'Road' Warrior

Who or what influenced your writing?
When I wrote [''Perdition''] in the early ''90s, I was really in the sway of Hong Kong action films -- particularly John Woo. I even have a sliding-down-the-banister scene in there, which is me overtly waving at him saying, ''Look! I know your movies.'' I thought he was doing something really remarkable by combining family melodrama with wild, over the top, Sam Peckinpah-type action. I thought it would play really well in an American story and a graphic novel, so it's extremely intense and meant to be disturbing.

Can you give us an example?
I had scenes where people are getting stabbed in the eye and other really nasty stuff. I took this character, who's doing these awful things, and then contrasted that with the tenderness he has with his son as they go to churches and pray. They still used that to a degree, but it's easier to buy Tom Hanks in the role without making him cross TOO far into extreme violence.

Paul Newman plays a mobster named John Rooney, but the character received a name change. You used John Looney.
What came back to me was that it was too comic book-y. It seems like the kind of crazy thing I would do, and it was in a way. You've got to remember, I wrote ''Dick Tracy'' for 15 years and I'm the creator of characters with great names like Putty Puss. I couldn't resist it. But John Looney was a real Rock Island gangster, and this whole chain of events and this novel began with my being attracted to the name John Looney -- specifically, Looney. So I don't understand that change.

In both the graphic novel and the film, we get constant allusions to famed gangster Al Capone. In the movie, we never actually get to see the man but in your book he's a supporting character.
He's a presence in the film. They actually shot a scene with Anthony LaPaglia as Capone. It's one of a number of scenes that hit the cutting room floor, not because it wasn't good, but because Mendes is really a meticulous craftsman. If the movie can work without [a character], then it gets cut. And it works without Capone. I can live with that.

The movie and your graphic novel end differently. In your version, the boy has already killed and Michael appears to have failed to save his son. In the movie, however, Hanks' mission to save his son succeeds and he kills his murderer so the boy doesn't have to.
I think they should have done my ending. The punch line of the book is that the boy goes a very positive way later in his life -- he becomes a priest. The novel is a reminiscence of the adult Michael. Because of that, we find out what Michael has become at the end of the story. [In the movie, narrated by the boy, we don't.] If I could wave a magic wand and have any change, I would have an adult narrator like the novel. One with a familiar voice, so we know who the actor it is immediately. At the end, you see that actor as an adult. Very ''Stand By Me''-ish. In fact, Jack Lemmon was approached to play the narrator. If they had shot that, with [Lemmon] gone now -- think of the power that would have had.