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.

Samuel Fuller pictures were both written and shot in such an unusual way that his voice came through loud and clear, and it made a big impression on me.

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.

Roger [Corman] didn't actually hire me, though. I was hired by AIP [American International Pictures], the studio that made the picture, which was Sam Arkoff and Jim Nicholson. It was a great learning experience for me, because not only did I work on the script, but they hired me back to go on location when they were making the movie, to write new scenes and so forth.

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.

There was a long period of time when Sam Fuller had a lot of projects fall through and had a lot of difficulties getting a project off the ground. And I was able to observe him during that period, and see his incredible resiliency and courage as he faced this difficulty and just kept working.

Here [in Wonder Boys] I had this group of characters where you didn't know which were the important ones or what direction they were heading.