INT: The issue about, okay, where, you're on a set, and you're seeing that it's not quite working. How do you work? How do you make your decisions? I don't know if something comes to mind.
AD: Well, you know, a lot of times, you know, you start here [gestures with arms open wide] and you work in [narrows arms]. And, so, let's say the acting's a little flat, or, the question is do you burn them out rehearsing, rehearsing the master, or do you say, "Okay, I have what I need wide, now let's get in," and I can really work with them on their close-ups. Especially with kids. In HOLES, I'm doing HOLES right now. A scene's around a table with six kids who never acted before, you know. I don't know, I think that there, when you say 'working.'

INT: Well, are you fast in terms of what you like? Do you know when you like it?
AD: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's interesting. A Director is not so much to tell somebody what to do, but it's to interpret what's happening and adjust it. You know, and to, I mean, if somebody says, "How do I hold the apple?," you're in trouble. So you try to work with actors who have a lot to bring to the table. I love actors who have more than I can handle. Rather than trying to say, you know, "Come up with something. Make it alive." So, I don't, you know, I haven't been in that many circumstances where it isn't working. It's usually, if it isn't working it's because an Actor's frustrated with the dialogue, you know, and they don't like what's happening with the-- And you know, then you either have to be the wordsmith or find somebody else to fix it. I mean, there's a big scene in THE GUARDIAN that we kept pushing off because Kevin [Kevin Costner] didn't like the writing. And kept pushing and pushing, and finally it evolved, and came together, and it was a very powerful scene. [INT: Which one is it?] It's the scene where Ashton [Ashton Kutcher] breaks down when he finds out exactly what happened to him, and his back-story, losing, the car accident and everything. It was, a like, seven-, eight-page scene, very emotional, and how not to burn everybody out doing that, you know. And we wound up pushing it off and building the set so we were to do it when we were ready and it worked out great.

INT: Let's talk about this issue, about dealing with writing. I know when we talked about THE FUGITIVE years ago, that the script was hardly there. That's my version of it.
AD: Yeah, it's true. [INT: And that you guys were in the process. You, you've worked on so many different kinds of movies where the script may have been very tight, where it may have been not. What's your, first of all, what turns you on when you read a script? I mean, why will you react? Do you know?] Well, it's changed over the years, you know, in terms of, you do something and say, "I don't want to do that again." And, of course, when you make money for somebody they always send you the same stuff to do another one of these. But, first of all, I tend to think about, what is it going to look like? I'm very driven, to both, it's got to have some content, some redeeming value somewhere. Even if it's going to be tough and violent, it's got to tell you something that lets you live your life a little more intelligently or become a better person because of what you learned from that movie. There has to be some moral to it or some...

INT: I'm going to stop and come right back. What movies have done that for you? We'll come right back where you were. What movies have done that for you? Where you've said, "This movie has helped me live my life as a better person?"
AD: Well, put it this way, almost all the films I've gotten, I've had to change. [INT: Fair enough, fair enough, no, we're going to go there, we're going to go there. But I'm curious, in movies you've seen versus movies that you make...] Oh, what movies have I seen? [INT: That you would say, "That movie helped me be a better person." Or, "That movie gave me insight that I didn't know." And you've mentioned a couple. I mean, clearly, you know, GRAPES OF WRATH did and clearly...] STRANGELOVE [DR STRANGELOVE OR: HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB]. [INT: STRANGELOVE did for sure.] Well, I, films that have had big impressions on me, TOM JONES, which I don't know if it holds up that well, but I saw TOM JONES, I was like, "Wow!" You know, about this, the kid who was the stable boy, the poor kid who gets, befriends, becomes this sort of this surrogate son of the guy and goes off and eats with all the women, you know. That was, that was a journey. What I loved about that movie was, you got to be there, in that period, it was very realistic, and you got to go on a journey with this guy, you know. So, that was a film that, I don't, made me a better person... Boy, I don't, it's interesting that you mention that in terms of... I think that, TWELVE ANGRY MEN, which was an important film, MOCKINGBIRD, you know, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT, you know these were the--, Norman Jewison's career is full of very relevant movies like that, you know. Sidney Lumet, the stuff that he's done, you know. Q & A was a good movie, you know. So, I think that, my situation was, I was given movies that were like, sort of cop stories or tough guy stories, but they didn't have that much substance to them, and I would say, "Let's make the substance, let's add this. ABOVE THE LAW was an amazing story. Because, I was given a script about a bunch of cops who were involved with, you know, stealing stuff off the harbors of the docks in San Francisco. And, you know, it was a crooked cop story. And I went into this meeting, Bob Solo, I think was the producer, and, I started, you know, I said, "Well who..." you know, I said, "I want to work with Jon Voight." You know, he was someone I always wanted to work with. And they said, "Well, that's, that's good, maybe Jon would be alright, but there's this guy we'd like you to meet named Steven Seagal." And I said, "Steven Seagal? Who's Steven Seagal?" "Well, he's, knows Michael Ovitz. Why don't you have lunch with him?" So, I go to meet Steven Seagal, and he says, "I picked you. I'm Michael Ovitz’s karate teacher and I picked you because I saw CODE OF SILENCE and I think that you're the right action director for my first movie." And I said, "Who are you, man?" You know. "Can you act?" You know, he's very imposing. And he says, "Well, the other Director said 'yes' right away. You're not saying 'yes' to me right away?" So... [INT: Did you actually ask him, "Can you act?"] I said, "Well, how do I know you can do this movie?" You know, I said, "You're a very handsome guy, and you're very imposing, but I," you know. So I said, "We've got to do a test." So, meanwhile, he's telling me about his background, and whether it's true or not doesn't matter, but it was very interesting. He worked for the CIA in Japan, and politically, he was talking stuff that I agreed with, about things we didn't know about, the government and how it worked, and the role of opium in Southeast Asia, and all these things that were based on books I'd read, and stuff like that. So, he had political consciousness, and he was very, he was thin and he was very imposing at the time. So we went to Chicago, and we did a couple scenes that were based upon the story. Kelly Lebrock was his wife at the time and we, I did a scene in a mental hospital and I did a scene in a garage where he beat up some guys, and he drove around in a car with a cop friend of mine who had been in CODE OF SILENCE and I shot this eight- or ten-minute test that came back and showed it to the studio and they said, "Wow. I want to see this movie." And I said to them, "You know what? This guy's story is more interesting, what he says he's done is more interesting than what your script is about. Why don't I do a movie about what he says, who he says he is?" And, there was a strike coming, a writers' strike. They said, "How long?" Terry Semel, he said, "How long is it going to take you to write the script?" "I don't know, five or six weeks." "Do it." So Ron Shusett and Steven Pressfield and I wrote ABOVE THE LAW in five weeks and we made the movie. And it was, I was able to integrate the story of what happened in Vietnam with drugs and what was happening now with El Salvador, and the, and the priests in Latin America who were trying to open up what was going on down there. And, it became a very political movie, and there's lines in that movie, you know, about stuff that you hardly ever see, so because Steven Seagal was kickin' butt, and he was exciting, and it was in the streets of Chicago, we were able to bring things to that story which I still think resonate.

