Last week I sat down with Robert D. Seigel, the writer/director of the upcoming film Big Fan starring Patton Oswalt, about a hardcore New York Giants football fan, who is beaten up by his favorite player and has to deal with the consequences. Many people know Seigel for his award winning screenplay, which brought Mickey Rourke back to like film, The Wrestler.

His latest film is strongly reminiscent of his previous work and it has already been nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, and although it’s not what he would call “Oscar bait” (you need Kate Winslet or WWII backdrop for that apparently), this film will most likely be seeing some awards around the end of the year.

Below we talk about how he went about casting Oswalt in his first serious role, why he loves obsessive characters, and resisting Hollywood clichés…

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