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.

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

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.