EW: The Rainmaker seems very tapped into America's current skepticism about lawyers and the legal system.
GRISHAM: I'm afraid to admit that that's a lot of me. You know, most of the things that happen to Rudy [Baylor, the lawyer in the story] are pretty realistic. You see some lawyers doing some awfully sleazy things trying to get cases, but they're done every day. Lawyers hang out in hospitals. They chase ambulances down to disasters. They do all that stuff, and most lawyers would rather be doing something else altogether. By the time you're 30, you're thinking, ''Man. I've got this for the rest of my life.'' It's high-pressure work. It's not sexy. It's not glamorous. It's not the O.J. trial.
EW: Do you think that people watching the Simpson trial think it's glamorous, or is it just making them cynical?
GRISHAM: Our legal system has never been here before--there's never been anything this big. So who knows what the fallout's going to be? I don't believe polls, but I think this one's fairly accurate: 80 percent of the American people think he's guilty. And he's gonna walk out, either because he's found not guilty or because of hung juries. He's gonna get his kids back, and can you imagine his book deal? But he'll come out of this okay, and everyone'll think he's guilty. So, in California, you could have drastic measures to curb the rights of criminal defendants, which is not good.
EW: How do you think the prosecution and defense teams are coming across?
GRISHAM: I don't think those lawyers are going to inspire anybody to go to law school. I'm serious. I haven't been inspired by anything I've seen. They just look bad--especially his defense team. I don't know how anybody could believe a word those guys are saying. I'm sure there'll be some aimless college kids who think, ''Okay, I'll go into law because I've been watching O.J. all day long.'' But it's hard to imagine too many people being inspired by what they see.
EW: In The Rainmaker, Rudy's future in law is uncertain, and many of your characters leave the law for new lives. Do you plan to revisit any of them?
GRISHAM: The moment The Firm was published, everyone said, ''Oh God, where's the sequel? You cannot leave these people on the run.'' Honestly, I never thought about it. In Pelican, Julia Roberts is on the run. In The Rainmaker, I know what's going to happen to Rudy. He'll find something else [to do], and it won't be worth writing about.
EW: So there are no plans for him to bump into Tom Cruise or Julia Roberts?
GRISHAM: Well, maybe. I don't know. There was a proposal recently to tie in two of my characters on the run in a future movie, and I'd write the script. I said, ''No, it's not gonna work.'' It's a recipe for disaster. The Firm 2 would sell a lot of copies, but it's not something I want to do. But 10 years from now when I have writer's block, I might resurrect some of these guys.
EW: Speaking of Hollywood, what kind of control would you like to have over your movie adaptations?
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