Over his sixteen-year career, Mike White has written seven films, all of them bittersweet, black comedies about characters who fail horribly in their attempts at self-improvement. These include The Good Girl, Orange County, Chuck and Buck, and School of Rock. White has also directed one film (Year of the Dog), and has acted in the majority of his own films, usually volunteering to play the most hapless, unappealing characters, the kind of role well suited to his pallor and discomfiting grin. After some early writing for Dawson’s Creek and Freaks and Geeks, White eventually found a place on television with the new-age corporate dramedy Enlightened, which he created and wrote in 2012. Though it lasted for only two seasons on HBO, the show enjoyed critical praise for its writing and for Laura Dern’s anxiety-driven performance. I visited White at his home in Santa Monica. He had recently returned from a well-deserved Hawaiian vacation.

—Toph Eggers