Bobby Coleman, how did you get the role, and how long was the audition process?

Coleman: It took me like two or three weeks to get the part. We stewed over what would Dennis feel like to be left with all those foster-care people. We just thought he'd finally shut down and just hide in a box. What did you take away from working with John Cusack?

Coleman: John Cusack, every take in a scene, he's totally different. He improvs, he plays around with things. So he just taught me to loosen up a little bit and to play what's really real and what the character would really do. So I have kept that with me, and that is a big thing. How cool is it to see yourself up there on a big screen?

Coleman: It's really fun. It's really cool. I thought the movie was great. I really like it. And it's really fun to see me 30 feet high.In the press notes for the movie, you're quoted as saying that you want to be a singing scientist when you grow up. Can you talk a bit about that aspiration?

Coleman: I love singing and I love science. So I was like, "Hmm, I want to be a singing scientist." Actually, it doesn't exist, but it will.Did you keep anything from the movie? Any props?

Coleman: I kept the weight belt. And we kept this model of the Dracoban set, with the crane and the camera on it, and all the Dracoban people. So we kept the weight belt and the Dracoban set, and that's it.

Amanda Peet, Bobby talked about John Cusack making each take different. Was that your experience with John as well?

Peet: Yeah. I love that. I think it's really fun. It keeps everything spontaneous and new and fresh.



You seem to mix things up a lot. You'll do TV and film, and you did some stage work recently. You'll do leads and then something like Martian Child, where you've got a supporting role. What prompts you to say yes or no?

Peet: I don't really have a great plan. I just give my incoming scripts to my husband [screenwriter David Benioff] if the first 30 pages seem promising. We both read it, and he tells me whether he thinks it's a good script, because sometimes I feel like it's cusp-y, and I don't know if something is really good or not, or whether it's really worth it. So I usually give something to him and then take his advice.What's next?

Peet: I'm going to do a movie in Boston with Mark Ruffalo and Ethan Hawke called Real Men Cry. And then I'm going to do Nicole Holofcener's next movie, with Catherine Keener.And you've done an animated film called Terra, right? Is your work on that done, and what do you play?

Peet: I'm a colonel-soldier person. It's hard to talk about because it's a fantasy world and I also have a really tiny part.

John Cusack, was the idea always to have you and your sister together in this?

Cusack: I think that was presented as part of the appeal of it, and it certainly was for me. I'll do it as long as people keep letting me. It's great for me.What did you like about this project? And how did the opportunity to work again with Menno Meyjes affect your decision? [Meyjes wrote and directed Martian Child and had worked with Cusack before in the same capacities on Max.]

Cusack: Well, New Line was doing it and I thought it was a character-driven kind of family-adult movie, but it was very sweet. They told me they wanted to get great actors. And it was nice to be wanted. It's not like you have eight fantastic things that are always waiting for you at any time to pick. So it's nice. This was sort of there, and they said they'd do it with a director that I liked. Menno had worked on the script, and I like Menno a lot. So it was kind of a nice fit. And then they talked about Amanda. So it looked like a pretty good package. And I'd never really done a family movie before.Some fans of the novel are going to be surprised, disappointed and/or annoyed that David is not gay in the film. What was thought on that?

Cusack: Newlinecinema@... Was there an added appeal in playing a sci-fi writer?

Cusack: I think the idea that people who live in their imagination feel apart from the rest of the world, that kind of life in the imagination gives you a kind of uniqueness but also isolates you a little bit ... I thought that was interesting and true. Were you like that as a kid?

Cusack: I wasn't that eccentric, but I definitely wasn't in the popular crowds and all that stuff.Your production company is going full swing. What are you working on?

Cusack: Well, we have Grace Is Gone. That's one that's coming out. Then we have another one called War, Inc., with Sir Ben Kingsley and Hilary Duff and Marisa Tomei. My sister is in it again, and Dan Aykroyd. That's a very kind of provocative black comedy, not a comedy-comedy, but it's a pretty wild film. It's like absurdist satire, but it's very dark. And, not for your company, you're doing an animated film called Igor, right?

Cusack: I did a little voice for the Weinsteins. I actually did one of those things before [with Anastasia]. It's really easy. You go in there and you read the script with the actors. It's the easiest job in the world. No trucks. No makeup. You just go in there with a microphone and play for a couple of hours. And Igor is an ... Igor.David Kirschner and Corey Sienega, what went into the decision not to make David gay?

Kirschner: We bought the short story that David had written.

Sienega: And the book did not exist yet.

Kirschner: The book did not exist yet, and that's what we sold to the studio. And that's what we said John would be great for. So that was the story that we sold. Then David Gerrold came out of the closet after that and then wrote the book from that point. So that was how everything came to be.Your next film is going to be Trout. What's the basic setup?

Kirschner: Trout takes place in 1986, and it's the story of two siblings that are about 11 months apart. The younger sibling is kind of [an upbeat 13-year-old kid]. Everybody wants to be his friend. The family owns an amusement park. And the older brother just makes a wish with one of the tokens from the family amusement park, just a frivolous little wish. And he wishes his brother would disappear, which I think all of us have done, if you've ever had siblings. And at that moment, Trout, which is the [younger] kid's name, is in the forest around there. He's hiding and about to jump out and scare the girl that the older brother likes. He looks at his Swatch watch; it's 1986, remember. A little baby deer crosses his path; he sees that all the time. He jumps out, and when he jumps out no one is there and the little baby deer is now a seven-point buck. I shouldn't even say now; it's a big deer that crosses his path. What he doesn't see is, behind him, all this faded graffiti of a memorial to Trout, who disappeared 20 years ago. All these people [in Trout's circle of friends, who were 13 when Trout disappeared] have grown up—they're 33—and it's the story of how their lives have been affected by the disappearance of Trout all those years ago. Everything changed. [It's] this group of very close friends, and this little kid steps back into their lives.

Sienega: It's kind of Big meets The Big Chill. So it does have this great character aspect. He's very disappointed when he meets all of them, because they didn't grow up to be the sort of rock stars and race car drivers that they all hoped they would be at 13. So he's still a child, and they're all 33.