Do you feel like you have some closure about the death of "Six Feet Under"?

Yes. It's hard to maintain something for five years and I feel like, sure, there were some missteps, but we've gotten back into the groove. I'm really happy with the ending.

It's interesting to view the narrative arc of five seasons of a show as, say, a very long novel.

Exactly. That's what it feels like to me.

Is that how you thought about it at the outset?

No, I don't think that way. It depends more on the material. When Carolyn Strauss [at HBO] pitched the idea to me of a show set in a family-run funeral home, something in me just clicked. This new show that I'm going to try to develop for them is based on a book that I read, where the minute I read it I thought, "This would make a great TV show." So I respond more to the material, or even to a single character, or a tone, or a world. I don't think in those terms, "OK, five years." I think it's more instinctive. But I don't sit down and try to map out stories and go, "What are the stories we can do?" The process of discovery is what's most exciting to me. When I write screenplays, I don't work with an outline, because then I feel like it's a term paper. There are people it works for, and it definitely makes things easier, but for me, there's the sort of journey of discovery wading through the anarchy of all the possibilities. That's the rewarding part of writing.

How did you write "American Beauty" without an outline?

I have to admit, I got about three-quarters of the way into it, and I was like, "OK, I've gotta figure out exactly how this is going to end." So I started writing sentences like, "The colonel comes over to the garage and kisses Lester" ... I think I probably have a very innate sense of structure on some barely conscious level, so maybe there's an unconscious part of me that's outlining things, because as I'm writing I find that structure sort of falls into place. Most of the time. Sometimes it's just a cluster fuck. Those are the projects that never really see the light of day ... I'm very excited to go to this workshop with this play, because it's so great to get back in theater. And actually, you don't have to worry if a scene lasts more than three pages, and if a character starts talking and they stop half a page later, you don't have to worry. You can actually relax and luxuriate in the language. But at the same time, you're basically tied to that, you don't have the freedom of going into somebody's subconscious or going to a different time in history or going to a completely different universe with a completely different set of physics, which you can do in film. I feel very fortunate that I'm at a point in my career where I can hop from medium to medium. I don't want to get stale.

And be the guy who does that one thing.

Yeah. If you just make movies then you get really good at making movies, and even if you're a person who, by instinct, fights formula, you're gonna come up with your own formula. So why not jump to a different medium that forces you to flex different muscles, and it's going to teach you something, and you're going to learn something from it, instead of getting to the point where you think you know everything?

Sounds like you're secure with yourself as a writer, to be taking on new mediums.

There are times when I think, "Oh my god, I'm a horrible writer, this is just all some horrible mistake that happened, it's all going to become so blindingly clear." But you can't let your insecurities rule you. And also, I get bored doing the same thing over and over. I mean, I'd be lying if I said there weren't times during the run of "Six Feet Under" where I was just bored, but then that's true of my life as well, at some times, so I don't know how you can avoid that.

Well, once you feel like you've mastered something, then you can either keep doing the same song and dance for people and keep reeling in the money or whatever or you can challenge yourself.

I really love storytelling, and I love the stories as they reveal themselves. It's an incredibly nourishing process, it's probably the closest I come to having a religion. So, I don't want to get really good at the one thing and then just do it over and over. Because then I don't think you're growing -- not just as an artist, but as a human being.

That sounded incredibly pretentious, and I'm aware of that, and I'm kind of embarrassed that I said it.

We live in Los Angeles! It sounds normal to me!

But that is something that I feel. You know what I mean?

Definitely. Do you ever think that "Six Feet Under" is very much defined by Los Angeles? Sometimes I wonder if these characters are very specific to L.A.

I don't know. I mean, we tried very hard to capture the kind of surreal, hazy air, baked-out existential feel of Los Angeles instead of the palm tree one that you see in movies, but also all the back roads where the paint is flaking, and most of Los Angeles is really, really ugly. We tried to capture that, and just the weirdness of living in Los Angeles, especially the weirdness of living in L.A. if you're not in the entertainment industry. And I purposely chose Los Angeles to set the series in because, in a show about death, why not set it in the world capital of the denial of death, which has got to be Los Angeles? Los Angeles is where you come to re-create yourself and to become immortal.

What do you watch on TV these days?

I love "South Park." It's the funniest show on television. I actually enjoy "Reno 911" a lot. Some of the things that I like are really [Pause] I love "Animal Cops" and "Animal Precinct." I'm an animal owner and lover so I get riveted by "They've gotta save that puppy!" Of course I love "The Sopranos," that show is so brilliant. A lot of the newer shows I haven't seen, just because I've been working the whole time. I'm probably leaving some things out.

It takes an investment to get into a new drama.

It does. And when you spend so much of your day sitting in front of a TV screen, watching actors recite lines and editing it and trying to put it together, the last thing you want to watch when you come home is another drama. Because I end up thinking, "Oh, that was a weird edit, I would've done that differently" or "Why are they so close? It would've worked better if they played the whole scene in the master," or something like that, and that destroys your enjoyment of the story. What works better for me, obviously, are shows that have very little in common with the show that I'm doing.

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