On October 12th, /Film had the chance to interview the bestselling author of Running With Scissors, Augusten Burroughs. Here is the complete transcript:

Question: How was it working with Ryan and adapting this great book?

Ryan Murphy: I keep praying he'll say 'oh he was a monster!'

(laughs)

Augusten Burroughs: It was from the very beginning... You know originally I had no intention of optioning Running with Scissors because I felt it would to easy to make a terrible movie out of that book. Something campy, something kitsch, something that didn't get IT, the depth, the real depth that I felt my mother... Ryan was very persistent, phoning my agent, emailing him. I thought I'd meet him and just explain that, you know, I love your tenacity BUT here's why it's not going to happen.

Augusten Burroughs: In the conversation he shared some stories, personal stories, about his relationship with his mother. Our mothers were so strikingly similar in so many ways. In dreams of greatness, in dreams of a better life. And we responded to our mothers. Ryan and I had so many parallels. It was such an amazing experience, that lunch and I said 'yes, you can.' And he hadn't done Nip/Tuck at that point and I hadn't seen Popular. I knew of it, and I heard it was critically acclaimed, but I hadn't seen it. So in a sense, it was like flying blind, however my gut instinct said Do this, and there was no doubt in my gut. And I always, always, even though I argue with it, I always trust my gut. I always trust my instincts. I have to say, all through the process, you hope for the best, and of course it's going to be a movie now so it's out of my hands.

But Ryan just reels me back in, I'm like a fish. He called me every day, or ever other day - constantly calling me and saying 'It says on page 35 that such and such happens, and I turn the page to 36 and it's a whole new chapter. Give me page 35 and a half. What happened? What did you do?' You see, Ryan use to be a journalist, so he's very good at extracting information and stories. He's very easy to talk to so it didn't feel like work to me. But he was sitting there at the other end taking notes, while I talked. At one point he said to me 'I need a list of all the contents of your house. If you don't know the name brands of the furniture and rugs, it's okay just describe it the best you can.' And I got to the set and there was my oaker plastic record player that I haven't seen since I was eleven. And that's the level of attention to detail. I use to boil my money, my change to get it clean and shiny and I got to the set and there was a jar of pennies and not one of them was dated after 1978. Assistants worked for four days, the prop person told me, looking for pennies. And Ryan said to them, 'If I reach my hand in this jar, and I pull one out and it's past 1979, someone's gonna lose their job!'

The level of attention to detail, and he said to me - are you comfortable, do you like this, do you like this... It was just amazing. It was just the opposite of what you hear, the traditional Hollywood horror story. You know, where the movie is just hijacked, and the movie and the book have nothing in common and the author runs around distancing himself from the movie. I mean, I loved the wonderful process and Ryan - treated my story, even though it's his movie, and his vision, he treated it... he wouldn't do a thing unless I was comfortable with it and, that's not necessary. And it's not the way business works. And it's not the way the modern world works. And that just tells you what Ryan Murphy is like.

And the result is the movie. And I'm just thrilled with this movie, when I saw it, I was just devastated emotionally, but in a good way. I just didn't expect to be hit so hard emotionally. Because A I lived it, B I wrote the book, and C I toured with the book and talked about it, I don't know how many times. It just felt so incredibly fresh watching Annette Bening and Alec Baldwin fight in that scene in the kitchen. That brought back, I could smell that kitchen. It was so close to life. There were so many things in this movie are so close to life it just makes me shiver. And I think he did an amazing job with it so I could not be happier.

Question: You say it was so close to life, I loved all the great eccentric characters you have... With the book and the film, I know there was some trouble with a lawsuit. How close are the characters from your real life experiences? How real is the ending result of the film?

Augusten Burroughs: I think it's a very good representation. The book was the truth. I didn't make up that book. That book is the true story. No matter what lawsuit, or whatever anybody says, that is the truth. And I was never concerned that the movie incorporate every scene the book had. I just wanted the movie to have the same soul as the book so that when you saw the movie, you were left with a specific feeling or set of feelings that are accurate and so the audience would know what it felt like to be me at that time, and I think it did that.

