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Atom Egoyan on Seeking the Writer?s Approval But Going with His Own Artistic Instincts: ?Just because that?s what you need to make a film. You can?t make a film because you?re serving another artist. What they?ve written exists already in a completed artistic form. I mean, the novel is there. In all three cases, the novel had a response well before the films came out. You have to be able to understand what it is that?s drawing you to the material, and if it takes you away from certain aspects of the book, you have to give yourself permission to explore those places.?

Atom Egoyan on the Telethon Scenes in ?Where the Truth Lies:? ?It?s in the book but in the book the two of them are based very closely on Martin and Lewis, and I wanted to kind of reinvent that. I felt that was kind of a distracting aspect to the book. To realize that visually, to actually have two characters who are trying to be Martin and Lewis and weren?t, would have been very distracting, so we kind of created a new act. But what wasn?t in the book was the appearance of Karen as a young girl on the event itself.?

Atom Egoyan on Changing One of the Main Characters from American to British: ?First and foremost I didn?t want them to see them as Martin and Lewis because I found that was distracting and also it just presented a lot of problems to me. If you?re always thinking about whether or not this actually happened to Martin and Lewis, it just distracts from the dramatic potential of the piece.

I also felt that this idea of the kind of American/Brit duo was possible, even though it didn?t actually exist.

I just felt if you look at characters like David Niven and Rex Harrison - and Noel Coward before that - they had this place in American culture at that time. It was possible to have this kind of idea of one character who is like the pre-rock and roll kind of combination of Lenny Bruce and Elvis Presley ? sort of very impulsive, very rude, a kind of character who is always being tamed by the voice of civilization. That seems to be an act that could have existed. It kind of conforms to the ego/id construction of any duo, going right back to Abbott and Costello and Laurel and Hardy. There was always one character who was misbehaving and the other one who was trying to civilize them. And what was fascinating in this case is that the id character, the Lanny Morris/Kevin Bacon character is in fact superego, the person who?s trying to organize it all completely with his book he?s purportedly writing.?

Atom Egoyan on the Richness of the Characters in ?Where the Truth Lies:? ?The book itself is such an incredible window into the profession of being an entertainer. I think that I?m always fascinated by people?s jobs and how the requirements of the profession might allow a character to deal with neurotic tendencies that would not be otherwise socially acceptable (laughing). I?ve dealt with insurance adjusters, or litigation lawyers, or customs officers ? all sorts of jobs. But an entertainer is a profession that?s really fascinating because you?re being celebrated and paid to be someone other than who you are, and yet everyone wants you to be that person. So there?s enormous privileges but also pressures that are placed on you.?

Working with a Larger Budget: ?It allowed me to paint the picture that I needed to paint. It allowed me to create that incredibly glamorous world of the 50s. And, you know, to create a rhythm and kind of a palette, which was very seductive and needed to be in order to tell the story. It also allowed me to do things musically, which were really essential to the story. To use all of these pieces of music and then such great textures that allowed us to be convinced by what it means to be in the very eye of a huge amount of popular adulation.?

Atom Egoyan on His Decision to Set the Final Scene on a Hollywood Backlot: ?It?s just such an amazing ghost town. I just love this idea of the façade, this huge façade of a town. There?s something very eerie about that. It?s, to me, the quintessential kind of setting for a story that deals with the fabrications of entertainment. And so that it would all kind of culminate in that location was really irresistible. There?s kind of surreal about it, right??

PAGE 3:Atom Egoyan on His "Where the Truth Lies" Cast and Directing Sex Scenes