Where did the idea for Broken Flowers come from?
Jim Jarmusch: I got this idea some years ago, from Sara Driver and Bill Raden, who were writing a script together about something completely different. They said, ‘Oh, we had this idea about a guy who gets a letter from a former lover – he had a lot of lovers – saying he’s had a kid. We thought you might like this idea, because we’re working on something else and we’re not going to write it.’ I said, ‘Really? I like this idea.’ So I carried it around with me for some years and the story came out of it. But there’s no deep reason for it; it’s not a burning issue – or even the burning issue of my film. LF: Was Bill Murray always going to star in the film? JJ: Bill and I were going to do another film that I wrote before Lost In Translation called Three Moons in the Sky. I came to Cannes, three years ago, I think, to raise money for the film. I got almost all the financing together. Bill liked the script very much. I went home and I realised, ‘Wow, it’s a great story but the script needs a