My mother and Annette Bening have a physical resemblance, but they never met and to the best of my knowledge, Annettes never seen a picture of my mother, and she's never heard her speak. And Annette is stunningly stunningly close to my mother.

Brian Cox, Dr. Finch... My partner Dennis has seen the doctor, pictures of the doctor. He's seen personal pictures that I have that have not been released, and never will be released to the public. And Brian Cox walked into the room at a party and Dennis grabbed my arm because he could see that I was just going to fall over. He was stunningly realistic. It's incredible.

Joe Cross, you know, he was not setting out to mimic me. This wasn't Capote where he's trying to get my mannerisms and plus it was many years ago. He's playing somebody that doesn't exist anymore, I was much younger at the time. But Joe Cross is at 18, when he did this, he is very - he has a strong sense of self. And he's fully formed as a person. He has an odd maturity for his age that is, I'm sure, beyond his years. And I'm sure he's the type of person that would have survived my childhood. He's got the emotional and intellectual properties that would have allowed him to survive my childhood. And because of that, it's actually very accurate.

Question: You say you had a great experience with the filmmaking process which is, rare. Would you be willing to have any of your other properties, your other books, developed into a feature film now?

Augusten Burroughs: I think from this I've learned, In some way I'm more open to the experience, but I'm also much more cautious. I would only option my work if I had that same feeling that I had with Ryan again. That same gut instinct. All the rational arguments in the world, all the big name directors in the world and all the money in the world just won't make me change that. If it's not right in my gut, I'm just not going to do it. I don't want to be stuck with some dud attached to me, something that's not me. If my book is a dud, I can live with that because it's my fault - I wrote it. But having to live with some fucking director's dud movie, I just can't stand that. You know, I would, if I had that feeling. Sellovision I optioned, and I do think that's gonna turn out well. It's on a slower course of development. They're getting the financing for it now, and they're starting to think about casting. I read the script, the original script. It's been a while since I read it, but I loved it. It's a great script. They did a great job with it. So, we'll see.

Question: In both of your work, you guys dabble with relationships, friends and what-not. I wanted to ask you both what you liked most about writing about relationships. What is it about relationships and the emotional messiness of it?

Augusten Burroughs: For me, I think that I spent a long time after my experience growing up with (???) people and being too much of a loner and isolating myself too much. I write a lot about relationships because it's always something that I struggle with. I crave it, and I'm mistrustful of love. The focus of my life really has been cobbling together a family of people out of the scraps of what I have left. The people around me, family has always been very important in terms of security. Those are things that drive me. I'm obsessed now, Ryan and I started talking and somehow this came up but Christina Onassis, with all her billions of dollars.

Ryan Murphy: I told him... The short version of..

Augusten Burroughs: I mean, I didn't know anything about this until Ryan told me about it yesterday. And it's so true, because you can have everything and feel bad because you don't have love. [To Ryan] Tell them that one thing about...

Ryan Murphy: Oh, she had this guy that she dated, and she gained like 300 pounds or something and she paid him $100,00 per sex act.

Augusten Burroughs: Because she wanted that intimacy. She would let herself be degraded and humiliated... I mean, it was really nothing for her, it's like ten bucks. I mean, but relationships, thats everything, that's the absolute heart of everything. Our society is very obsessed with money, with financial and commercial success but it's emotional relationships that drive absolutely everything. That's everyone's Achilles heel.

Question: What's the best advice you’ve been given?

Augusten Burroughs: I haven’t been given a lot of good advice in my life. I really haven’t. Any wisdom I have came from scraping it out on the street myself, but like Ryan, never give up. I never gave up. When I set my mind to something that was absolutely it. I would never ever give up!

Running With Scissors hits theaters on October 20th 2006.