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Nolan had three leads with wildly different styles of working. Pacino required rigorous rehearsals, long conversations about character, and numerous takes; Williams wanted many takes but minimal rehearsal; and Swank preferred to do simply a few takes and save her energy. Nolan's solution was to let Pacino and Williams experiment as much as they wanted while they worked alone. "The best actors," says Nolan, "instinctively feel out what the other actors need, and they just accommodate it."
Williams, an actor who has played more than his fair share of sentimental heroes, gives a reserved, surprisingly creepy performance as the hack novelist turned murderer. Says Williams: "Is it stunt casting? Maybe, but it puts people off guard, and Chris Nolan has this amazing sense, visually and dramatically, of always keeping the audience off guard."
Nolan lives in Los Angeles with his wife (and producing partner) Emma Thomas and their infant daughter. He's writing his next project, a biopic of Howard Hughes. Again he'll plumb the depths of human neuroses and take a funny man to the dark side--in this case, Jim Carrey as the reclusive billionaire. "It's about the extremes to which one man can live--the glamour, the wealth, then the claustrophobic unhappiness," says Nolan with the most benign smile possible.