As if sitcom life isn't demanding enough, John found the time to write and direct an adaptation of David Foster Wallace's very strange book of short stories Brief Interviews with Hideous Men?
The cast features some of my favorite actors whom we don't see as much I'd like: Josh Charles, whom I've crushed on in a Tiger Beat way ever since Dead Poets Society, and Ben Shenkman, who can sparkle in either a run-of-the-mill John Cusack romantic comedy or Angels in America. Anyway, if this movie is as good as I think it's gonna be, great things could happen for John.
So, you're writing and directing Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. How did that all come about?
I actually did a staged reading of it at Brown [University]. I was acting in all these funny little things but never really believed in anything until I did a staged reading of this. It sort of changed everything. I wrote a script, and it was incredible, the epitome of a passion project.