I tried to make it truthful and honest and elevate the genre a little bit 
After making his dirt-cheap digital movie Tadpole with Sigourney Weaver, filmmaker Gary Winick has raised his game with a bigger budget, bigger cameras, and a bigger cast. Body-swapping comedy 13 Going On 30 marks his first mainstream outing, and stars Jennifer Garner and Mark Ruffalo.
What makes 13 Going On 30 different from the average romantic comedy?
I tried to make it truthful and honest, and elevate the genre a little bit. But I didn't try to add a layer of complexity or heart to it, because there are certain scenes that were always going to be geared to the younger girls in the audience, like the montages of makeup or dance numbers and stuff. But I liked the Garner/Ruffalo relationship and this quite universal theme about making choices.
Renée Zellweger was up for the lead role at one point, wasn't she?
That was before I got onboard the project. When Jennifer was attached to the movie, she chose me as director. She saw Tadpole and we sat down and talked about what I wanted to do with the movie. We were in the same boat together on this one, really, because it was her first leading role and my first big movie.
It must be nice to have Jennifer Garner call up out of the blue and ask you to direct her...
It wasn't quite like that! It was more like, "Let's have breakfast and let's talk and I'll consider you!"
There's a strange similarity between the age gap in 13 Going On 30 and those in Tadpole, isn't there?
It's funny. At the time I didn't see it, but lots of people have mentioned it to me. The kid in Tadpole is older and has to learn how to be a kid again; the girl in 13 Going On 30 is a kid who's made to become older. It's an interesting combination.
Jennifer Garner's really convincing as a teenager in an adult's body. Was that difficult to get right?
It wasn't that hard. She's generally a kid at heart, you know. But we talked a lot about how she had to play some moments more like a teenager than others. We basically had a chart of different degrees of behaviour from her 13-year-old self to her 30-year-old self. And then, as we were doing a scene or a shot, we'd just kind of bracket it on the chart as to what point she was at at that particular moment. You know, at this point she's 13, at this point she's a little older, a little younger, a little more awkward. It was difficult to hit the spot properly.
Were you surprised they chose you to direct 13 Going On 30?
After the Sundance experience and winning the audience award for Tadpole [in 2002], I was told this was going to happen. Then, when Tadpole came out and it didn't do as well as everyone expected, I kind of started to say: "Oh, I get it, I'm not as favourable as I was a couple of months ago, I'd better get a film." I had a window of opportunity, I guess, and I thought I'd better take it.
So what was the reaction of your friends and colleagues when you said you were off to Hollywood?
"You're selling out!" I have this company, InDigEnt, and I'm one of the pioneers of DV and a well-known low-budget filmmaker in New York - where I've revived things because New York's having a hard time making movies, especially low-budget films - so everyone sees me as this fixture there, and now here I am off to Hollywood. I said, "Look, I want to try this. I have this opportunity and I want to see what it's like." People like Steven Soderbergh go back and forth, and hopefully I will too.
You had to do quite a lot of work on the script, didn't you?
Yeah. When I read the script, it was this high concept, typically broad kind of movie. Me and Jennifer [Garner] said, "It's got to be about something, it's about wishing for something and thinking you'll be happy if you get that, and then realising that that's not what life's about. So Niels Mueller rewrote it. The studio was concerned that I'd turn it into an art film, and I was like, "You can't turn this into an art film! But I can hopefully elevate it and make it better than it is."
When you landed the film, did you watch any of the 80s body-swap movies [eg Big, Vice Versa] in preparation?
I did, and I always do. With Tadpole I looked at all the coming-of-age movies. 13 Going On 30 had elements of It's A Wonderful Life, elements of Wizard Of Oz, and elements of Big. Those were the three movies I put up there and aspired to.
What can you tell us about the live-action version of Charlotte's Web, which you're due to direct next year...
It's a story about trust and friendship and sacrifice, and those are such big things in my life. We're in pre-production - we haven't officially got the go-ahead from Paramount - but we've scouted in New Zealand and Australia, and I'm working every day with storyboard artists.
How are you going to portray the animals?
It's going to be a combination of the three [live-action, CGI, animatronic], and it's quite fascinating. We had a meeting with the animal trainer, the animatronics people and the computer effects people, and between them they've done every movie that's ever been done this way. And to just hear about the challenges of this movie... the big thing with this particular film, for me, is that the animals have to look really real. It's an intimate story, and people know what spiders, rats and pigs look like.
Having been through the Hollywood system now, do you ever think to yourself: I'd like to remake Tadpole with a bigger budget and better production values, and help the film find the audience it deserves?
Yeah, I do. A lot. When Miramax wanted to buy the film, the first thing they asked was did I want to change anything, and I said, "Yeah, I want to reshoot the whole thing!" It's funny, because that film has changed my life and I'm proud of it, but I definitely feel that it's not very good and I can do better. Actually, what's really funny is that someone approached me about making Tadpole - The Musical! I'm getting really excited about that.
