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

I don't think of the marketplace as teen-oriented or teen-dominated. I think of it as dominated by high-concept, in marketing especially.

I make that distinction only because I came to it strictly as someone who was just a lover of storytellers and cinematic storytellers.

Consequently, their school [film-school ] was the school of life, and it was very much reflected in their work.

On the surface, Wonder Boys seemed like such a departure from L.A. Confidential - it's funny, it's contemporary, and so on - and yet at a certain point, I had a feeling that reminded me how I felt when I was shooting L.A. Confidential. I analyzed it for a while, and thought about how emotionally involved I was with the characters. Then I realized that in both movies, there are three main male characters and one female, and all of them are struggling to figure out what they're doing with their lives, independent of each other.

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.