Atom Egoyan wrote and directed the new film Where the Truth Lies starring Kevin Bacon and Colin Firth. The film has garnered some controversy due to some of its more explicit scenes, so naturally I thought that would be the best place to begin my conversation with him.

I know in the United States, Where the Truth Lies received an NC-17 rating, which can be damaging for the box office. I had heard you tried to re-cut it and the MPAA refused an appeal, is that true?

No, they didn't refuse an appeal, we got an appeal, and we resubmitted it 3 times. Then we had an appeal screening, but they refused to overturn the rating, which was a very disheartening experience because I remain convinced that there's nothing that warrants an NC-17. It's inexplicable to me. So once they refused to overturn it we reconstructed the film as it was originally intended.

So the version that's being shown in America now is the same version that was originally shown at the Cannes Film Festival?

Yes. Thankfully so. Because when I watched the film at the appeal process it was sort of butchered and substantially different. But they [the MPAA] were really dogged about it, and you never really find out what their agenda is about, but I've allowed myself to conclude that it has to be because they're famous actors and it's a studio-looking movie. That's ultimately what's most transgressive about it, because there isn't really anything that you're seeing that you wouldn't see on cable TV.

What were the scenes that they objected to?

There were four scenes originally. There was the scene with Lenny and the publicist, there was the orgy, the lesbian scene, and the threesome. So the publicist, the orgy, and the lesbian scene we substantially cut. But the threesome, because it's a master shot, there wasn't a lot of flexibility. So we tried to trim it at the head and tale of it. We did everything we could, but they obviously had a very strong attitude. I think what they responded to was the generally feeling of sleaziness. I don't think there was anything in particular. It's just a dark, cynical view of things. I don't know. Because what I've learned since, talking to other filmmakers who've been through this, is that if I was really smart I would have shot a much more extreme version knowing that that couldn't get through, and then you cut back on that. So you play ball with them a bit. But I didn't have the foresight to do that.

How did you like working within the studio system on this film, and with a much bigger budget?

Well, it looks like it's the studio system, but it's not. It's still an independently made film. But because it's sort of referring to the studio movies, we made it look like a studio film. And certainly we shot in these iconographic studio locations like on the backlot of Universal, in the Hollywood Hills, and all these monolithic sort of places. But it wasn't a studio film, it was made independently. And much like Sweet Hereafter and any of those movies it was then re-injected into that system, but you have a degree of control that you wouldn't have had if it was a studio movie.

Ah, okay. But it was a much bigger budget than you'd previously worked with?

It was a bigger budget, but it still was a challenge to get that look for the budget that we had. But it was important to get that look because it was the world these people lived in, and we had to make it as convincing as possible. And I was paying homage to a whole bunch of films that have had a really strong influence on me that were studio movies – films like Sunset Boulevard , and Double Indemnity, In a Lonely Place , and the Mankowitz movies. All of those noirs, some of which were studio and some of which were not. And the neo-noirs and all that stuff. There's a broad range of influences. Detour . Vertigo as well.

Were you deliberately staying within the film noir genre, then?

No, I don't think so, because it's not shot like a noir, it's not lit like a noir. There are certainly noir devices, like the voice over, and obviously musically one aspect of the score is completely influenced by it, and certainly if you look at Sweet Smell of Success , which was a really important movie for me. We used that as a reference. But it doesn't look like a noir, and it's not really structured like a noir.

What attracted you to this book?

It was deliriously fun to read, and I think in the 3 adaptations I've done, the author has access to a world that's outside of my own. And it's almost like a gift that they're providing. The whole world was a revelation to me, and was made very vivid in his work – the world of entertainment and culture in the 50s and in the early 70s was so magnificently drawn and entertaining. But I did change the book. The one character that was different in the book was O'Connor – she was never given a first name in the book, and she was substantially different from the character we see in the film. She was very hard-edged, and very confident, and she didn't have a history with them – she didn't appear on the telethon as a child, and she didn't adore them the way Karen does. So that was a major reinvention. I was very interested in the way in which Karen matures from a girl to a woman over the course of the film as she comes to realize who her heroes really are. Also the book is based almost entirely on Louis and Martin quite explicitly, so I couldn't keep that because I thought it would be distracting to keep asking “did this really happen?”

What made you decide to do these rewrites, such as having Karen appear on the telethon as a child for instance?

Because it seems such a great opportunity to deal with this theme that has run through a lot of my work, which is the corruption of innocence and where and how and when someone is really innocent. And I've always been fascinated by these older male figures that either seem to be paternal or predatory, and this notion of responsibility and the negotiation of that. I see that with a degree of hindsight as I wasn't really aware of it as I was doing it, as I don't think you should be. But now looking at it, it sort of falls in the pattern of films I've done like Nicole , Sweet Hereafter , and certainly Felicia [ Felicia's Journey ] and now with Karen, these women who have to completely renegotiate their relationship to these male figures and people who seem to have provided them with a degree of guidance, but who have abused that situation in some way. So that idea that those 3 days of the telethon were somehow magical to her, that her life was changed by them, and especially by this thing that was said to her by Lanny that we don't hear until the end. But we understand that this is the type of thing that can completely transform your life, and that she finally understands what it meant at that time. So I found that really compelling. The idea of the convergence of the public and the private – how a telethon is the most public event imaginable, and there's a gesture exchanged within it that no one has access to. Sometimes you think you do things and you might overcomplicate them, but then you need to do it anyhow.

