Then in, I think, '87, '88, the long dormant option of making a film with Awakenings surfaced, rather suddenly, and I was approached, I think it was at Halloween in '88, they said Peter Weir had been very taken by the subject, he would be visiting New York and hoped to meet me, and they would be sending a script to me.

I'm sorry, I've omitted something which is that the... obviously there was a visit the previous year with the two producers and a script writer, a man called Steve Zaillian. I... but I hadn't seen any scripts, and suddenly here was a script and a film director. If only there had been more time. The script arrived as I’ve said, in fact, on Halloween night and... which is sometimes called Fright Night in America, and I think this partly tainted my reaction to the script which... this original script, which I thought was melodramatic and... and frightful in the extreme and designed to cause fright and was, sort of, a Halloween version of Awakenings. And then the next day Peter Weir came, and this was very unfortunate, he was a director whom I greatly admired, but I could not accuse and abuse the... the script strongly enough, and he said, well, I can hardly make a film, you know, where the author hates the script. And... but he also said that he wasn't sure that he... how did he put it, he had some Australian phrase, only someone who lives in Australia... reefs... shoals and reefs, yes. He said that he felt there would be many shoals and reefs in making a film about Awakenings.

Incidentally I have... I always visited Peter when I went to Australia and he visited me here and we've been good friends, and I... I love his work.