From KCRW in Santa Monica, this is The Treatment.

Welcome to The Treatment. I'm Elvis Mitchell. You can also hear the show at KCRW.com.

With just a handful of films, writer, director, and sometimes actor, Tom McCarthy,

has found a place for himself.

He's found a way to make loneliness the subject of both comedy and drama.

And his films often deal with the unusual attachment his characters have to loneliness,

starting with his first film, The Station Agent, which made a star Peter Dinklage.

His second film is writer-director, the visitor, made a leading man of Richard Jenkins

and got him his first best actor nomination for the Academy Award.

And then the next year, Tom got an Oscar nomination himself for the original screenplay

of the film Up.

His newest film is writer and director, I should say, co-writer and

director, is the new film Win Win. Tom, thanks for being here. Thanks, Elvis, great to be here.

But I want to ask you about that. I mean, loneliness is so key to you thematically, and I wonder

where that comes from. I don't know, actually. I grew up in a happy house. I don't know. Big family, lots of kids, maybe too many.

I was never lonely.

I'll tell you that much.

I guess it's less about loneliness and more about connections people make.

And in many cases, the random connections we make in life that's always interested me.

And maybe in some cases I've started from Ground Zero, which is a guy who

was either purposely or not so detached from a certain community. Although I think in this

film, I've really kind of done the inverse of that. Well, given that you trained as an actor,

...