Q:  Lucky deals with a number of themes, and has a number of wonderfully drawn characters.  What was the inspiration to write the story -- did you start with the sexual confusion, or did you find the characters first and then find out the story?
A: I actually started out with an idea for a play about sexual jealousy based around a young, recently-married couple. Up until Lucky, my writing had been more based around the 'institutional' rather than the 'personal'. I guess I wanted to write about young people in a more intimate way. In 2000 I wrote some chunky monologues made up of a young guy's secret thoughts and insecurities. I later set these on the toilet. Then the sexual confusion idea came in, inspired by all sorts of people and experiences. Sam just evolved out of all that. It was the first time I had written anything with such a prominent main character - before Lucky I had concentrated on ensemble stories. Finally came the football, inspired by my own experiences of playing in useless teams with great spirit. And talking of spirit, the pub scenes are also drawn from personal experience of suburban public houses and their faulty jukeboxes, underage drinkers, and brilliantly appalling interior design.

Q:  Pubbing . . .football (meaning the kind played with the feet) . . . "public houses" -- clearly the book is set close to your home, and not in America.  What do you think of the difference between the two cultures?  What do you think American audiences will make of Sam's world?
A: I think pub culture is very British, with all its good bits and its considerable bad bits. It's not uncommon for kids aged fifteen to go boozing in their local pub; it's a part of most of our lives from early on.  Our social lives revolve around pubs and alcohol, not diners or cafes.  I think our secondary schools are very different to the American high schools. Although there are divisions and groups, I don't think they are as clearly defined or as exclusive as in some high schools. I hope American audiences will appreciate the similarities between Sam's world and their own, even if, at face value, it seems alien.

Q:  Sam's voice is so vivid and compelling -- everyone I know who's read the book has found him utterly charming in a not-trying-to-be-charming-and-thus-even-more-charming way.  Where did his character and his voice come from?  What was it like to write from his point of view?
A: Of course there's some of me in Sam, but it's true to say there's some of me in Brenda, Toby and Harry. And I share Lucy's fondness for the Carry On films. It's hard to say where his character and voice came from - I think, having written a few plays before, I knew what would make a central character engaging and likeable. In the early notes, Sam was a lot cockier and less nervous, but I realized that his occasionally bumbling nature is part of his charm.  Writing from his point of view was, at first, quite tricky. Although it's written in the first person, I don't think I'm as indecisive and chaotic as Sam. But once I'd completed the first draft, his character was very clear in my head and I found it less of a challenge to reel off some thoughts and dialogue that sounded genuinely Sam-like, not Eddie-like. 

Q:  I've got to ask -- how do you feel you're like Brenda?  She's quite a force of nature.
A: I can be as bullish as her sometimes. And we're both very keen to offer advice, even when we're not entirely sure what we're talking about. If she's a hurricane, I'm a tidal wave. Which makes Harry an earthquake.

Q:  What part of Lucky do you feel is closest to your life?  What's farthest from it?
A: The love of football is definitely close to my life. I'm afraid to say the ability to play to a good level, like Sam does, is farthest. 

Q:  Lucky started out as a one-act play.  What was it like to adapt the story from one form to another?
A: Strange, but good. During rehearsals for the play, lots of ideas came up as regards where I could take the characters and the story. But we were limited by the constraints of fringe theatre, so we could only show so much. It's been an organic process taking the characters and storyline from a short play and developing them into a more rounded piece of work, and it's been kind of liberating to develop something quite short into something not so short, from one medium to an entirely different one. It took a while to learn about the technical differences between prose and play. I don't prefer one form over the other, but I do like the way the novel leaves more to its audience's imagination, and the way that, as a writer, you can explore areas and ideas that would be very tricky on a stage - for instance, the flashbacks and the London Aquarium scene.

Q:  What are some of the writers who've had the biggest influence on you?
A: Julian Barnes, particularly Metroland. Raymond Chandler. The British songwriter and lyricist Paul Heaton. Charles M. Schulz. A Brazilian poet called Carlos Drummond Andrade. Roald Dahl. The playwright Mark Ravenhill (particularly Shopping & F***ing). And the Czech playwright-turned-President Vaclav Havel's The Memorandum.

Q:  Besides Ernest Saves Christmas, which films have influenced your work?
A: Well, I got the name of the football team - Litton Park FC, that is - from the character of Sir Charles Lytton in The Pink Panther; I would have to say all the Inspector Clouseau films have played their part in whatever it is I can call 'my style' - Peter Sellers is a favourite. The anarchy of the Marx Brothers is an influence. The so-called British kitchen-sink movies of the 1950s and 60s such as The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner and Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. Ferris Bueller's Day Off. The films of Swedish director Lukas Moodysson - particularly Together. The Australian film Lantana. And if anyone ever tells you Santa Claus isn't real, watch Ernest Saves Christmas  and prepare to believe.

Q:  There are a lot of great musical references throughout Lucky.  What were you listening to as you wrote it?  And what are your all-time favorites?
A: As I wrote the play, I was listening to 0898 by The Beautiful South, and The Jam also. As I wrote the final draft of the book, The Wannadies' Bagsy Me was in the CD player, an album which has a lot to say about growing-up in a small town. Various Beastie Boys albums were also listened to - mainly the greatest hits album The Sounds of Science and 1998's Hello Nasty. All of those bands feature in my "all-time favorites," along with: EMF, who were a massive influence in lots of different ways; Madness; The Kinks; Pulp; Mel Tormé; Pet Shop Boys; Duran Duran; Blur; Q-Tip; Beach Boys; Garbage; Marliyn Manson; Ben Folds Five; David Bowie; early Madonna; my brother Marcelo's music; and a lot lot more.

Q:  There is also a book named Lucky by Jackie Collins -- any connection?
A: The connection is threefold: one, Jackie and I go back a long way - she taught me all I know about the three-act structure and how to create believable teenage characterization; second, I consider Jackie a big influence on my fashion style; third, we're both members of an exclusive, members-only poker club. I believe I may have been the inspiration for her 1989 novel The World Is Full of Divorced Women. 

Q:  What are you working on now?
A: A second book for PUSH, about a Texan teenager who spends his summers visiting dad in London, where he experiences first love with an older English woman. As I said before, Jackie Collins and I are very similar. I'm also working on a short film called Driving Through Snow, which I've written and will be directing in 2004.

Q:  And our final, musical question .... How soon is now?
A: Ask me tomorrow.