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.

You can dress it up, but it comes down to the fact that a movie is only as good as its script.

Most scripts are so linear and simplistic in their plotline.

Hollywood, of course, is the city of illusion.

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.

In L.A. Confidential, it was great to surprise the audience with Guy Pearce and Russell Crowe - two Australian actors that they didn't know at all - and let people discover them through the course of the film.

A day doesn't go by when I don't get a compliment on L.A. Confidential, for example.