INT: In terms, and they do, in terms of, actually just, I remember seeing a sequence in which I thought, "Wow. How'd they get away with this style?"
AD: CODE OF SILENCE is the same thing. CODE OF SILENCE was about a snuff movie. It was a Clint Eastwood project. And I just, I had made a film in Colombia as a Cameraman, and as an Associate Producer and a Writer and a little movie called PACO. And, with Jose Ferrer. And I came back loving Colombia, but this drug thing was growing and growing. And I met a journalist named John Drummond, John "Bulldog" Drummond who was the big crime reporter in Chicago, and I started talking to him about the Colombians and Chicago and what was going on. And he put me in touch with a guy named Wally "The Wiretapper" who was a con who had been in prison and he was, you know, making money on horse races after the races were over in Chic--, they would finish in Halleluja--, Hialeah, Florida and he was still betting. Anyway, he told me a story about how some guys had approached him and said, "You know, there's the Herrera family." The guys doing heroin in Chicago had three hundred thousand dollars on their, on their table every Thursday afternoon in this apartment. And this Mafia guy and he were going to hit it. And it was too dangerous and I thought, "Ah, what would happen if some wise guy mobster tried to take on the Colombians?" And that was the basis of the CODE OF SILENCE story and the gun and the throw-away gun and that all was interesting to me because of the police cover-ups and stuff, so, that, that went from being a snuff movie to that.

INT: Now, dealing with the writing on both of these cases, I'm curious, from, from the writing on STONY ISLAND to the next project as a director, what was the next project in terms of your... AD: The first guy who ever hired me was Joe Roth. He had seen STONY ISLAND. And Ron Shusett I think recommended me, because Ron knew me as a cameraman on those, on some of those... [INT: Corman.]
AD: No, on the Charles Band movies, I think. His wife... Anyway...So, Joe Roth hired me to direct a movie was originally called MOUSE PACKS. No, it was, it was called BUMP IN THE NIGHT and it wound up be calling, being called THE FINAL TERROR, and it was about the ri-- It was, Sam Arkoff financed it, it was his father, soon-to-be father-in-law at the time, and it was about the rich girls and the poor boys going off into the woods, and the monster was out there. And so, I was, the cameraman is credited as Andreas Davidescu, which is Romanian name. So I shot it and directed it. It was my first time anybody hired me to be a director. And it was a ball. We shot it in the Redwoods in Northern California and I met Joe Pantoliano. My agent had a picture on his desk of this gorgeous girl named Rachel Ward, she was in it, Daryl Hannah was in it, Adrian Zmed, and Cindy Harrell who is now married to Alan Horn and one of the guys from ANIMAL HOUSE was in it. And I got to scout all of the most beautiful woods in the Northwest. We picked Crescent City, the Jedediah Smith Redwood State Park, where I've gone back to many times now since then, because I love it. And, I got to make a horror film.

INT: Do you know what you learned then? In terms of directing?
AD: Wow. That's inter--, I'm trying to think of the difference. I let the kids improvise a lot. I let them improvise a lot, you know, and Joey [Joe Pantoliano], Joey played the monster, and the bus driver, and the mother. I, it was interesting because what happened was, at the end of that, I think there, you, there were some questions you asked me before, I got into a row with Joe because I was invited to Doville with STONY ISLAND and I left. And they wanted to reshoot the opening and put a horror scene in the beginning, and they didn't consult with me and offer it to me because I was gone. And the Guild [DGA] went after them, and it, they paid me five thousand dollars which paid for my wedding. So, good for the Guild. [INT: Great. Good, absolutely. This is the first wedding guild story I've now--] So, that's what I learned around that movie was to stand up for your rights and all that kind of stuff. [INT: Actually, that's great.] Yeah. [INT: Which you did.] Yeah.

INT: The- talk about more about writing, working with writers, situations and how, and we could go through some of the, some of the scripts to see whether you were, in fact, able to do that, to see which--
AD: Well, the, the best experience I ever had was on HOLES. [INT: Now, you're dealing with a classic children's novel there.] So my producing partner, Teresa Tucker-Davies, found this book. She knew I was frustrated. I was getting, doing action movies and, or, dark stuff, and I wanted to do something that reflected my interest in racial issues, historical backgrounds, Eastern European stuff, something that would be young, for a family to see. And she gave me this book and I loved it, it was really great. So, we called up Louis Sachar, who is the novelist, and we said, "We would like to try to see if we can make a movie out of this." And I think the Coen brothers [Ethan and Joel Coen] and Rob Reiner were interested at that point. And Louis decided to give us the rights because he felt I would keep it real. And I would be, loved to have seen what those other two great directors, or teams of directors, but, but he said, "I think, you know, because of your work in THE FUGITIVE, I think you'll keep this very real and I want it to stay real." So, I called up Mike Medavoy and I said, "Will you put up the money for the option?" He read the book, he did, it was not a lot of money, and we began developing the project. And, I said very soon after the process started, I said, "Louis, nobody should get credit for this but you. It's your story." I mean, I can't imagine somebody's else 'written by' on there. And we basically taught Louis, we wrote it with Louis, we taught him how to be a screenwriter. [INT: And what did that mean?] Well, it meant, you know, I was concerned, for example, that a lot of the inner voice of what Stanley, the character, the Shia [Shia LaBeouf] character, was feeling was going to get lost, because his internal voice wasn't going to be there. So I had to, learn how to not depend on that. There's a little bit of voice-over in the beginning and the end, but not a lot. And, I added Grandpa who happens to be my father. I put my father in the movie. Because it's about generations of curses, and I felt it'd be wonderful to have this old Grandpa living in the same house, because I remember my great-grandmother living in our house for a few months before she died, and having the three generations living together talking about the curse would sell that idea. And the fact that this kid was burdened by this generational problem. But that's about the only change we made to the basic story.

