Alexander Payne

Payne says he first read Nebraska — about a man who is showing signs of dementia — as a comedy. We'll listen back to an interview with Payne originally broadcast on Dec. 2, 2013.

Payne tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross that he first read Nebraska -- a film about an old man who is beginning to show signs of dementia -- as a comedy "with moments of gravity." Payne also directed Election, About Schmidt, Sideways and The Descendants.

Director Alexander Payne finds comedy in the crises of his flawed protagonists: a struggling writer in Sideways, a retired widower in About Schmidt and now a family man who must reassess his life in The Descendants.

Critic David Edelstein calls the film, in which an elderly man sets out to claim a million-dollar sweepstakes prize, a "superb balancing act" from director Alexander Payne.