The Hollywood Reporter continues its round-table series (an annual affair for the outlet), this time with a group of 6 writers in contention this awards season, including: Jon Favreau ("Chef"), Chris Rock ("Top Five"), Gillian Flynn ("Gone Girl"), Jonathan Nolan ("Interstellar"), Anthony McCarten (Stephen Hawking biopic "The Theory of Everything"), and Graham Moore ("The Imitation Game," the story of British code-breaker Alan Turing).

As has been the case with past THR round-tables (many we shared on this blog), it’s a candid conversation worth watching, providing first-hand, personal experiences by those who’ve seen some success in the business, in a craft that many of you hope to make a living doing some day (or are already doing so). 

Conversation topics include inserting oneself into one’s writing, writing the perfect movie, scripts that they really wish they had written, whether they care about being liked, how they deal with critics, movie role models, and more.

I was especially interested in all that Chris Rock had to say, for obvious reasons; this response from him was hilarious: the interviewer asks, "Chris, you said you made some bad movies. Did you know they were bad when you made them?" And Rock replies with, "Not at the time. Here’s the weird thing: You don’t know how bad you’ve done until you do something good and you see the difference in the reaction. Because people tell you everything’s great! People tell you your movie’s great, your stand-up’s great, and then you give them something good and you see the same people and their reaction, and you go, "Oh shit, you were lying about that other thing!"

In the meantime… moderated by Matthew Belloni, watch THR’s hour-long chat with the writer contenders below.