You can dress it up, but it comes down to the fact that a movie is only as good as its script.
When I first went to Pittsburgh, I had never been there before, and we hadn't even decided to shoot there yet. I just went to see the location of Michael Chabon's novel. Once there, I became aware that Pittsburgh is a "wonder boy," in the narrow sense of the term, just as the human characters are.
Hollywood, of course, is the city of illusion.
I look for characters that interest me, and a story that keeps me involved and makes me want to know what happens next.
What you care about [movie] is whether it's moving you, or whether you're caught up in it.
Put simply, there are many people who want to make movies and very few opportunities for them to do it.
I grew up as a reader as well as a movie-lover, so many of the novelists I admired - and so many of the great filmmakers I loved - were self-taught.
When I'm casting a picture, I think who I'd like to see in it if I was sitting in a theater. Who would surprise me?
Consequently, it's so gratifying to then make a picture that's successful and gives you leverage to have better circumstances than you've ever had, before the next time out.
Whereas to write, all you need is paper and an idea, so I felt that writing might be my stepping stone.
Self-awareness and self-esteem. Those aren't female issues, those are human issues.
A day doesn't go by when I don't get a compliment on L.A. Confidential, for example.
Consequently, their school [film-school ] was the school of life, and it was very much reflected in their work.
You can imagine what it was like for me to actually be sitting in a room with matching typewriters, working under the tutelage of this guy I so admired, both as a filmmaker and as a man.
I approach the movies I make as a movie-lover as much as a movie-maker.
I wrote a couple of scripts on spec that didn't get made but got some attention, and I then got offers to write professionally.
I had a checkered early career, for sure, with a lot of very unhappy experiences where pictures got taken away, re-cut, re-titled... all the nightmares one hears about.
I make that distinction only because I came to it strictly as someone who was just a lover of storytellers and cinematic storytellers.
Most scripts are so linear and simplistic in their plotline.
I never intended to have a career as a journalist, writing about people who make movies. I did it as something that was really rewarding to do, given the opportunity to express myself about something I cared about, and also to learn a lot by watching filmmakers I admired. In a sense, it was my film school. After doing it for a few years, I decided that the time had come to get it together and do some work of my own. Even for a cheap movie, you need film stock and equipment and actors. Whereas to write, all you need is paper and an idea, so I felt that writing might be my stepping stone.
I was never a critic. I was a journalist and wrote about filmmakers, but I didn't review movies per se. I make that distinction only because I came to it strictly as someone who was just a lover of storytellers and cinematic storytellers. And I still am. I'm still a great movie fan, and I ,that love of movies is very much alive in me. I approach the movies I make as a movie-lover as much as a movie-maker.
Now, grosses are listed in the newspapers and on television like it's a sporting event. It's ridiculous, because when you're watching a movie, unless you're an investor in the movie or a stockholder in the studio, what do you care how much it's grossing or how much it cost or any of that stuff?
That's what I love about Michael Douglas' performance in Wonder Boys, because I feel like he surprises audiences that know him from very different roles in his other work.
I very much had wanted to do a picture with more humor than what I had been allowed to do earlier, which is what attracted me to Wonder Boys so much. I found it funny in a very serious way, which is the best kind of comedy.
Bad Influence, which is an early movie of mine that I'm very fond of. It was an unhappy experience when that picture got released, because it coincided with that ridiculous Rob Lowe videotape scandal.
