Advertising is no more shady and cutthroat than the next profession. As a young advertising creative, you get ahead by getting your work onto TV. You are usually going head to head against other creatives who are in exactly the same situation as you. This breeds intense competition, bruised feelings, and rampant egoism. At the agency I work for, we like to say we're one big family; not referring to The Cleavers, more the Gambinos. There are many depictions of the advertising business in film or in books, but I have never seen an accurate representation. In Derailed, I think I got it just about right.
Every so often, I run across an article in a newspaper that I tuck away for future reference. I read an article five years ago, which involved a married man and a married woman, (not to each other) who met each other on the LIRR and finally decided to consummate their relationship at a midtown hotel. The are assaulted by a criminal, who proceeds to put two and two together and attempts to blackmail them. I thought it was a story dripping with irony, and a delicious starting point for a thriller. Also, as someone who takes the train every day, it's easy to muse on the possibilities of strange people haphazardly thrown together. It shows a similie of lives that can be thrown, well, off course. I grew up watching Hitchcock- and so many of his movies involved an ordinary Joe thrown into extraordinary circumstances. That kind of story is enormously appealing to us, because we can so easily put ourselves into the character's lives. We can stare transfixed at a life Derailed as if we're watching a horrific car accident in slow motion, but we ourselves are on the sideline, unhurt. It's vicarious and compelling drama.