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Curtis Hanson is - quite possibly - the most successful director that cinemagoers don't know. Yet while he doesn't share the profile of a Spielberg, a Tarantino or a Scorsese his movies regularly generate big box office and their share of critical acclaim.
What's more the genial 62 year old rings the changes so frequently that it can be tough guessing what he will tackle next. Where so many filmmakers plough a familiar artistic furrow Hanson evokes an older generation who proved themselves adept across a range of genres.
How else to account for the breadth and quality of a CV that includes The Hand That Rocks The Cradle, The River Wild, LA Confidential, Wonder Boys, 8 Mile, In Her Shoes and his latest, Lucky You. There are also a couple of lesser known gems in there too, stylish films such as The Bedroom Window and Bad Influence.
Which makes Hanson a master of his craft even if he is not as instantly recognisable as his peers, or old timers who possessed a similar versatility like Howard Hawks.
"It's perfect that you mention Hawks," Hanson says with a boyish smile, "because he had my favourite career. He thrived in the studio system in a way that I aspired to do out of it. The old studios had an investment in their top talent - actors, directors and writers - and encouraged them but that's completely gone today.
"In a very short period of time Hawks was able to do His Girl Friday, The Big Sleep and Red River. All masterpieces. In terms of a career, how great is it to be able to exercise his muscles in those ways and avoid being typed and put in a box? It's the opposite of what the normal career today is where, if you're successful, they want you to do what you did before. Inevitably filmmakers become less good versions of themselves rather than growing and stretching their talent."
Yet in an era in which you are a director for hire, moving between studios rather than being under exclusive contract to just one, such versatility is harder to achieve. Good fortune plays a part, to be sure, making a Hollywood directing career seem every bit as precarious as that of the professional gamblers Hanson depicts in Lucky You.
"Luck has a tremendous amount to do with it," he nods. "The right picture at the right time. You work as hard on a movie that doesn't do well as on one that does."
Good films do not always get their just reward. His 2000 release Wonder Boys was a refreshingly mature and highly enjoyable character drama starring Michael Douglas and Tobey Maguire, and it has found its audience belatedly on DVD.
"I didn't think about it at the time, but you're right with time going by people have caught up with it and they don't care where they caught up with it. Of course I wish they'd seen it on the big screen. But whether it's at a revival or late night on television, it's still important that it's being seen by two people or two million people."
Away from his directing day job Hanson serves as Chairman of the UCLA Film And Television Archive, which is charged with preserving and celebrating classics of the past and groundbreaking efforts from the present.
"We show many films in the Billy Wilder Theater," he explains, "and so many people comment after they've seen movies there how they'd seen it on television but this was like watching a different movie. It's not just the size but it's also the group experience, the theatrical experience where you're in an environment in which you give yourself over.
"When I watch a movie at home, forget about the telephone and other distractions, your eyes can wonder around the room and look at a book or a picture or whatever. But in a movie theatre you're absorbed. In a movie theatre you give yourself over in a way that you don't at home."
The enthusiasm with which Hanson talks about this subject is palpable. You can tell he is much of a film buff as those cineastes who have followed his own career. And it is through the successful application of his talents over three decades that he has had the chance to meet several of his heroes, the great Billy Wilder among them.
"One of the great perks of LA Confidential was that Billy called me," Hanson adds, "and invited me to come to his office. It was fabulous, because after talking about the movie and complimenting me and embarrassing me a little bit he said ‘and next, you want to do a comedy right?'. And he was exactly right, on reflection it was obvious that he would know that because he did the same thing. He made several dark movies and then wanted to switch it around and express the other side of himself."
Although there is much to be said for Hollywood today there is a suspicion in the way Curtis Hanson eulogises the Golden Age that he, in odd moments of reverie, would love to have worked under that system.
"Oh definitely," he beams, "and not just in odd moments. I feel very connected to that era of filmmaking. I'm still struck daily when my path crosses something of that world. Whether it's going onto a studio lot and seeing something.
"My office actually is on what was at one time the United Artists lot. It's where Billy's office was, and he's on my mind all the time because when I park I still look up at his window, where his office was."
Success has afforded him the opportunity to entertain such daydreams, but he is not doing so bad in the present. The run of hits are reflective of a man having a great time doing a job he loves.
"I feel extremely fortunate to have been able to make pictures that mean as much to me," he adds. Lucky You, some might say, but talent has had much to contribute to this wonderfully varied career.
Lucky You is on general release.
ANWAR BRETT
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