INT: So, but in terms of screenwriting, there's a diff--, you know, when you translate anything from one form to another…
AD: So, this is what we did. So, I said, "Louis [Louis Sachar], we're going to make cards. We're going to start putting them on the wall." I learned this many years ago from a friend of my dad's and mom's named Lester Pine who wrote CLAUDINE, who wrote POPPY; great writer: "Put every idea on a card. And then you've got to figure out, okay, where does that idea go, a location, a character, a line of dialogue, whatever it is, you start..." This was before we had computers and we had Final Cut, or Final Draft, and all these things with outlines and stuff. Now it's easier to do. And so we started breaking the thing down. It was very hard. You're weaving three stories. This is a movie that never would have been made by the studios had the book not been a hit. Do a story about a Latvian immigrants, about a camp where they make kids be in the sun and do this, about a curse of a white gal and a black guy falling in love in Texas-- they never would have done this. Anyway, we worked on it for a while, and I think at one point they brought in a, I won't mention names, they brought in some idiot young director to rewrite it, who tried to throw the whole thing out and change it and make it hip, and I just said, "You're out of your minds," you know. I was busy doing another movie then. We came back and Louis and Teresa [Teresa Tucker-Davies] and I worked, went back to it, and then Walden called up and said, "We understand you have the rights," and Disney got involved. So, the point is that working with Louis on his material and his being so open to a director trying to shape it so it was cinematic was fantastic. I had great material. The only other, the other time that I had a really great experience with a script was A PERFECT MURDER, because Pat Kelly had really nailed that. There weren't that many changes made in that script. And they were done just through rehearsals and, and a short period before that.

INT: When you read a script, what are you looking for? What, what is working for you in a script? I mean, it may be evolutionary, but what, you know, is it the being surprised? Is it characters that you--
AD: Firstly, being engaged. Something's got to make you want to stay with it and see it. And, and it has to be engaging in both the, an emotional way, in terms of its content, and its visual capabilities, you know. I think...

INT: Well, that's interesting, now let's talk about A PERFECT MURDER though, because it's an interesting thing, because in a way, it's, I mean, I know it's not in the room, and in the house, and in the apartment, but there's, it's, it's a little more (in quote) "not the way you made it," but I'm wondering because of the script, it came from...
AD: DIAL M. [INT: Yeah, DIAL M, which is a claustrophobic movie.] It was a play that was turned into a 3-D movie by Kubrick [Stanley Kubrick], I mean by Hitchcock [Alfred Hitchcock]. It was not one of his better movies. [INT: I know.] And it was a bit of a bluh [ph], you know. And Pat [Pat Kelly] had taken it and given it some life, based upon that. And, I was just sort of taken by the dynamics and the duplicity of it. I hadn't done a, sort of dark thriller like that. So that was a challenge. The other part was, I was nervous because I had used Chicago a lot and well; never made a film in New York. And I thought, "How am I going to have New York become a character in this movie?" So, I worked hard at making, even though it was a very controlled, contained movie, I wanted it to visually really represent New York and so I was very lucky because I had a great Production Designer, Phil Rosenberg, and Dariusz Wolski was the cameraman, probably one of the best guys I've worked with, and, and we were able to, between Viggo's [Viggo Mortensen] loft and Michael's [Michael Douglas] apartment and the rest of the movie, open it up and give it something that wasn't a static play.

INT: Got it. It's interesting about writing again. CODE OF SILENCE has, no, I'm sorry, it's UNDER SIEGE is what I was thinking about. Because I think UNDER SIEGE is actually a pretty remarkable movie in lots and lots of ways, particularly because the characters that emerge. Now, I know that you've talked about this before, and we may talk it again, but when you read that, did you-- I mean, does part of your think-- your process say, "I see where this can go?"
AD: Yes. [INT: I mean, obviously the visual excitement of being on the ship and all the rest, I'm sure, turned you on, but, how does that work with you?] Yeah, you, you look, you read something and say, you know, "This is working, I'm comfortable with this, I see how this, I like this," you know. I mean the Tommy Lee Jones character when I first read it was written as Elton John. And I said, "This is too cute," you know. And I knew Tommy, Tommy and I had done THE PACKAGE before, and I thought he would be a really good scary guy to take over, and I said, well, "We'll make him Paul Butterfield. We'll make him a little edgier and blues-ier." And Tommy loved Stevie Ray Vaughan, and you know, he's from Texas, so it all sort of came together that way.

INT: Now, how do you work with writers, like on that particular example. I mean, I realize Tommy's [Tommy Lee Jones] there, what's your--
AD: Well, Jonathan Lawton and I worked on it a little bit. Actually, what happened was, Jonathan had this draft, and what I did is I brought in Michael Gray [Mike Gray], who I've worked with on lots of projects. Michael [Mike Gray] is, you know, the guy that wrote THE CHINA SYNDROME, and he's an engineer, and he's an incredible scientist, he writes technical stuff. We sat down with guys who had actually mined the harbor in Nicaragua. We sat down with CIA operatives, and we talked about how you take over a battleship, 'cause there wasn't enough of the reality. And of course, Seagal [Steven Seagal] wanted all this, you know. I'd worked with him on ABOVE THE LAW, this was a couple films later and Terry Semel said, "Get Andy [Andy Davis] to work with Seagal again." He told Steve Reuther, "This is who should direct the movie." And, and so I worked both with Jonathan Lawton, and then I did my own research and sort of, we did a pass to sort of elevate the reality of the movie. And then Jonathan came back and did some more work on it.

INT: Do you end up sitting with the writer in a room and talking the scenes out? Do you meet and talk structure out? What sort of--
AD: It's different every case. It depends on the strength of the script. [INT: Well, give me some, let's either look at CODE OF SILENCE or STEAL BIG [STEAL BIG STEAL LITTLE] or A PERFECT MURDER or COLLATERAL... I'm just curious about some of the processes, so that-- Compare the processes.] You know what? It's interesting, they're all very different. I mean, take any one of them. [INT: Let's look at CODE OF SILENCE. How did you work with the writer there?] Well, CODE OF SILENCE, Michael Butler and Dennis Shryack had written this story, it was about a snuff movie, and, I, you know, I didn't want to do that. It was not entertaining. So, it was, how do you take, how do you take Chuck Norris, who I knew nothing about, really, and make him into a real character who's dealing with issues of the police trying to cover up an accident and a murder, and at the same time dealing with the-- He's caught in a vice, two sides of him, and so that, I said, "That's what we need. We need to have this guy being forced in the middle, trying to be ethical and still get the bad guys." And, I think once again, Mike Gray came in and worked with me on that. [INT: So...] And we met, we met a cop in Chicago, named Joe Kosala who was this sort of out, over-the-top sergeant and had a huge pistola and he took us around in his car and showed us the real world. [INT: When you say "us" are you with the writer now?] Michael [Mike Gray] and I. [INT: So that, you're getting the writer to get the reality?] Yeah. I, well, yeah. You've got to put the writer right in the middle of it. You and the writer have to be kind of, and even, it's better if the producer, if he's got that capabilities, or the production designer, you've got to, this is what we have to recreate. And we would go, you know, we'd literally, we'd drive, do drive-arounds with him. And he'd run up the stairs, you know, and gunfire was going off, and I didn't do too much of that, but Michael [Mike Gray] got into it. As a matter of fact, Michael [Mike Gray] wrote a book later called DRUG CRAZY, and the whole opening is Joe Kosala and a, and a bust on the South Side in a grammar school, and it's showing how the, how the drug wars, how was, insanity it was.

