D.A. That’s right. He’s a very interesting fellow. I’ve now spent quite a lot of time talking to him. The key to the whole thing, in many ways, was when I met Jay Roach, because I hit it off very well with him, and thought, “Here’s a very bright, intelligent guy.” Not only is he a bright, intelligent guy, but here’s a measure of how bright and intelligent he is: he wants me to work very closely on his movie. Which is always something that endears a writer to a director. In fact, when I was making the original radio series, it was unheard of to do what I did. Because I’d just written it. But I kind of inserted myself in the whole production process. The producer/director was a little surprised by this, but in the end took it in very good grace. So I had a huge amount to do with the way the program developed, and that’s exactly what Jay wants me to do on this movie. So I felt, “Great, here’s somebody I can do business with.” Obviously I’m saying that at the beginning of a process that’s going to take two years. So who knows what’s going to happen? All I can say is that at this point in the game, things are set as fair as they possibly could be. So I feel very optimistic and excited about that.

O. It’s been nearly twenty years since the radio program, right?

D.A. Well, it’s almost exactly twenty years. It’ll be twenty years next month.

O. What’s the enduring appeal of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?

D.A. Well, I don’t know. All I know is that I worked very hard at it, and I worried very much about it, and I think I made things very difficult for myself doing it. And if ever there was an easy way of doing something, I would find a much harder way to do it. And I suspect that the amount that people have liked it is not unrelated to the amount of work I put into it. That’s a simplistic thing to say, but it’s the best I can come up with.

O. Is the idea that the movie will cover the first book?