Rural towns aren't always idyllic. It's easy to feel trapped and be aware of social hypocrisy.

With While You Were Sleeping, it was so much fun and such a Cinderella story, that I didn't want to do another romantic comedy. I wanted to do the opposite.

There was an idea of accepting everyone; there was no sense of exclusion.

Oh, great. This is going to be like shooting baskets with Magic Johnson watching. [On watching Independence Day with President Clinton]

I'm a playwright and a novelist and a journalist. It's a weird Salinger-Mailer-Miller combination. When the series starts, he--like a lot of liberal New Yorkers--are starting to realize something is very wrong in the gay community. My investigation into what becomes called AIDS is going to be a big part of the show.

I was 21, and rehearsing a play, took a fall and was in a coma for a few days. And when I recovered, I'd lost my sense of smell completely.