Curtis Hanson: The Most Daring Director in Hollywood
Q: Your father was an educator. Was that why you sparked to lacerating the academia in Wonder Boys?
A: My dad was an elementary and junior high school teacher, so it wasn't the halls of Ivy, it was Reseda and Tarzana, California. My father was a wonderfully gifted teacher, and I saw the impact and influence that he had on his students. My interest in the movie was informed by that, but my father was a very different man than the pot-smoking Grady Tripp.
Q: Most leading men Michael Douglas's age cling to vanity. How did you get him to forget that and gain all that weight to play Grady?
A: Michael loved the character. In our first meeting, I indicated it would be good for him to go all out and gain weight. Let himself go. Michael was eager to do it and warmed to the task, a lot of seconds on pasta. The thing that was so wonderful about Michael was his absence of movie star vanity and apparent acting technique.
Q: It's rare for a director to hit his prime at your age, with many films under your belt. Often, directors graduate from videos right to big-budget films. Are you glad it took this long for you to be on the level you are on?
A: There definitely were a lot of frustrations, jobs I couldn't get, movies I did that were made under difficult circumstances. They were recut, retitled, the music changed. Losin' It was one of those. These were painful experiences, but that was the way the journey has been. I'm enough of a movie fan to recognize that the old days of the studios now look kind of rosy. There were tyrants running those studios, but there were many directors who were allowed and encouraged to get better as they matured. Look at any number of filmmakers we consider masters: Hitchcock, Ford, Hawks. So many of them made better pictures as they got older.
Q: How have you managed to direct your career so well?
A: Today we live in a time where very often filmmakers make their personal movie first. If successful, they are encouraged to replicate it, very often to diminishing returns. I can't say it's by design, but I have tried to be my own studio head and ask myself, "OK, what do you want to do next, where do you want this to lead?" I feel very fortunate and lucky.
Q: What will you do if 8 Mile flops?
A: If this doesn't work, I could direct The Hand That Rocks the Cradle 2.
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