they will write that one, and then another, and so on and so forth until they have a first draft, discovering what the story is along the way. Then, they will heavily revise what they have until they feel they have a shootable screenplay. They have noted that because of this, they will often get writer's block around the mid-point of any given screenplay, and will begin another screenplay in the meantime in order to remain productive. For example, the entirety of "Barton Fink" (1991) was written while they were battling writer's block with "Miller's Crossing" (1990), and the first 40 pages of "The Big Lebowski" (1998) were written while they were stuck with "Barton Fink."

When an actor improvises a line on the set, Joel will almost invariably say something like, "That was great, but could you do it like it's written in the script?" Most Coen brothers films are the same (line for line) when released as they are on the page in the final draft of the script.

Joel used to receive sole credit as director for the Coen brothers movies, but has always directed films with Ethan. This was changed with "The Ladykillers" (2004), and now they both receive credit for directing and producing. Joel works so closely with Ethanthat the two of them have been jokingly referred to as "The Two-Headed Director."

"I can almost set my watch by how I'm going to feel at different stages of the process. It's always identical, whether the movie ends up working or not. I think when you watch the dailies, the film that you shoot every day, you're very excited by it and very optimistic about how it's going to work. And when you see it the first time you put the film together, the roughest cut, is when you want to go home and open up your veins and get in a warm tub and just go away. And then it gradually, maybe, works its way back, somewhere toward that spot you were at before."

Happy Birthday, Joel Coen (to your right of brother Ethan)!