INT: Now, will you, will you then sit with the writer, because, again, you're taking the writer into the reality of the situation. You also said a general concept, because you just described the general concept. Now, what happens? Will you let him go off and give you pages, will you sit with him in a room, and use that, if you remember it?
AD: I think it's different every case. In some cases I've literally sat there, the writer will go off and we'll talk about the scene, and he'll do a version, come back, I may just mark it up and give it back to them and say, "Here's some of my notes," you know. I've done a lot of writing that's not credited. Okay. And I don't know what the rules are about that, but, you know. And then-- So, in some cases, it comes back, it's great, in some cases it needs more work.

INT: Will you read out loud with the writers? Do you go through that experience? Or, are you reading it to yourself, feeling it...
AD: Just to myself. [INT: And then making notes on that.] Yeah. [INT: Okay.] And then coming back with versions, you know, just, or either describing the action, the way I want to shoot it, so it's, so everything is in place and the rhythms are there, the scene, for the editor, and what the focus is going to be. And then either trying to make the dialogue more realistic, or more in character to, to what has to be said in terms of story points or character development.

INT: There are some writers that are good at storytelling, there are some writers that are very good at creating characters, and some writers who are really good at dialogue. There are some writers who do all of it. Have you noticed that to be true as I'm saying it? I mean, would you say, "Yes, that's true," or you wouldn't make those distinctions, or--
AD: No, I think it's very true. I think there are some people who are really good at dialogue and don't understand the rhythm of a whole movie. I haven't read that many great scripts. And I think some, sometimes you read a good script, but it doesn't make a great movie. You know, if it's, if it's engaging on the page like this, sometimes it's boring as a film, there's not enough going on. You know, and it takes, I don't read scripts fast. When I read a script I'm really thinking about what it's going to feel like as a film. I don't like to rush through and just sort of flip the dialogue because, you know. And, the descriptions sometimes can be, there's a hipness to this writing today, you know, with this jazzy kind of ways of put things on paper and people get excited, but it's never going to be on the screen that way. It's a way of tantalizing executives who are bored out of their mind reading twenty scripts on a weekend. It's a game. [INT: Interesting. They say sometimes that a script gets written three times. It gets written once for the sales, once for the actor, and then once for production. I don't know if you've found that to be true.] AD: No, it makes sense, it makes sense. Anyway, so I've had a wide variety of experiences of working on scripts.

INT: When you read COLLATERAL DAMAGE, did you know the, the woman was going to turn out to be what she turned out to be?
AD: Yeah. [INT: I mean, as you were reading, or were you surprised? You see, you see where I'm going?] Oh, I see, I see, yeah. I, you know, it's interesting, I don't remember if I, if they told me that before I read it or not, but the original story was set in the Middle East. It was not set in South America. And I said, "I don't want to do another Arab-bashing movie." There had been, you know, picture after picture. And, I had been in Colombia, and I had, I was interested in what was going on with FARC [Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia] down there. And so I was able to take the movie from the Middle East to Colombia. [INT: Now, did anybody object? Did anybody say, "Wait a minute, this is a Middle Eastern story?"] They probably figured Schwarzenegger [Arnold Schwarzenegger] wants to do the picture. Actually, "Schwarzenegger wants to do the picture, he wants Andy [Andy Davis], the studio wants him to do the picture, so, let them do it," you know. There had been, there hadn't been that many successful movies set in the Middle East, you know. And Colombia had a bit of, anyway. But I was going, what I loved about the idea was, here's a guy, going down, seeking revenge on the people who killed his family, who became terrorists because we had bombed that guy's family. You know, and there's a great line in there where Schwarzenegger says, "No wonder they hate us." Right? Well, the film was politically more than it wound up being. [INT: Oh yeah, because of the timing.] No, not just that. There were, there, we had, there were some battles, one of your questions that you asked me earlier, you know, "Have you ever had some issues with..." That was the one, that was one of the toughest times I had because the Producer and I were like this [butts fists together] about the politics. There was a much more liberal, or "lefty" version of that movie than the final version, and my version actually tested higher than theirs, and, you know, it was a big political thing about how we were going to go with that. But, then we finished the movie and 9/11 happens. [INT: Got it.]

INT: Before we go there, because we'll go there, but I, in terms of the writing issue, did you have to then convince the, a writer, the writers--
AD: We had many writers on that movie. [INT: And, okay, so what's that like? What's that experience like?] Well, it's like, keep trying to make it better and better and better. And who's better, who's defining better? Is it for Arnold [Arnold Schwarzenegger], is it for the Producer, is it for me? And there was this back-and-forth all the time, you know, about, you know, and I kept showing them real footage and I kept showing them real documentary stuff about massacres in South America and you know, trying to say, "This is real. This is real. And, yes, they're all involved in drugs, and they're all involved, but what are their goals?" You know. And I think I was a bit naive about the politics of things, now that I've learned more, you know. And everybody became drug dealers, the politics didn't matter anymore. But I, but I, what I was trying to do was shine a light on what we had been doing in South America, in Central America. Because nobody was talking about it, and it was tragic. So, once again I-

INT: Were you able to find a writer, or, who got what you were doing? Because you said you went through several writers.
AD: Well that's interesting. I found, wound up working with a couple young Writers who really understood what I was doing, but the Producer was twisting their arm not to go that way. And, so that was, that's one of the only times in my whole career where I've really had to fight those kind of battles. And, otherwise I've been very lucky to have been able to deal with, you know, the kind of political things I want to work into these stories, you know. When I got THE FUGITIVE, I mean, the script was unbelie-- Tommy Lee Jones had been hired, Tommy Lee Jones had hired the one-armed man. The character of the Marshal had hired the one-armed man because Harrison [Harrison Ford] had done a poor job operating on his wife. It was a revenge story. I think Walter Hill had been involved in it for, it had been through a lot of permutations. And Harrison, you know, Arnold Kopelson saw UNDER SIEGE, and he said, "I know what your next movie is," at the premiere. I said, "I don't know what he's talking about." And I got a call on Monday, Sunday night congratulating me, I said, "Why?" Well, Harrison Ford saw UNDER SIEGE over the weekend and you're supposed to be in a meeting tomorrow at Warner Bros. So I, and, so Harrison had committed, the script was terrible. And so we walk in, and, you know, "Okay, now what are we going to do?" You know. And so, and I knew right away, I said, "Let's go to Chicago, Harrison." And they weren't sure, you know. And, he was from Chicago, and so eventually, we, he got that, we got that pulled off, but...

