The making of 'The Soloist'

British filmmaker Joe Wright on directing his first American project...

“I liked the script very much. I didn’t really feel like I had much right to make a film that was so much about America, and yet I was intrigued enough to get on a plane and come to L.A. Then I met Steve Lopez outside the L.A. Times, and he took me on a walk down Skid Row, and there I met some extraordinary people. And then we went to Lamp [a charity that assists the city’s homeless, mentally ill people], and there I met some even more extraordinary people. I felt quite at home there, really, certainly more at home than I do in Beverly Hills, where the real monsters live. So meeting the members of Lamp, I decided that I’d make the film, on the condition that I was allowed to have them teach me how to make the film, and that we’d make the film with them rather than just about them.”