What I try to do is give each actor an environment in which they can do their best work.

Most scripts are so linear and simplistic in their plotline.

What you care about [movie] is whether it's moving you, or whether you're caught up in it.

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.

So it's discouraging and, yet, when you make a movie like Wonder Boys, in a sense it's its own reward, because it does move people, it gets great reviews, and it becomes part of that library of movies that exist out there. As time goes by, it will find its audience.

Whereas to write, all you need is paper and an idea, so I felt that writing might be my stepping stone.

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.