Did you know you’d be coming out the same month as the next chapter in that other movie franchise you started, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince?
We’re like the little tiny movie between my old friend Harry Potter and Transformers. It’s so ironic. But I decided to go back to my roots and do my homage to John Hughes in the middle of this particular summertime. I started to feel like as a director a little spoiled given these enormous budgets to do whatever I wanted. Although that’s fun, I thought I would like to do the kind of film I did when I first got out of film school. If I were a first-time director, what would I do? I’d write a picture either like Gremlins or Goonies, or I would direct a picture like Adventures in Babysitting. And suddenly, Beth Cooper came into focus as a companion piece to that first picture that I did.

Reading the book alone takes you back to Hughes films from the ‘80s such as The Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles.
I felt this enormous responsibility to pay some respect to one of the guys who gave me a big break in this business, John Hughes. Aside from dedicating the movie to him, it was a real homage to John because those movies inspired, everything from Ferris Bueller to Sixteen Candles to Planes, Trains & Automobiles. Although it’s not set in the ‘80s, it has kind of an ‘80s vibe. A lot of the kids I talk to, a lot of my kids’ friends and the kids I’m working with on Percy Jackson, they’re obsessed with the ‘80s. And this is a film they can actually pay for and get into – a kid who is 13 or 14 can actually go and see the movie without having to sneak into. That’s what those great John Hughes high school movies did.

Denis is a little like those 1980s characters. Maybe he won’t put the boombox over his head, but he does have Star Wars figures and skeletons in his room.
It would have been the Hollywood way to go with an attractive, handsome young guy and give him nerdy qualities. But I thought the physicality of Paul Rust was a real interesting choice for me because I knew those guys in high school. Well, hell, I was one of those guys. I’m not going to deny it – I was a complete and utter freak. I lived that kind of lifestyle so I knew what rejection was like and how it would have felt not to fit in.

We’ve seen Hayden as a cheerleader both in films and on TV, but do you feel she’s on the cusp of being a real movie star?
The thing about Hayden that was completely surprising to me is I didn’t realize she had such emotional depth as an actress. Aside from her incredible comedic timing, which I never really saw in Heroes, I wanted to make sure the [major] scene between Denis and Beth was toward the end of the schedule so we could chip away at the Beth Cooper facade and we actually see she’s harboring some deep emotional feelings. Hayden was really impressive in terms of her abilities as an actress to be very believable and very touching in those scenes.

You could connect with Beth Cooper because of the character and the John Hughes-yness. Does Percy Jackson come from a secret interest in Greek mythology?
No, that’s the real geeky side of me, like Denis Cooverman: I had an interest in Ray Harryhausen and all those movies. Jason and the Argonauts, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, I just love them and I grew up on them. Those along with the Hammer horror pictures were just a geek fest for me. We’ve never really seen monsters like Medusa and the Minotaur in the full-blown CGI glory that we can actually accomplish now. When people see Uma Thurman as Medusa, they’re just going to be blown away. It’s really cool.