There are many people who want to make movies and very few opportunities for them to do it. I had a checkered early career with a lot of very unhappy experiences where pictures got taken away, re-cut, re-titled... all the nightmares one hears about. Consequently, it's so gratifying to then make a picture that's successful and gives you leverage to have better circumstances than you've ever had, before the next time out.

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.

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.

As ridiculous as it is for anybody who knows how movies are made, there were people who actually wrote in reviews that this picture [Bad Influence] had been put out to capitalize on the scandal. Which, of course, would have been impossible.

My very first professional writing credit was on a movie called The Dunwich Horror, and Roger Corman was the executive producer.

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.