Was it a conscious decision to make a more mainstream movie after "The Opposite of Sex"?

It was a conscious decision to make a different type of movie, but I didn't realise it was more mainstream until after. I wanted to do one without irony. A movie that was very simple and where I, as a director, was not visible. "Bounce" is about the characters without me intruding with a voice-over or any tricks.

What are the main themes of the movie?

It's definitely a love story. The important message of the movie is about taking a chance on love, and taking a chance on being honest with the person you love. But the idea of fate, and the small things that we do or don't do that totally change our life is really a huge part of the movie, and accepting that many things are out of our control.

How did the movie change from how you originally envisioned it when you started filming?

A lot of different things happen when the actors come on board because suddenly they are the characters you may have spent a year writing. You feel that you know them but as soon as the actors say one word of your script, the characters change. You are living with this breathing animal, you forget what your original intention was.

Did you have to make artistic compromises along the way for the studio to achieve the widest audience possible?

No, they are not artistic compromises at all - they are decisions that you make to appeal to a broad audience. So sometimes an edge that alienates your audience too much has to be softened. This is a process that happens in any movie. You make a movie that you think works a certain way but you are just one person. You show it to an audience and you begin to discover that what you intended doesn't quite work so you have to shape it in the post-production process.

Read interviews with Ben Affleck and Gwyneth Paltrow.