On October 12th, /Film had the chance to interview the director of Running With Scissors, Ryan Murphy (Nip/Tuck, Popular). Here is the complete transcript:

Question: What did you find most fun about adapting the book, and what did you find most challenging about adapting the book?

Ryan Murphy: The most challenging this was, when I read the book I absolutely worshiped the book. I loved every page, I loved everything about it. There was not one flaw in that book. And I went through the book like the bible, I had a highlighter - highlighting the things I wanted to put in it. And I realized at the end that the whole thing was a mass of yellow highlighted.

Ryan Murphy: The hard thing for me was I could not, and I looked at it... If I were to adapt that book and kept all the things I wanted in it, it would have been 300 page script. Which of course, I could not make. So I just decided, for me, the thing I related to the most was the mother son relationship and we spent time working on that. And that became the core for me. The hardest part whenever you're dealing with anything that is so brilliantly written and a classic is, if you read this, a lot of people will have their favorite things or sometimes Augusten and Natalie go to a nursing home and they're singing. Which I loved but it was not about Annette (Bening), and I wanted everything to be about the mother and the son, and how he was trying to get back to her or save her. The problem is there is an abundance of riches, and that was my biggest problem in adapting it.

Question: And there were some character who weren't in it...

Ryan Murphy: There were two characters who weren't in it. Augusten's Brother, I loved that part but he was never living ever at the Finch house. So I thought that had to go. But I would always talk with Augusten and say 'this is the reason I'm not putting this in, what do you think' and we'd talk about it because I told him, this is your life and I'm not going to do anything unless you approve. And if there is anything you don't want, I won't do it. So we kinda had that pact, which made it a lot easier.

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?

Ryan Murphy: Well I always like to in all of my work - I challenge you to love me. I love people that are really really flawed. Who are sort of struggling with filling up their life with a bunch of crap that isn't important. Like Annette's character who wants to be famous, thinking that fame will make her pain go away. I do the same thing on the tv show with plastic surgery. People getting all this plastic surgery, thinking if you look a lot better then maybe somebody will love you. And of course that is not the case. I just enjoy deconstructing the myth of our culture in my writing.

Question: A little off topic, but in 2005 it was announced that you, Ryan, would be writing and directing a post Watergate Richard Nixon movie. And now Ron Howard is doing the Frost/Nixon movie. I was just wondering what the status of your project was?

Ryan Murphy: Mine shoots next fall. I'm writing it, I've cast it. I have my whole cast. It's going to be Meryl (Streep), Annette Bening, Gwyneth Paltrow, Brad Pitt and Jill Clayburgh, and Sharon Stone and Jim Broadbent. It's about the women in Watergate, it's very different that Ron Howard's movie. I love Ron Howard's movie, that was about what a nightmare Nixon was to get the rights for the Frost interview, and the negotiations back and fourth for that. Mine is really much more about one of the first Cassandra's of our century.

Augusten Burroughs: You know, that's what I think is Ryan's... Ryan, talk about Women in Hollywood rightfully complain that their are no roles for them. Look at Running With Scissors. There are four generations of enormously powerful roles for women. Evan, Gwyneth, Annette and Jill. Ryan is really wonderful at directing women. You know, respectfully.

Ryan Murphy: But that movie is really about a woman who said our government is corrupt, and why is no one believing me. Why is no one seeing that this Tricky Dicky Nixon is insane. And everyone's like you're crazy. And I also think it's the perfect time to make this movie. We'll shoot it next fall and put it out next fall. And after that, I'm doing this movie with Julia Roberts called Eat, Pray, Love based on the book. So I'm keeping all these gals employed.

Question: What's the best advice, you've each been given in your lives?

Ryan Murphy: Two things. One, you know, the people who are successful, particularly in Hollywood are the people who don't give up. And I think that is really true. And the thing that I know, someone once told me this great thing... it only takes one yes to change your life. And I think that's been really true for me. The power of one yes. You work for years, and you get all these no's and one person believes in you and your whole life can turn around. People need to wait for that one yes. And I think this can apply to anybody. My Yes was Steven Spielberg, so it was a big fucking yes. And you get No, you've got no talent, and you're tone is so weird, and the way you see the world is so weird. And he was like, I like how you see the world, yes. And I have not stopped working since. I think our careers are like that. We do very unusual things that are very specific, but they are so specific that they become universal. A lot of people do things really broad, and I never think that anything I am going to do is going to be succesful because it’s so speific but it becomes a success. But you know, a lot of people seeing Running With Scissors, say, ‘My family was just like that!’ And you know, it can’t possibly be, but they come away with some truth relevant to them.

Augusten Burroughs: They relate to the emotions.

Question: Could you talk a little bit about your Yes with Spielberg?

Ryan Murphy: Well I wrote the script based on a breakup I was going through at the time called Why Can’t I Be Audrey Hepburn? It’s this great soufle of romantic comedy and it was close to her death, and he bought the script and we wroked on it. It never got made. It had every female star in Hollywood attached to it—right before they became big stars. Renee Zellwegger, Jennifer Aniston wanted to do it … Halle Berry wanted to do it. It was thrilling to sit in a room with him and basically have him talk about movies.

Running With Scissors hits theaters on October 20th 2006.