INT: What'd you do for Writers?
AD: Well, so, Jeb Stuart, I don't know if Jeb, Jeb Stuart was brought on to work on the script, but, but it needed some reason for why his wife was murdered. So I called my sister, I, she's a nurse, I said, working at Cedars, an OB/GYN [Obstetrics and gynaecology], I said, "Jo, what would get a doctor in trouble?" And she says, "I'll get back to you." And about a day or two later, she calls, she came back, she says, "Well, you know, they're having these drug protocols all the time. If some doctor says this stuff isn't working, and some pharmaceutical company stands to make billions of dollars on that thing working, they might want to get you out of the picture." And that became the basis of the whole story, which was way ahead of its time. And so we created Devlin McGregor, a pharmaceutical company, and a drug called Provasic, and that was the drug that Harrison [Harrison Ford] identifies as being the thing causing bleeding. Right? So that's how that story developed. [INT: Through your, through your sister.] My sister came up with the, she came up with the rationale, the raison d'être, of why the murder took place. Nobody knows this. [INT: Okay, so, who did you tell that to then? Who...] I told everybody. [INT: No, to the Writer. Who's the, who's the person that, you know, how, I'm just curious like, if I were now the Writer working on this thing, would you have just told me what you just told me?] Yeah. [INT: And then, say to, say to me what?] This is, this is, this is the reason that Harrison is in trouble. We've got to, we have to create this whole thing around the fact, you know, we're going to see him operate in the beginning of the movie we'll hear him talking about this drug, and it'll be haunting him through the story. [INT: So you're saying that instead of Tommy [Tommy Lee Jones] being the copping, you want me to create this guy who's a, what, another doctor? What, what's this guy supposed to be? What?] Well, bas--, you, you were going to create a pharmaceutical test that's going on within the hospital that Harrison's working in as a surgeon. He's a vascular surgeon.

INT: Now, did you suggest, I'm just sort of looking what that dialogue is, because you get now the new villain. Did the writers sort of then go sit with, and come back and, "Oh I got an idea. How about a fellow doctor who they know and he's the one who'll be the--" I mean do you see where I'm looking for how this stuff emerges?
AD: I, you know, all I remember is, we went to Chicago, and we started doing, the research started immediately. Okay. We went to dinner, and one of my, one of my associates, we bumped into this doctor who was a famous OB/GYN [Obstetrics and gynaecology]. He invited us over to his house. That house became Harrison's [Harrison Ford] house. The art, we rebuilt it, literally, that was the doctor with the beard and everything. He modeled himself on this guy. You know, we went to the University of Chicago, we met a guy named Bruce Gewertz who's now at Cedars. He became the vascular surgeon who taught Harrison how to do all that stuff. We learned stuff from, we kept getting realities out of these people. [INT: We? Harrison, you, and the writer?] AD: Well, Harrison, that was the part where, you know, he was going to become a doctor, so he would, he would hang, he was actually p-- in surgeries at the University of Chicago watching liver transplants.

INT: Now, were you taking the writer along for some of these rides as well?
AD: He was more in the hotel getting, we would bring stuff back to him. Tommy Lee Jones. [INT: So, would that, would that mean that you and Harrison [Harrison Ford] would come back and talk to the writer and say, "This is what we're..." [AD nods] Wow.] We were feeding him information. Sometimes I'm sure he would have dinner and meet these guys, or if he had a, we'd put him in touch, "If you need more dialogue or t--, call them up or have lunch with them." But, the initial research was... Same with the Marshals. We met the Marshals, Tommy Lee Jones, and, you know, I remember Lucy Fisher, I love her, but she said, "What do you need all those guys around Tommy Lee Jones for?" I said, "It's going to make him stronger. You need all that, the smorgasbord of women and men and ponytails and blacks and," you know. And, so then that group went down to the U.S. Marshals Office at the Federal Building in Chicago, you know, and they, they hung out. [INT: But then, did you come back again to the writer and say, "Look, I know we've got Tommy, but now I want him to have four or five guys who he works with?" And then the writer's going, "Who are these people?" So, I'm just sort of trying to see how your process--] No, we defined them. You know, we wanted a black woman and a young kid who was this hip kid, you know, and he-- 'cause Tommy was going to have this eclectic group that he wanted around him because they all had special skills.

INT: Now that great sequence, where the, the, you know, the kids, the shooting of the other guy. The big black guy who gets-- AD: Eddie Bo [Eddie 'Bo' Smith, Jr.] [INT: Right. Was that even in the, that couldn't have been in the original script, then, because it was all about-- Oh, maybe it was. But where are they...]
AD: I don't remember where that came from. You mean, where, well, where you-- [INT: We go into the house and they trap him, they go to the woman's and the bed and the kid--] Yeah, I'm trying to remember who came up with that, where you think Harrison's [Harrison Ford] going to get killed or something, you don't know who's in the house, what's going to happen. [INT: You realize it's the other guy, and then we go through the thing and then the kid's ear gets shot. That's a great sequence, by the way.] But that whole, that whole thing outside, you know, "You could have killed me." "Can you hear what I'm saying now?" "I don't bargain." That was all done on the set. [INT: You know, this is a--] AD: And then Tommy [Tommy Lee Jones] wrote, I mean he probably wrote fifty to sixty percent of his dialogue. I mean, but it was, it was a context of, you know, I say to, I whisper something to him about this or that, you know, give him, you, it's like... You're a coach, and you, sometimes you have a playbook, but sometimes the quarterback knows what he should be doing more than you do. He's, he can, he's there and you give him an idea or you say, "Stay to the left," or "Go long," or what, you know, but they do it their own way. [INT: Well spoken, well spoken. Really well spoken in terms of the coach.]

INT: You've worked now with these super-athletic, you know, monster stars. And I'm going to stay on writing for a bit, not about the directing, but how have you dealt with the idea that, okay, Schwarzenegger [Arnold Schwarzenegger], what can he say, what can he not say? You know... CODE OF SILENCE, what's, I'm sorry...
AD: Chuck Norris. [INT: Chuck Norris. Again, same issue. You know, are you aware when you're working with the writers, and knowing that these guys are in this movie, are you aware, you know, how to, sort of, get the script to function best for them, and is that part of the dialogue?] Yeah, you know, you know, you, first of all deal with the character rather than the person. You know, Arnold's playing a fireman who's lost his family. It's not Arnold Schwarzenegger, I don't think about it as Arnold Schwarzenegger. You know, I thought about Bobby De Niro [Robert De Niro] playing that part. It would have been a little different, but it should, it should work for both. And, and Chuck Norris was, you know, I was just trying to make him a Chicago cop, his Eddie Cusack. You know, that was his character name, he was a bit ethnic, you know. And, and I wanted him to sound like that. So, you, you don't pander to what their TERMINATOR image is, or their Vietnam War image is, you just sort of say, "Okay, we're going to make it real in Chicago, or real in, for the firemen in L.A.," and go from there. And you try to, you know, you know, of course you understand enough about the person having spent time with them in pre-production and meeting them and getting to know each other before you're going to make a movie to sort of... And you look at all their films, or some of their films, and you have a sense of what they can do. Actually, you know, I thought Arnold was really good in COLLATERAL DAMAGE. [INT: He had some good moments.] I thought he, it was one of his more believable parts, and, you know, I thought he came off as, you know, as who he was supposed to be.

