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I approach the movies I make as a movie-lover as much as a movie-maker.
Curtis Hanson -
Even though L.A Confidential box-office was a fraction of, say, Titanic or the Grinch movie, it finds its audience and will continue doing so for who knows how long, because of the basic thing we love about movies, which is storytelling and performances.
Curtis Hanson
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Whereas to write, all you need is paper and an idea, so I felt that writing might be my stepping stone.
Curtis Hanson -
Put simply, there are many people who want to make movies and very few opportunities for them to do it.
Curtis Hanson -
I was never a critic.
Curtis Hanson -
Consequently, their school [film-school ] was the school of life, and it was very much reflected in their work.
Curtis Hanson -
I'm still a great movie fan, and I guess that's the answer to your question.
Curtis Hanson -
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.
Curtis Hanson
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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.
Curtis Hanson -
Self-awareness and self-esteem. Those aren't female issues, those are human issues.
Curtis Hanson -
From my point of view, when I was thinking about the prospect of [Michael Douglas] in this part, I wondered if he would go all the way with it. The reason I was concerned is that, oftentimes, actors - especially movie stars - when they're playing a character who might be perceived as unattractive or eccentric, will wink at the audience while they're doing it.
Curtis Hanson -
I didn't look at it as a transition so much, because I never intended to have a career as a journalist, writing about people who make movies.
Curtis Hanson -
There was a long period of time when Sam Fuller had a lot of projects fall through and had a lot of difficulties getting a project off the ground. And I was able to observe him during that period, and see his incredible resiliency and courage as he faced this difficulty and just kept working.
Curtis Hanson -
In terms of talking with my collaborators as they came onboard - Jeannine Oppewall, our production designer, Dante Spinotti, our cinematographer, and so forth - I said to them, "Let's pretend that this is a place like Honolulu. Let's ignore the fact that all these other movies have been made here for decades and try to come at it with a fresh eye, as if it were an exotic city that people aren't that familiar with. And let's present our own view of it, create a world that's unique to this movie [L.A Confidential].
Curtis Hanson
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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.
Curtis Hanson -
The challenge was the opportunity. When I read the first draft of Steve Kloves' fabulous adaptation - I hadn't read [Michael] Chabon's book at that time - what I was immediately captivated by was this group of characters that were at once so engaging and so messed up.
Curtis Hanson -
Consequently, pictures are aimed at certain audiences, whether it be a teen comedy or an action movie or whatever. It's unfortunate, because while it may lead to big opening grosses, a lot of pictures that are a little different and don't fit so neatly into either a niche market or a high-concept marketing approach can get lost in the shuffle. That's one unfortunate thing.
Curtis Hanson -
That love of movies is very much alive in me.
Curtis Hanson -
In L.A. Confidential, it was great to surprise the audience with Guy Pearce and Russell Crowe - two Australian actors that they didn't know at all - and let people discover them through the course of the film.
Curtis Hanson -
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.
Curtis Hanson
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Movie stars exaggerate certain things to let the audience know they're just playing a character, as if they're saying, "Look at me, I'm not really an old man, I'm just playing one." Or "I'm not really a homosexual, I'm just playing a gay character. Or an alcoholic. Or somebody who's mentally impaired." They often do it very successfully and win awards for it.
Curtis Hanson -
So the city [Pittsburgh] was faced with that question of "What to do now?" because it can't turn back the clock and be what it once was. So thematically, it seemed like the perfect location for the movie. And then, it's a matter of how we get that feeling into the picture and make it a part of [Michael] Chabon's story.
Curtis Hanson -
I wrote a couple of scripts on spec that didn't get made but got some attention, and I then got offers to write professionally.
Curtis Hanson -
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.
Curtis Hanson