Sandra Bullock was the first of the actors to be cast in the movie. "When I looked at 'While You Were Sleeping' and 'Hope Floats,"' says Di Novi, "I saw that she was able to make the characters very accessible. No matter what Sandra does on screen, you identify with her."

Bullock was very excited about the script. "I loved the idea that the integral part of this story is about two sisters who are essentially torn apart. They are just so opposite, but they really need each other. It's like a gene was split in half and, without each other, they can't function."

For Sally's sister, the filmmakers wanted Nicole Kidman. "Nicole is someone who can play extreme, complex characters and bring them to life in a way that they seem totally real and not fabrication," says Di Novi. "She is also very magnetic and compelling, which Gillian has to be."

"Gillian is the wild one," says Kidman. "She chooses to leave home because the people there ridicule her and her sister for being different. I think that is one of the more important themes that Alice looks at in her book-that you should embrace your eccentricity and individuality rather than attempt to conform to what people expect you to be."

"Sally is, in a way, schizophrenic," elaborates Bullock. "She would like to be normal, but she's not. In fact, she's spent her entire life trying to be 'normal.' Her problems arise from her denial of what makes her special."

"Sandra and Nicole complement each other very well," says Dunne. "They play off each other even though they have very different energies. They want to get across, as I do, not just the tender warm aspects of families, but the stuff we are more familiar with-the fighting, the backbiting, the conflicts, the insecurities and the frailties. They are both fearless actresses who are willing to try anything."

"Griffin has a weird and wonderful sense of humor," says Kidman. "It's such fun working with a director who has a sense of the ridiculous and a sense of the macabre."

"Nicole always seemed like the perfect person to play Gillian," comments Sandra. "I think it's because we are so opposite, our energies are so opposite, that we needed what the other person had. We have a really strong affection for one another and I don't know where that came from. There's a connection and it produced the chemistry we needed to play sisters."

"It's hard to analyze," concludes Kidman. "I think it's because we have the same sense of humor. As long as I have that with someone then ultimately, everything else just falls into place."

In casting the two aunts, the filmmakers were looking for actresses who could play the sometimes gentle, sometimes screwball humor while still possessing the stature to play strong, dignified women -- qualities found in abundance in both Dianne Wiest and Stockard Channing.

The director comments, "I have known both Dianne and Stockard for years and I have always admired their work. I wanted the aunts to be funny and I knew that with actresses like this, you give them the part, they come up with their own stuff and you never have to worry about them again."

Channing remarks, "Dianne and I have known each other for a really long time, because we both came to New York at the start of our careers. But we've never actually gotten to work together. I must say we make a very funny pair. We're good friends and it all came together very easily and quickly."

Wiest says, "It's funny - as an actor, I sometimes feel a little like an outsider, an observer. But the Owens women, we're really more than outsiders. We're actually feared and hated. It's more than people not wanting to socialize with you-they actually cross the street to avoid you. And as a target of this ostracism, you have a choice: you can just smile and keep on saying 'hello,' or just shrug it off, acknowledging it as a way of life. But what you can't do is deny who you are, which is what Sally has tried to do all of her life."

Channing adds, "According to my character, being 'normal' is just a lack of imagination."

The character of Gary Hallet is a very rare kind of man - a classic hero's strength tempered with a sensitive heart. "We chose Aidan because he has a very poetic feeling about him," says Di Novi, "but he is also very grounded, warm and manly."

The actor also responded to the poetry of Hoffman's story. Quinn states, "There is a fable-like quality to the story. It's basically just saying that you can use magic in everyday life. I mean, I'm working with Griffin and a great cast and almost feel guilty getting paid; that seems a little magical, doesn't it?"

When Goran Visnjic was suggested for the role of Jimmy, it inspired Dunne to rethink the role. "It was originally written as a redneck cowboy with a kind of Texan drawl. However, when Goran's name came up, I suddenly realized how much more interesting it would be to have a Jimmy that had come to this country and had fallen in love with the cowboy myth. He has created a bad guy role for himself straight out of a Louis L'Amour book."

Visnjic found Jimmy to be an interesting mix of Old World and new. He explains, "Jimmy came from Bulgaria to the United States and became obsessed with American culture. He drives a convertible, wears boots and a vest. But he brought a darkness with him, and he begins to develop strange magic - a black magic, you know? And after he meets Gillian, she becomes the center of his life; he cannot survive without her. When she tries to leave him, that just brings out all of the darkness in him."