Death Is Not My Best Subject.

[john] Hughes Was Well Aware That To Ignore The Seriousness Of Young People Is To Encourage Things Like Columbine, So You Might Want To Listen. And We Were All Pretty Serious, A Little Bit, In High School. Some A Little More Than Others.

It's More Like The Inner Workings Of John Bender. He Feels Like He's Been Given A Short Shrift, He's Not Been Provided The Opportunities That Maybe These Other Kids Have. So He Feels Like He Begins In A Hole. And Instead Of Trying To Raise Himself Up, He Wants To Bring All Of Them Down. That's A Dynamic That's Pretty Universal. And So That Was The Real Foothold On That. It Wasn't Like, "oh, My High School Experience Is Like John Bender's [in St. Elmo's Fire]."

Paul Gleason Played The Teacher. I Just Tortured Him As Best I Could. 'cause He Wasn't One Of The Kids, You Know, So It Was Okay. He Was Great.

In A Good Script, It's Really Like A Treasure Map. You Just Focus On That, All The Answers Are Pretty Much In It.

I Am Very Grateful To Make My Living Doing What I Would Do For Free.