Drama In Reel Life

By Coeli Carr

Paul Haggis, 53, has had a long run in Hollywood, including an Emmy in 1988 for writing the TV show thirtysomething and an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for Million Dollar Baby. The hits keep on coming: last month he picked up two Oscars--Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay--for his work on Crash, his gritty film exploring racial differences. He wrote the screen-play for Clint Eastwood's film Flags of Our Fathers and also one for the new James Bond adventure, Casino Royale. Now he's working on a TV series. Haggis spoke with TIME's Coeli Carr about his brush with mortality and life after 50.

How did you segue from TV to film?

I'd been trying for many years. In 2000 I got very tired of doing television. It was sort of eating a hole in my soul. I was 47 at the time, and I saw 50 approaching, and that was a big number. I called my agent and said, "O.K, I'm going to turn 50 in a few years. If we don't get a movie made by then, you're fired."

Did you have some kind of epiphany?

Yes. It was the story for Crash. I had been haunted for 10 years by two men who had broken into my car. I really wondered who they were. I felt driven to write about them from their point of view. I woke up at two o'clock in the morning one day. I stayed up all night and had the story and all the characters worked out by 10 a.m. I didn't know if it was a movie. I tried to pitch it as a TV series. I just knew it was important.

While making Crash, you had a heart attack. You were back in two weeks.

As artists, that's what we do. We live to create art. If we're not going to finish it, what's the point?

Did you suspect that your body was telling you to slow down?

No. We did the operation, and the doctor said, "I'm sorry, but I can't let you go back. It's too much stress." I said, "I totally understand. So how much stress do you think it'll be for me to be sitting at home while, say, another director finishes my film?" We had a nurse on the set.

Since your middle-of-the-night awakening in 2000, how is life different for you?

I'm taking more risks. I absolutely realize that taking a risk is the only way to do it. You just know what you want, and so you're not wasting a lot of time on things that would have been fun 10 years ago but which are not what you want to spend two years of your life on now. I walk away from a lot of things.

What's the most dangerous notion middle-aged people fall prey to?

This belief we should be working toward retirement. The only reason to retire is if you're doing something you don't like. People should ask themselves what they wanted to do when they were 12. What was that dream?

Don't people want to wind down?

Winding down is tantamount to failure. Clint Eastwood is 75, and he's not winding down. I think we do that if we haven't accomplished what we want or if our dreams have escaped us. That almost happened to me. Look at Walter Cronkite. He said that his biggest regret was retiring at 65.

What are your priorities?

It became very important to only do projects that really mattered to me, that asked questions I was curious about but questions I didn't necessarily have answers to. I don't think movies should be about answers or statements. I think they should be about questions--especially troubling ones. o