INT: Seagal [Steven Seagal]? And, did you, when you met him, did you say, as you were dealing with the first, the film with him, did you say, "Okay, now I know?" Because you literally said to the writers, "Let's, let's go tell his story."
AD: The studio. [INT: Yeah, and, also I assume to whoever wro-- But, but have you ever, when do you say to a writer, "You've done what you can do. I need to move on?" How do you say it? Have you said it? Because, where, there may have been multiple writers at one point, you're working with a writer, they, he or she's done what you feel they can do and in that moment it's like, I know, you know, we need to move on. I mean, have you had that experience?] Usually, you know, it's interesting, some... I've only been in, in one situation. It was one of those deals where, you know, we had, the movie was being made, there was a lot at stake, executives were changing positions and being fired at studios, and I was getting new people showing up, and it was like, keep throwing writers at us, you know. "We want this to be a big hit." And they would bring this guy in for a week or two and this guy, this gal in for a week or two, you know, it's like... And he, you know, they were just hoping to get three lines of dialogue or eight, you know. It was a waste of money. I mean it's the biggest con in the world that writers who come in and fix things at the last minute, you know, and get paid a hundred thousand dollars a day, or whatever they get paid. You know what I mean? [INT: Yeah.] But, at the same time, you know, if somebody's got an ear or insight, and they're able to do things like that and really pull it off, it's critical.

INT: Now, is Gray [Michael Gray] that kind of guy for you, or was that kind of guy for you?
AD: Well, Michael was, Michael was someone who, is someone who knew me very well. We shared common values, a certain understanding of politics in Chicago, and I could say to Michael, you know, "Let's make this real," and he would, he could listen to, he could listen to Joe Kosala talk for three hours and start pulling stuff out of what he said or ideas out, you know. And he was just, he was very good to work with. I wish, I wish I had a couple more writing partners who, you know, I know that Sydney Pollack kept working with, with David Rintels, or, he... [INT: Yeah.] All the time, you know and he would, he would keep going back to them. It would be nice to have that, someone like that, you know. I'd love, I would love to have, you know there's a project I want to do, I need Paddy Chayefsky and Matt Groening to work on it together. You know, that kind of wit and smarts, you know. It's hard. [INT: Got it.] It's hard.

INT: Where do you find your Writers? Where, I mean, have, on some, some project, whether they've been made, because you've developed projects that have been not made.
AD: Yeah. [INT: Where do you find them? What, what is it--] Well, a lot of it is dictated by how much money you have to spend. And, you know, if you're not getting backing from a studio and, and you're doing it yourself you, you turn to people who are either hungry or your friends or you go for the best of the best if you can afford it, you know. But, it's a big risk. You can spend a lot of money on writers and not get there. I mean, there's a, the top writers in this town have written scripts that never've gotten made or have been thrown out. You know, so, th--, it's a real hit and miss. That's why development's so hard and, you know. I, you know, it's interesting because they always say, "You've got to start with a great script, you've got to start with a great script." And I agree, but my most successful movie didn't start that way. And they teach that, they teach THE FUGITIVE as [mimes quotes] "classic great writing." Well, it didn't happen in the process and I think I'm jealous of the theatre for that. In the theatre, you get to work with the actors, they're on the stage, you get to try different things. The writer's there, the writer's the boss. And you get to experiment. In the movie situation, you can't afford to have those people sitting around for three or four weeks rehearsing. Now, Sidney Lumet does it, and then he doesn't shoot anything, you know what I mean? He, so that's a guy who comes from television [INT: and theatre] and theatre] and, and, you know, "We're going to cut here. Now I need the wide shot for eight seconds, we'll get in and move on," you know. And, that's a great thing if you can do it.

INT: Now, have you ever had Writers come up to you, say, "You ruined my movie?" Have you, I'm not asking for names, but have you dealt, the post-experience for Writers?
AD: No. [INT: Have you ever had them say, "Thank you. You've actually made the movie that I--] Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I mean, I'm sure, I mean, you know we did CHAIN REACTION which was, it was once again, it was about Keanu [Keanu Reeves] was a kid making pistols for the CIA. And I, you know, and Arne Schmidt who produced it came up with this idea and FOX wanted to do it and Keanu was... And I said, "Arne, we can do better than this." You know, you know, there's no re--, so we changed it to a whole thing which was way ahead of its time about a kid and hydrogen and energy and stuff like that. And Morgan being a cut-out of the CIA. The picture didn't, wasn't successful like they wanted it to be, you know, and so I'm, either they probably thought, "Well, Andy tried to put his ecological conscience in this movie," you know, and it became something that, it wasn't commercial enough, you know. But, I'm proud of the picture and I think it was a much better story to tell and it still plays on network television.

INT: Let's talk about casting. People say casting is ninety percent of making the movie. Where is it for you? And, it's interesting for you because you've worked with people where someone says, "You're going to do a Seagal [Steven Seagal] movie again? How could you take that chance?" You know what I'm saying? So you've, you've really risked...
AD: Well, the thing is, the first, the first time I worked with... put it this way: I've worked with [mimes quotes] "non-actors" who have become stars. I've worked with unknown actors who became stars. I've worked with stars who continue to be stars. And so I've, listen, I'm really lucky. I've worked with some of the, you know what I mean, and I, and, and I learned from them, a lot. You know, I mean I worked with Gene Hackman when I was young, and he was tough on me; he was not a happy guy at the time. And, but I learned how to give an Actor space. I learned how to let an actor contribute what they can, you know. And, go with certain parts of the flow, you know. And at the same time, have a point of view, and, you know, I think... Casting's critical. It's critical. You've got to feel that that person is the person you want to be in the movie, you want to be, you want to enjoy looking at them for what they have to contribute for their character, for the story. And, I think I have a pretty good, pretty good judgment for, for talent and for being the right person. You know, and Rachel Weisz was in CHAIN REACTION, nobody knew who she was. You know, and, there are a lot of times where I've been able to cast people, who were sort of emerging, and then you see their careers just sort of take off and rise.

