mediabistro.com recently spoke with LA Times columnist Steve Lopez about how The Soloist came out of his newspaper work, first as a book-length expansion of his articles about a homeless violin prodigy named Nathaniel Ayres and then as a motion picture in which the journalist is played by Robert Downey, Jr..

"I ignored most of the Hollywood calls when they started coming. I just didn't see it as a book when the calls started coming, let alone a movie. I was in the midst of this exhausting, frustrating, rewarding, wild adventure with Mr. Ayres and had no idea where it might take us. Whether I could help him, whether it was even helping him at all. When I started getting those calls, it was about six months into the story—that makes it about three and a half years ago, and I didn't even return the calls...

"It was an agent from Paradigm who works with my literary agent who said, 'Look, the calls are still coming. What if we pick two or three producers who I think would really make a good movie with good track records and credentials?' ... There was one two-man team that stood out. They wanted to meet Nathaniel [Ayres], they wanted to walk through skid row, and when I asked them how they saw the movie, they said it was a movie about a relationship. Two guys from completely different walks of life come into each others' lives serendipitously and have a huge impact on each other. I said, 'But it's complicated stuff and mental illness is a huge challenge, and you don't often see it treated or treated very well in a movie.' They said, 'We think we can make a compelling, enjoyable, watchable film that subtly addresses all of that. We don't need to end it with him conducting the LA Philharmonic.' I said, 'Okay, these are the guys.'"

The film, directed by Joe Wright from a screenplay by Susannah Grant, opens Friday.

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