Charlie Kaufman is the rarest of Hollywood commodities — a brand-name writer. He’s branching out, though; his directorial debut is Synecdoche, New York. The film is a sprawling think-piece that stars Philip Seymour Hoffman as Caden Cotard, a New York City theater director who crafts an equally sprawling “living play” against a decades-long backdrop of personal turmoil and heartache. In a Los Angeles hotel suite in advance of the film’s release, Kaufman spoke with Vulture about what his unusual film most assuredly isn’t titled, the serendipitous chase of a unifying aesthetic, and how Spike Jonze has to sometimes remind him of his own ideas. For the full Q&A, from New York Magazine‘s Vulture, click here.