step into unfamiliar environments. He has described himself as becoming more alert and vulnerable when traveling. Rather than attempting to control every situation, he had to observe, respond, and interact with people whose lives were very different from his own. Those encounters became material for journalism and books. Travel also offered distance from Hollywood, an environment with which he maintained an increasingly complicated relationship. It allowed him to develop an identity that did not depend on being recognized.
Directing offered another kind of distance from celebrity. A television director can
