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.

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.

That love of movies is very much alive in me.

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

I did it [photojournalism] 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. So I stopped doing that and wrote some screenplays on speculation, because even though I wanted to direct, to direct you need a lot of money.

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?