Curtis Hanson
Curtis Hanson
Curtis Lee Hansonis an American film director, film producer and screenwriter. His directing work includes the psychological thriller The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, the neo-noir crime film L.A. Confidential, the comedy Wonder Boys, the hip hop drama 8 Mile, and the romantic comedy-drama In Her Shoes...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth24 March 1945
CityReno, NV
CountryUnited States of America
Curtis Hanson quotes about
character boys important
Here [in Wonder Boys] I had this group of characters where you didn't know which were the important ones or what direction they were heading.
book character opportunity
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.
speak term
I can't speak to how Michael [Douglas] approached it in terms of his process.
character boys special
I thought, "If I could bring these characters [Wonder Boys] to life and lead the audience to react the same way I did, this could be a really special picture." Then I read Michael's [Chabon] novel and got even more enthusiastic about it.
thinking surprise surprise-me
When I'm casting a picture, I think who I'd like to see in it if I was sitting in a theater. Who would surprise me?
Most scripts are so linear and simplistic in their plotline.
long storytelling audience
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.
moving boys people
So it's discouraging and, yet, when you make a movie like Wonder Boys, in a sense it's its own reward, because it does move people, it gets great reviews, and it becomes part of that library of movies that exist out there. As time goes by, it will find its audience.
illusion
Hollywood, of course, is the city of illusion.
eye unique people
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].
character boys wonder
When I first went to Pittsburgh, I had never been there before, and we hadn't even decided to shoot there yet. I just went to see the location of Michael Chabon's novel. Once there, I became aware that Pittsburgh is a "wonder boy," in the narrow sense of the term, just as the human characters are.
compliment
A day doesn't go by when I don't get a compliment on L.A. Confidential, for example.
heart past rich
Pittsburgh has this rich industrial past, when it was the heart of the U.S. steel industry, and it burned out as the industry burned out and moved elsewhere.
couple writing attention
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.