INT: You've in-, some movies you've inherited actors. Lucky enough on THE FUGITIVE to have Harrison Ford. Clearly in the, in the first Seagal [Steven Seagal] movie, Seagal was part of it. [AD: Right.] The, what's that for you, what do you have to do, and we may be repeating ourselves a little bit here, but what do you have to do when you know that there's an actor there before you? What do you need to do as a director to make your, sure you're okay with that?
AD: Well, you have to have a one-on-one. You have to sort of evaluate what this person, how they, how they seem as a person, a human being, how you're going to be a collaborator with them. How open and honest you can be or not with that person, in terms of getting what you need out of the character. I think that, you know, feeling like you're brothers or sisters, or brother and sister is really critical. You know, this combative, you know... I mean, I know there are situations where actors and directors do not get along at all, and sometimes, in TOOTSIE, it works. And other times it doesn't work. You can feel it. But, you know, you ba--, I think, my role-- [INT: So on the one, the one-on-one, for example, the one-on-one with Harrison or the one-on-, you've described the one-on-one with Seagal, which, which was, you know, you asked him... I guess where I'm going is--] We went and did a test, and the test worked so everything was fine. [INT: And Harrison, was it, do you remember the dialogue? Because Harrison can be very shy.] Harrison basically showed up at a meeting. He had seen the movie, and he's just really nice and then we, you know, we went off on our own and, and let our hair down and talked about process and how to get the studio to do what we wanted to do and, and the whole, you know. We were, it was very, it was very supportive because I, UNDER SIEGE was a big hit, so I was the hot thing at the moment, you know, and they were confident. It was the second or third movie I'd done for Warner Bros. They were very comfortable with the team that had just done UNDER SIEGE. And, we were walking into a huge franchise that nobody had sort of touched, they had been playing around with for awhile. So, you know, I mean, it was interesting because Harrison was a little concerned about Tommy [Tommy Lee Jones] overtaking the movie. And we did a, some tests, you know, and tried some other actors, and finally Harrison threw in the towel and said, "Alright, you can have Tommy." You know, and it turned out, you know, when he talks about the movie, the best part of the movie was working with Tommy Lee Jones, you know. And they didn't have that much time together, you know. But that was a, that was a battle I had to fight, very subtly. [INT: To get Tommy?] To get that approved. It happened quickly, but it was, it was like one of those, you know, because Peter Macgregor-Scott and I said, "Tommy's got to play Gerard." We'd just done a movie with him and he had this-- third, it was going to be the third movie he and I were going to do together. And, we knew that we could, there was a pattern of working together, where we knew that it was, it was working. It was like, you know, being, you know, working with Miles Davis and all the side men with Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock, you know, you could, you could, you knew what was going to happen there. He was going to carry it.

INT: With Schwarzenegger [Arnold Schwarzenegger] did you meet him before you committed?
AD: Schwarzenegger [Arnold Schwarzenegger] and I, it's interesting. Schwarzenegger loved CODE OF SILENCE. And he wanted me to direct him a long time ago and I was actually, I worked on a movie with him, I was fired after a short period of time, by Rob Cohen, called THE RUNNING MAN. I was the original director on THE RUNNING MAN. I was the fifth director hired, yeah, I mean, they had been through five or six other, I was the first guy who got it off the ground. And it was one of those situations where the producer wanted to direct. They were, it was a lot of shenanigans going on with Taft Broadcasting. Anyway, I cast Jim Brown, I cast Mick Fleetwood, I put the whole thing together. And then on the tenth day of shooting, the clothes aren't ready and I kept say, they kept saying, "Well, you don't worry, you just direct and we'll take care of all the production stuff." And, and they were like, you know, they were like, you know, "We don't, Adidas didn't come up with the clothes for Arnold." So, anyway, it was, it was not a good situation. They let me go. I was devastated, I had a young kid, but they had to pay me off. Right? And then I got a call right away to do something else. So, it's like, I fell out of a window, landed on my feet. And Arnold was always mad about that. He said, "They should've never let Andy go." And years later he said, "I want Andy to do this picture." So he, we had a relationship. I lived in his house with my family on 22nd Street, you know. And, we, politically we're as far apart as you can imagine, but I respected him as someone who cared about the little guy. He had, you know, he understood what it meant to work hard, you know, and all that kind of stuff. So, when I had a chance to make him a guy who was out for revenge, who was going to have his head opened up to the realities of how terrorism is created, I thought it was good. So, you know, we met and it was one of those things where, you know, the studio was very involved in the situation and everybody was very, you know, they had great expectations.

INT: In casting the... you did work with Hackman [Gene Hackman], you worked with, who were we just talking about?
AD: Morgan Freeman? [INT: In BIG STEAL [STEAL BIG STEAL LITTLE]?] Andy, Alan Arkin? [INT: No, the, the boy.] Shia LaBeouf, you mean? [INT: No, who am I talking about? I'm talking about the... who's the star of the...] STEAL BIG? [INT: Yeah. I ... yeah.] Andy Garcia. [INT: Oh, OK, I wasn't thinking of Andy then, I'm thinking of...] Keanu [Keanu Reeves]? [INT: Yes. Thank you. Did you meet Keanu? Sorry.] Yeah, yeah. [INT: Talk about it.] I don't even remember. I was... [INT: I mean, did you cast him or, he wasn't part of the project, was he?] He, yes, he was, Arne came to me and said, "Keanu wants to do this picture. And they want..." And I had a deal, FOX made a big deal with me after SAVOY. And, this, they were paying overhead and there was a lot going, so they were trying to get these two deals to, to go together, pay off, and that's just when Tom Jacobson left the studio and Tom Rothman came in and it was a mess. Because Tom Rothman had never done a movie that cost over three million dollars or four million dollars before that. He'd been at Miramax or something like that, right? [INT: I don't remember, but it was after the lawyer job.] Anyway, it was all, it was a lot, a lot was going on at the time. And, but Keanu was sweet. He was great. You know, I really liked the kid, you know, he was hard-working and he had a consciousness that was very sophisticated, you know, he had a tough upbringing and he was very sen-- he was taking care of his family at the time and... I really enj-- and he liked going to the University of Chicago. Once again, walked him around, his character's based upon more research. I met a guy who was working at Argonne National Laboratory and also at the University of Chicago because they run the Argonne. He hadn't finished, never gone to college. And he was working on the most sophisticated projects in physics and, and designing stuff that scientists needed for their experiments, and I said, "Why can't Keanu be that guy? Why can't he come up with a carburetor that separates hydrogen using sound?" You know, photoluminescence, or sound and light, you know. And we would, I took him all around these laboratories and he, we met guys who worked on the Manhattan Project, you know. So he got a real education about what had happened at the University of Chicago with Enrico Fermi and the bomb and all that kind of stuff. We heard incredible stories. So he got into it.

