Definitely. And with "Almost Famous," I just didn't want anybody to end up with anybody that they're expected to end up with. The only love story here is between the sister and the mom, and they don't truly bond properly -- and still it ends up being hopeful. After watching this, people have said, "Oh, it's sweet," and I always feel like if it's so sweet, then why is it based on such pain in my own life?

And I love what you say about "Jerry Maguire" because it's sort of gotten this reputation of being the commercial juggernaut that was the only studio movie nominated [for best picture at the Academy Awards] that year. Yet it's so much about feeling alienated and lost. There's no guarantee that Dorothy, or even Rod Tidwell, will stay with Jerry Maguire four minutes after the movie's over!

Despite the so-called sweet nature of "Almost Famous," you've got some interesting, difficult stuff going on regarding the illusion of reality going on in show business.

William is constantly trying to define what's real and what's not as the tour continues. Everybody is looking for something real, and Lester Bangs is sort of the only guy who says that it's all a dirty industry. Yet these people -- the band, the groupies, William -- are all kidding themselves that they're part of a family when they're really part of an industry. It's more of an industry as it goes on.

But this film is filled with contradictions, probably more than any of my other ones. People are continually contradicting themselves. There's Penny Lane [Kate Hudson], the groupie who says she only gives blow jobs when she's clearly not -- everyone is sleeping with everyone else. Even Lester Bangs is a contradiction. In the longer version of the movie, Lester's jealous because the kid got an assignment at Rolling Stone. Hell, the real-life Lester, the next time I spoke with him after he lectured me about not making friends with bands, told me to come to Troy, Mich., because he was hanging out with the Tubes. They'd become friends. So, really, no one, nothing, is really how it seems in this film.

Can you talk about the casting? Instead of having a big-name star like Tom Cruise in "Jerry Maguire," you chose a total unknown, Patrick Fugit, to play William and carry the film. Were you concerned about casting this part?

Yeah, even after we cast Patrick, I was worried. You know, he doesn't have a lot of so-called technique, which is why I cast him, but it also made us run long and go over budget. I caught a lot of shit making this movie.

It's a tough performance because he's really forced to react to everything rather than participate.

That's right. And, probably for the best, I lost a lot of jokes. He's so real that I think I fell in love with the idea of the character being gloriously passive, just being the observer at the circus. I just put the camera on him and we watch him watch everything else. I had all these witty-guy jokes that I just tossed out. But I'm glad, because the tone of the film is never dominated by one emotion.

Or one genre, either. You've basically made a rockumentary/romantic comedy/dysfunctional family drama/road movie. If you look at all of your movies, though, you've never really adhered to the strict rules of genre, have you?

I really have a problem with genre. Even Billy Wilder, when he would do a so-called genre film, it was so charactery. I was watching "Double Indemnity" the other night, and everything is defined by oddball behavior and great characters, and he isn't leaning on genre for help.

I read that Kevin Williamson was going to make a movie that would deconstruct typical Hollywood romantic comedy movies like "Jerry Maguire." I thought, "What!?" So I'm interested to see what he's going to do. [Shakes his head] I don't know, maybe if it was genre, it would have been easier to write that script.

Yeah, you take a while to write those. [Laughter] Why does it take you so long to make your films?

I'm trying to beat that now, be more prolific. I've got my next one written already. I'm slow. I just don't have a formula. A friend of mine said that I avoid rewriting by writing, which I do. I'll write a whole new thing just to avoid rewriting the thing before it.

So the time lapses between films aren't related to problems with getting movies greenlighted by studios?

Well, before "Jerry Maguire," I was going to a lot of meetings to talk about stuff I wanted to do and got very similar responses. Stuff like, "Well, you get some good reviews sometimes, but do people really go see your stuff? Isn't it the kind of thing that people wait for on video? Isn't it that way?"

Tom Cruise, I actually met around "Fast Times," because he was hanging out with a bunch of the actors, but I didn't think he'd remember me. But he called after "Say Anything ..." and said, "Man, I saw your movie, and if you ever have a part like Lloyd Dobler and felt like doing for me what you did for John Cusack, I'm first in line."

I was like, "Holy shit." That is the first and only star that had ever said anything like that to me. Most of the time, I would try to get a bigger name to help the movie out, and they'd be like, "Ah ... that's really hard for me to play and ..." You know, I understood their point of view. I've tried to get Johnny Depp to be in almost everything I've ever written, but it just never works out. It's a strange example, too, because he has been in such quirky stuff.

[Long pause] I don't know, maybe one day.

The thing about Cruise, though, is he approached that part like a character actor. He was a leading man that wanted to be a character actor. Usually it's character actors that want to play the lead that I get, which is cool.

Now playing: Read all the recent movie reviews by Salon's critics