Curtis Hanson: The Most Daring Director in Hollywood

Q: You helped revive Basinger's career, but you're better known for discovering new stars. When you directed Tom Cruise in Losin' It, did you have any idea he'd become the biggest star in the world?

A: Did I know Tom Cruise would become Tom Cruise? How could you? What I did know is he had something extraordinary. I saw countless young guys for those three parts. When Tom came into the room, he lit it up to such a degree I immediately recommended he be hired to play one of two parts. We signed him and figured out later which part he would play. He was young but very serious. You knew he was going places, at least I did. One of the producers on the film had an option on him and let it lapse, which has to be one of the bonehead moves of all time.

Q: Julianne Moore made her first big-screen impression in The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, playing the feisty best friend of Annabella Sciorra who gets killed by Rebecca De Mornay in the greenhouse. What did you see in her?

A: She was fun and feisty. After we told the studio we wanted her, they came back and said she was on a soap opera, that that was bad. I didn't know that, but I could care less. Julianne was like that character, she showed up guns blazing. Smart, sassy and incredibly attractive.

Q: What about Katie Holmes, who shone in Wonder Boys?

A: The initial thing that was just so engaging about Katie and showed what a level head she has was this. She was doing her series when we were casting. She came up to New York on her own dime, waited in the hallway of a hotel where we were seeing actresses every seven minutes. She stood in line like everyone else, came in and read for the part and was fabulous. And she's prettier than Tom and has the kind of beauty that will age very well.

Q: Why did you cast Tobey Maguire in Wonder Boys?

A: The thing I love about Tobey is he makes me laugh. With that character of James Leer, I needed somebody with an active interior life. Someone the other kids at school would think of as a weirdo. And yet the audience would care about him and believe him capable of writing a great book. That demanded intelligence not all young actors project.

Q: Russell Crowe was unknown when you cast him in the role of Bud White in LA. Confidential. Did you see that force right away?

A: Russell and I had spoken a number of times on the telephone when he was in Australia. The night he arrived, we spoke by phone and he said something that in hindsight I found very endearing. He said, "When we meet tomorrow, I don't exactly fill the door." He said that because Bud White is described as being so big, an animal of a man. But the emotional intensity was much more important than physical size. Russell read the scene where he and Exley (Guy Pearce) argued outside the house from which he rescued the rape victim. He was Bud White, plain and simple. I had the good luck of capturing Russell and Guy at a moment when the international audience did not know them.

Q: That role propelled Russell to superstardom, and he's created a turbulent wake along with several great performances. Describe your working relationship.

A: Russell is intense, but he's intense about the work and I liked that. I had the benefit of an unusually long rehearsal period, so that Russell and Guy could become comfortable with the language of the period and the accent of the place. Russell had a thousand questions. Either I knew the answers, or if I didn't, I said I didn't and figured them out. That process leads to trust and when I had that, I felt that Russell would have done anything for me.

Q: Kevin Spacey was the biggest star in the cast, but he took the role of someone who gets killed partway through the film, allowing himself to be survived by two unknown actors. How did you sell that part to him?

A: I met Kevin for a drink at the Formosa Cafe to bring him the script and tell him a bit about it. I described the character as being this movie star among cops, the guy who taught Jack Webb to walk and talk like a cop. He said, "If you could have anybody play this part, who would you have?" I said Dean Martin in the mid-'50s. We're sitting in this booth, Kevin gets this funny look on his face, and says, "Curtis, look over your head." I turn and look in the mirror so I can see over my head. In the Formosa Cafe, they have all these 8×10 shots, and over my head is Dean Martin. Then, over Kevin's head was a photo of Jack Webb. I gave him the script, he went off on an airplane to San Francisco. Two days later, I get this FedEx package, inside was a bar of soap from the hotel where he was staying. The little picture on the outside was a fleur-de-lis. Kevin had read the script, and you know there was this whole thing about the fleur-de-lis, and I swear, Kevin was sold by the ghost of Jack Webb and Dean Martin and this fleur-de-lis.

Q: Kevin had one of the best death scenes in recent memory, so abrupt and unexpected.

A: I had tried to cast Kevin several times over the years, and never been allowed to. He was not acceptable to the studio, they thought he was too offbeat. I brought him in for one part so many times that the studio told me to stop bringing in "that guy with the receding hair from New York." It wasn't until he won the Oscar they were excited to have him. I'd seen him onstage, and my expectations were high, but I never would have dreamed that he would do that death scene the way he did. People have asked whether I did something CGI in the lab, because you literally see the light go out in his eyes. It was not only live, it was one take. I was standing next to the camera and couldn't believe it.

Q: L.A. Confidential and Wonder Boys were spectacularly well-reviewed, but not that successful at the box office. When you make films that can't be summed up in one sentence, how can you expect studio guys to sell it when their specialty is the high-concept blockbuster?

A: Unfortunately, we are in a time when movies are marketed in thousands of theaters at the same time, making distributors dependent on the marketable ad line or the 30-second TV spot. I wish we were in a time when movies had the opportunity to be in theaters for weeks at a time, where word of mouth can grow, reviews mean something. But that's the way it is today.

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