I think it's a good change, because it makes it so much more personal as we follow her story, the fact that she has this history with them.

Yeah. Well, it's interesting, because if you read the book she is sort of the central character but you never know who she is. But you don't need to because it's so well written and they're so vivid. But when you actually try and come to terms with her psychology, it needed something else.

How much improvisation went into the scenes between Kevin Bacon and Colin Firth ?

Lots. I mean, we shot a lot more than you actually see. And, I think it's one of those situations where if you have 200 paid extras who are uproariously laughing at anything these people say, it becomes sort of infectious. So they began to respond to that. Those shows, if you look at the rat pack shows – those legendary evenings – they're so loose. What they're actually doing isn't based on any script, it's just them being themselves and people enjoying it. We wanted to create an environment where people could sustain themselves. I mean, that being said the shots are very carefully choreographed. So it was a combination of these carefully choreographed tracking shots and multi-angle coverage of the actual act itself. But then there's the scene where Colin, after beating a man to a pulp, goes into this monologue. He completely improvised that, and it was an amazing thing, because if you look at Kevin's expression he is genuinely surprised at what's coming out of Colin's mouth. But it's also an incredible thing to dissect, because there's the whole Anglo tradition that he seems to be exorcising, and I don't know where it came from, but it was somewhere within Colin.

Have you had any similar experiences to Karen yourself where you've met someone that you'd idolized previously…?

Oh yeah. Well, as a kid, my idol was Carlos Santana, the guitarist. And I remember begging my father to take me to San Francisco because Santana had a vegetarian restaurant that had just opened up, and I finally coaxed him to take me when I was 13-14, and of course Santana never showed up (laughs). I think I was expecting him to serve me my hummus and strike up a conversation. And then later on, I guess after I gave up my loose dream of becoming a rock-and-roll star and starting making films and going to festivals of course you meet people. You can't express to them what they meant to you without sounding foolish, it's just the nature of it. You know they've heard that so many times before, you're not going to say anything that's going to surprise them. So you're sort of reduced to this level of frustration. That's why I think it's interesting with Karen because she has this pretext to be able to talk to them [Lanny and Vince], and the two times she mentions who she was and what they meant, they seem to be completely uninterested. If it registered anything to them, they aren't going to grant that to her, and it sort of hounds her anger or her despair, especially at the end with Kevin [who plays Lanny]. It's interesting, because I think we often have these relationships with celebrities that cannot be returned, it's just the nature of it. And shouldn't be returned, probably. It would be kind of scary if it was, if they felt everything you projected onto them.

You have a reputation of being somewhat anti-Hollywood. Was that part of the appeal of this story?

I've loved some Hollywood films, they've been very important to me. What I'm anti- with Hollywood more than anything else is the industrial approach to filmmaking, where it's done by committee and by test screenings and audience responses, and where a film is completely managed by the largest constituency possible. Because I think that takes away the film's character. And so the Hollywood films that I have liked have been able to survive that process or weren't exposed to it. And I do think there are filmmakers working now within that system who, if they're powerful enough, are able to override that. But for the most part, I hear stories of what happens during test screenings. One of the most extreme examples is with the film 40 Year Old Virgin because what happened is the focus group went to the studio and claimed a credit because they felt that they were involved in the final decision. And, not only that, but one of the people in the focus group who was an attendant at Krisy Kreme Donuts got a studio deal because of his brilliant suggestion. It's difficult to condone that sort of approach to filmmaking.

How do you find the writing process versus the directing process? Do you prefer one to the other?

Well, I prefer writing only because you have complete control over it. Directing, there's some really exhilarating days when you're directing and everything comes together, but there are also days that are all about compromise and trying to make the best of a difficult situation. Writing, of course, has moments of absolute despair as well, there's no question of that. But you're fully responsible for that. And you know that if you just keep at it you'll arrive at something. So I love that process. I also love editing as well for the same reason. I do think editing is the final version of the film, it's the last draft. And now I'm working on an original script, and you realize how much more challenging that is – because when you're doing an adaptation the story has already proven that it has a right to exist, it has a place in the world. And when you're doing an original story you don't really have that luxury.

Do you have any advice to filmmakers trying to start out?

Well, the best advice is that you are lucky to be working at a time when the actual means of production is completely demystified, and it's possible to actually make a film and edit it at home. It's kind of amazing. So sometimes I sort of think that film making, the actual act of shooting, is the new scriptwriting, except the problem is that it still does all revolve around a script. So even though filmmaking is a lot more accessible I still think it's essential to spend that time making sure that the story that's being told is structured properly and thought out.