You confront the race issue in your play This Is Yeah, it couldn’t have been much better and so I was
How It Goes; did that prepare you for you’re like that was good. I will do another one of those,
current film Lakeview Terrace which also deals you know. And suddenly I had a little stack of them.
with a character that wants to divide the races? For some people it was too repetitive, in some ways
they felt like here are these unnamed men there’s a
It has always been a central issue in our country that lot of red heads in there…[Laughs]
doesn’t get addressed that often. It rests in a sideways
way but I thought it was interesting, a character like A lot of people don’t like redheads. [Laughs]
Cody [This Is How It Goes] who was privileged and
yet still had this grudge, this kind of chip on his I know, I saw it as sort of a concept album. These are
shoulder. It was really about his family and not so things I am choosing to do, any name I put in, I’m
much about race. Also it’s a technique I have just going to scrap. I am taking it out so they are just
employed and certainly enjoyed before. It is the idea these men. And they’re short pieces so the title
of ingratiating oneself with the audience with the Seconds of Pleasure suddenly said, it’s all going to be
characters before revealing this other side that people about these tangential pleasures that men are
can often have because people are multi-faceted and grasping for and just missing. So that created a kind
sided and complex. of cycle for me of work. And it makes sense to some
people and some didn’t like it. You move on, you
So that [he is] this guy you like for a while and when have to after awhile, if you’re going to write you get
he meets the wife it’s sort of this romantic comedy thick skin and tunnel vision. I try not to believe the
and pretty soon he is saying things that make good reviews or the bad ones… you just get too off
everybody go, “Did he just say that? He shouldn’t say put by praise or damnation. I know when something
that kind of thing?” and eventually to him he breaks is good in my eye, that doesn’t mean everyone’s going
it down and says, “What’s so big about the word to like it. But I can feel what I have done is good
nigger, it’s a word? Unless you give it power it doesn’t work and I can go back to it. There are times when
have any power.” So to challenge those kinds of I know I have snuck through and nobody has said
things… they’re always worth doing. And certainly anything, thank god, and [I think] let’s move on
it helps, as you asked, when carrying into Lakeview quickly.
Terrace the idea that I had explored it somewhat. I
knew something about it and had something that I So what is it with the nameless man? He is
wanted to say. So what was essentially a thriller could reoccurring in your work.
also have some more dramatic dimensions by
fleshing out that side of it. Well, yes he recurs in my playwriting as well. I don’t
think it’s a stretch to like an everyman or anything
Tell me about the new movie Lakeview Terrace, like that. You struggle for how many years for people
what was the experience like to direct a film you to notice you. People in a sense noticed me more
did not write? when I did my first film. So when I did In The
Company of Men, characters who both had names,
It’s amazing how much you end up writing and not the next movie I did [Your Friends and Neighbors],
taking credit. And yet I did work with a screenplay I removed the names from the men and the women
obviously I liked enough to catch my attention. I and I list them in the credits at the end of the movie,
happily have not done anything that I think I did but you never hear those names and it was partially
just for money or because I should do it. And that’s because, I haven’t said your name once, I know what
why we are sitting here instead of the [Beverly Hills] your name is and you haven’t said my name. So I felt
Polo Lounge. [Laughs] we hear that stuff too much I am just going to
remove it all from the script. There is a certain
You wrote a short story collection in 2004, what attraction to the real familiarity of how people talk to
prompted you to write Seconds of Pleasure? each other. The name isn’t important; it’s the person
who finds themselves in a situation.
Every so often, but more often than not I find myself
with a story going, ‘I can’t shake this one, it’s a good But people say your not giving these men names
one.’ And you try, cause the period you have to so they’re…
spend time with that creation is a long one so it can’t
just be a flirtation. You got to go, ‘If I am going to …that they’re either anonymous or they’re me. They
work with this thing and live with this it has to be can’t all be me, I have written too many of them
solid.’ I try and poke holes through it and make sure now. Of course, I am always the bad guy; I am never
it holds water and eventually the thing clings to you the girl or the friend. They figure the worst thought
and you go, ‘alright damn it, I will write you.’ And so you can have, that must be you. That is the danger of
you do. I guess a lot of that for me comes again from what you do. It’s not the nicest thought you ever had;
just imagination. It doesn’t come from studying the it’s always the worst impulse.
newspaper or thinking back over my colorful family’s
life, frankly they weren’t that colorful. They were in And people want to call you a misogynist.
their own way but not interesting. They weren’t good
material they were just surprising and crazy and all They don’t only just want to, they do. [Laughs]
those things, but I don’t know if they make good
stories. So I found that notion interesting of writing After reading your body of work, it seems that
short stories and I got one placed early on. I just did people should be concerned about your male
a cold submission to the New Yorker. characters. Your women are sweet, kind, even
redeemable.
That is really great.
I’m glad you say that. I actually have had a couple of
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