Describe the character of Rick for us:

The truth is, I based him on myself. It's remarkably easy to access those kinds of feelings within oneself, I think, which is why Rick turns out to be such a sympathetic character despite his initial harshness. Who hasn't felt that they are unappreciated, or that they are cursed by having to suffer idiots all around them? Rick's anger comes from the feeling that he has no control, despite the wealth and position he enjoys -- he's desperate to find someone in his orbit who will DO WHAT THEY'RE TOLD. If Michelle had only waited outside like she was told to, so much unhappiness could have been avoided.

To us, the core of the film is the relationship between Rick and his daughter. Can you talk about that?

Rick's feelings for his daughter are his weak spot because that's where his humanity comes into play. That seems like a contradiction except for the fact that Rick, like all of us, lives in a society where human feelings and needs are treated as opportunities for exploitation. Buck, not Rick, is the ultimate capitalist because he unerringly zeroes in on Rick's fear of losing his daughter and uses that fear to make a killing -- literally. If Rick didn't care about his daughter or feel the need to hold onto her as the only link to his wife (or to himself -- thus, "I used to be a good person"), he wouldn't be such an easy mark. It's the tragedy of the existence we've made for ourselves that such basic and decent human feelings become weaknesses, not strengths.

Tell us about Bill Pullman and Agnes Bruckner. What did you talk about before shooting began?

Bill and Agnes have very different qualities as actors, and I think that gives the film a great deal of dimension. Bill and I talked exhaustively before shooting began -- we had many meetings, going into every nuance of the entire script, not just Rick's character. Agnes, on the other hand, I met with once before the cameras rolled and she showed up in New York 36 hours before we started. But it was obvious that she had an intuitive understanding of the character and I never worried that she wouldn't be ready. Even on set, the differences between Bill and Agnes were clear -- Bill liked to do a lot of takes, and kept finding interesting, fresh nuances; Agnes was usually right on target from the first take and tended to become bored when we did it over and over. I was quite fascinated by the difference in their methods and I think it makes the interplay between their performances remarkably complex.

Why do you think Rick has become such an asshole?

I don't think he's an asshole. You have to understand the reasons he's behaving the way he does, and I don't mean simply that his wife is dead or he hates his boss. Rick is at a crisis point because he senses he's hit a dead end, that the system he's served so faithfully has almost used him up. He's always believed in the system; he's never questioned the way things are or looked inside himself. Thus he's not equipped to understand the desperation he's feeling. I see Rick's lack of awareness as his tragic flaw. He's bought into the system totally, he believed the payoff would come -- this is his faith. But the payoff hasn't come. There is no value placed on loyalty or devotion in the capitalist world. It doesn't love you back. And Rick is not a self-sacrificing team player; he's not about to go quietly when his usefulness is ended. His vanity and sense of entitlement compel him to take action against his own negation.

Are you trying to make a specific point about male ego with Rick? Do you think the movie will confirm women's worst assumptions about men?

I don't think the point about ego is specific to men, unfortunately. It's a characteristic of human nature, male and female. Men simply have more opportunity in a sexist society to parade their egos. Women, given a chance, will often behave just as badly.

As a first-time director, what was it about the material that drew you in?

I was more interested in making a certain kind of film than I was in simply making a film. I had established an identity for myself as an editor of interesting, unusual films and I knew that I would similarly define myself as a director by the kind of material I chose for my first film. RICK was a script that I instantly felt I understood and could handle. It expressed, in such a clever and fresh way, so much of what I feel about human nature and our maddening insistence on making ourselves unhappy. It also had integrity -- you could sense that Daniel Handler was writing to satisfy himself, not any sort of commercial demands. I wanted to make it clear from the start that, as a director, I would doing that kind of material and that's why I was so happy to find the script.

How did you become involved with the project?

Ruth Charny, the producer, knew that I wanted to direct and that I was interested in a specific type of material. She told me about the script, which Daniel Handler had supposedly written in 24 hours, and allowed me to rummage through her apartment in search of the one copy she had. I found it, and read it the same night. Of course I loved it, but after my experiences trying to get support for much less abrasive material I didn't believe anyone would finance it. Ruth, however, seemed fully confident and in an amazingly short time we had a deal with ContentFilm.

A stomach flu hit your set at the start of production but only seemed to affect the men. Was there some karmic male curse on the movie?

I think it may have been the ghosts of capitalists past, outraged that we were allowed to invade their citadels, trying to stop us.

How did shooting on location in New York influence your storytelling?

The first day of pre-production I walked around the Wall Street area and observed how the architecture, especially the older buildings, expressed the grandiose arrogance of the capitalists who built the area. That made a deep impression, and solved a key problem for me, which was how to bring something fresh to the very familiar atmosphere of the corporate world. With this "Fountainhead" design idea in mind, locations all over New York began to suggest themselves, from the Waldorf apartment which serves as Rick's home to the old world restaurant where Rick and Eve eat dinner to the ornate building lobby which was the original home of Standard Oil. There really isn't anyplace besides New York that could have provided the same backdrop.

To us, the party scene felt like a horror movie. Was that your intention?

I had not set out intentionally to model the party scene on a horror movie, but the comparison is a nice one. Horror stories have classically been seen as an expression of subconscious fears and desires, and Image Corporation's Christmas party is certainly an occasion for the release of long-suppressed hatreds and lusts. Besides, there's something inherently disturbing about a situation where people are required to have a good time.

If you learned one thing about making movies from Gus Van Sant, what would that be?

For making movies, Portland, Oregon beats Hollywood any day.