INT: That's great. In casting, do you, I know you like to read. What about when you're dealing with sort of stars that you're, I mean, where do you go when you know you can't read them? But you still want Morgan Freeman to be in the movie. How do you handle those, those situations?
AD: Well, I mean, like you say, if you know their body of work and you know they're capable of doing the part, there's no reason to read, you know. At the same time, some actors just want to show it to you. I remember Jon Voight, he be-, when he got involved with HOLES, he said, "I want to be Waylon Jennings." And he came up with this attitude and the hair-do, I mean, he just totally got into it. And it was wonderful. It was wonderful because... [INT: So, did he bring that character to you? Before he...] Well, you know, Mr. Sir was just this guy. He wasn't really described that much and Jon just took off- [INT: Now had you cast him already? Or--] Yeah, but it was right, I mean, it was right after, you know, it was, it was happening, you know. And... [INT: I mean that, looking at the HOLES cast, you got, you know, really some powerful, powerful actors there. I mean, were you--] Tim Blake Nelson. [INT: We love Tim Blake Nelson.] You know, Eartha Kitt. I got to work with Eartha Kitt. [INT: Yeah, I know. I know you did.] Henry Winkler was... Henry Winkler's a great actor, you know that? [INT: I do. He, from my first feature.] Yeah, exactly. [INT: Two of them, no, my mo--, my TV movie that I did.] And he's a really... anyway, so I, that was, that was such a blessing. Then Shia [Shia LaBeouf], you know, we couldn't, we were looking and looking and looking, and, you know, and this, and all the sudden he became available, from, I guess from the Disney Channel or whatever, and the minute he walked in and read, it was like, "There's no question. This is the kid." He was... to me he was a young Gene Wilder. He was Hanks [Tom Hanks], he was Dustin Hoffman, he had all these qualities, and I just remember, the nice thing is, Dick Cook said to me recently, he says, "You said it. You said he's going to be a star and you, you really..." And I think I have, there's something about, you know, there's a few actors today that I, so, they're going to break, you know. I tried to get Robert Downey, Jr. in a big, in a major part six months before IRON MAN and they go, "Well, we can't sell him..." "You're out of your mind? This guy's going to be huge and he's one of our best actors." [INT: Best actors, exactly. Exactly.]

INT: Did, in looking at that cast that you just mentioned, Eartha Kitt, did, how did you decide, for example, like Eartha Kitt, or like these the stars?
AD: Dule Hill. Dule Hill, well, that was Cathy Sandrich and Amanda Mackey, I think, brought Dule in. [INT: In THE GUARDIAN, you mean?] No, he, Dule Hill was in HOLES. [INT: As well?] Yeah. [INT: He's in both?] Yeah. [INT: Oh, yes, all right, of course, I'm sorry.] He was first in HOLES. That's how I met him. And I had, I wasn't, I didn't watch... [INT: WEST WING?] WEST WING that much, you know, but I was aware of him, and it turns out Dule's one of the great tap dancers, he's a fantastic-- [INT: I know. I did a movie, this is now my story for a second, but I did a movie that had... it was actually Dule's first film as a, he was a, he was, he'd been dancing on the New York stage and I gave him his first part on this, on this HBO movie that I did. And it was with, what's his name who died, you know, the other great...] Oh yeah, the brother. [INT: Who, yes, right. And they were in the movie together and they would just tap dance in, in all, in, off camera.] Fantastic. [INT: That was, that was their thing. But, what makes you think Eartha Kitt? Where does the idea come from?] I don't remember, I don't, it, it may have been somebody else's idea, I just said, "Wow, absolutely. Perfect." You know. And, you know, and then- [INT: Sigourney Weaver?] Sigourney, it's interesting because there were some other major actresses that wanted that. And I think, she just, she, she seemed to be right in terms of this family audience. And, and the idea that she could be tough and me--, it's interesting, she got the part, she be--, she, she got a hold of us, I think, because her daughter kept saying, "Ma, you gotta play the warden." So, once again it was the kids, you know, but Sigourney was great to work with.

INT: Now, you don't, you cast some, I mean, some unknown actresses-
AD: Patricia Arquette is also, I saw her in something, I said, "She's really lovely," you know. "She'd be good as this tough little teacher," you know. [INT: She was actually quite wonderful in it.] Yeah. [INT: She did some stuff in that, surprising actually.]

INT: But you've cast, it's interesting, I was just thinking about the girl who's in, who's in COLLATERAL DAMAGE and, you've cast some, you know, some people are good casting male parts and not so good casting female parts. That's not been an issue for you, at least I don't think it's been an issue.
AD: Nothing wrong with nice women. [INT: Not a thing. But, also just, and also to, sometimes, these are people that we don't know, are not famous, and I'm curious, what's the process for you there? I mean, are you, for these parts, are you having them read and in the reading process, what do you do with them to find out whether you know they're right for...] Yeah, well there was, there was a lot of testing for the guy and for, Sage Miller, but that part... But, yeah, you test, and you, it's chemistry. I sort of knew ahead of time who I wanted, but I, for the studio's purposes and for all the other actors' purposes I went through the process of having three or four people...

INT: Alright, now if I come in and I, you're interviewing me for a part, what's the process? What do you do?
AD: Well, you know, I'm interested in who people are. Also. I want to know them. You know, "What is your life experience? Where are you from? You know, where'd you grow up, how did you get in the theatre, what did you father and mother do, you know?" I want to know what they know about life, too, besides their ability to read. Sometimes they'll just read and if I don't like the reading, I think they're wrong, I'll just, "Next," you know. I think there's a lot of water wasted in L.A. every day by the way people showing up for casting that are never going to get the part.

INT: What do you say, by the way, when they're… do you say, "Thank you very much."
AD: N--, well, gen-- nice, be nice, "Nice meeting you and thank you," you know, and some people...and some people, you know, are so beaten down by the process they go to audition after audition, and they're talented, you know, and you feel for them, you know. You know what it means, "So I got an audition tomorrow morning," you know. And, and you meet people and then you, you know, I, what I do is I have a wall; I'm very visual and, and to remember. And I've organized tapes, and there, there's the eight people up for this part and the six people up for this part, and you start looking at combinations of what kind of a family you're gonna make, and how that's going to be as an ensemble.

INT: In the casting session, will there be a video camera? Will I be reading with you? Will I be reading with the casting person?
AD: Usually, I don't read, I watch. I set the camera and I'll watch the monitor and, I'll have the monitor, they can't see it. And I'll see them live. [INT: What size will you shoot?] What do you mean? [INT: Well, do you shoot one--] Yeah, well, it depends. It depends on the scene, where they have to interact with somebody else, you know. But I'd like to get in here, a good close-up. [INT: Got it. And who's reading with them?] Usually the casting person. Or I'll bring another actor in the read.

INT: Got it. And, will you do call-backs? [AD gives positive response.] And what happens there?
AD: Well, it's either a call-back for your own head to see the two people together on the same day together, you know. Or for, if it's, if it's a Producer or studio that needs to be reinforced, or sold, or, you'll do it for that purpose.