“I really feel like my goal, and I don't always achieve it, is to do the best work I can do, and stay out of the results. Because ultimately, the result is not what the work is about. There are other people whose jobs are to focus on those results and maximize them, and that's great. Let them do their job.”

American writer and director, contemporary

Alan Erwin Ball is an American writer and director for film and television. He is best known for writing the screenplay for American Beauty (1999), which earned him the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. Ball also created the HBO series Six Feet Under and True Blood, and served as an executive producer on Banshee. In addition to television, he wrote and directed the films Towelhead and Uncle Frank, showing a career that moves between sharp drama, dark humor, and family-centered stories.