LOS ANGELES?We just learned that the actor who plays Diesel, Bruno?s Asian lover in last weekend?s No. 1 movie at the US box-office, is a Filipino-American. And his name is Clifford Bañagale.

As the gay Austrian fashion reporter?s diminutive boyfriend, Clifford?s Diesel appears only at the start of the movie. But he and Sacha Baron Cohen quickly establish the outrageous and graphic tone of ?Bruno.?

In a montage, the petite Diesel and the very tall Bruno are shown engaging in lots of, shall we say, very creative sex positions. The montage is quite a memorable calling card for Clifford as an actor. Casting directors meeting Clifford for the first time will no doubt smile and say, ?Oh, so you were that guy with Bruno in those scenes??

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Francis Ford Coppola, the director behind such costly films as ?The Cotton Club,? ?Apocalypse Now? (which went over the budget during its tumultuous shoot in the Philippines), and the late Michael Jackson?s project for the Disney theme parks, ?Captain EO,? has returned to his small-budget movie roots with ?Tetro.?

It?s about the relationship of two brothers: Tetro (Vincent Gallo) who lives in Buenos Aires with his girlfriend, Miranda (Maribel Verdú); and Bennie (Alden Ehrenreich, whom many critics praised as a young Leonardo DiCaprio), the younger brother who visits as his cruise ship docks. The two brothers are refugees from their emotionally abusive monster of a father, Carlo (the great Klaus Maria Brandauer), a noted conductor. In one imagined flashback, Carlo steals Tetro?s girlfriend.

The film debuted in Cannes last May. Francis talked to reporters right after a screening of ?Tetro? in Beverly Hills. Below are excerpts:

This is a very personal film.

I wanted to make an emotional kind of film ... The story is not autobiographical but the situations and some of the things in it are. Someone really said that line about there can only be one genius in the family ...

How was your own relationship with your father? Did he steal your girlfriend?

Nothing in this movie is true (laughter) ... My mother always told me to be nice and respectful of women and so I was always very shy and respectful with them. Years later, they said, ?How come you never made a pass at me?? The man who has that talent, he?ll steal the girl from the other guy just because he can. Because that?s like in the animal kingdom. But no, my father was not like this father at all. Nothing in this story really ever happened. It?s just the feelings that are true.

So do you think there is only one room in the family for one genius?

Well, obviously, not in my family. My family is brimming to the top with talent. My father was a solo flutist for Toscanini. My uncle is a great operatic conductor. In my mother?s side, my grandfather was a composer. My other grandfather built the Vitaphone which made movies talk. My first cousin in Italy is Riccardo Muti. In the younger generation, there is Jason Schwartzman, Talia Shire and Robert Schwartzman who?s a fabulous rock star. And then there?s Nicolas Cage, of course, who?s a Coppola. So that line, ?There?s only one genius in the family? is meant to express the type of person who would be egotistical as not to give the other members of his family a chance.

You left out Sofia.

I left out Sofia only because I just came from her set today. She?s shooting a new film in Los Angeles.

What did you learn from writing and making ?Tetro??

Why did I write the story of a younger brother searching for an older brother? What was on my mind that I didn?t understand and what I learned was a lot of feelings that I had when I was younger? hurt feelings that I didn?t know I had because, of course, I had an older brother but he never left as in the story. But in some ways things like that did happen and it was helpful for me. I saw why my feelings were hurt about certain things. I made a movie like this twice. ?Rumble Fish? is about the young brother who admires the older brother, and now this.

I read once that you felt some sort of brotherly rivalry with George Lucas.

Well, in a funny way, yes ... I met George Lucas when he was 19. I thought he was so bright ... I tried to help him and produced his first things and encouraged him to write. He was frightened to write and so to see him so wonderfully successful, where he?s known all over the world, his films, ?Star Wars? are like an institution ... He?s even wealthier than Oprah. He?s gone far beyond my little puny wealth which is pretty good, so in a way, there is that rivalry but I?m really proud of him.

Can you talk about casting Vincent Gallo?

When I cast him, everyone said, ?Well, you?re crazy. This guy is nuts and he?s going to make you regret it.? But the truth was he was game, very intelligent ... I think he gets himself in trouble because he says some outrageous things. But he?s very nice and funny. It was a total pleasure to work with Vincent. I think he?s a wasted talent because he has been around for years ... but he?s a good actor.

Alden Ehrenreich is a brilliant find.

Alden was 17 when we cast him. He was never in a film. He was in a nice school here called Crossroads where they did plays. I was very excited that here?s someone who?s totally new, doesn?t have a lot of bad habits. I found him a very bright, precocious kid. I told him, ?Go home and take a paragraph from ?Catcher in the Rye? and read it to me the next day.? When he read it to me ? and this is one test for talent ? I knew the book but he made me think of things I never thought about before.

What do you think of the filmmakers we have today?

I can name 25 directors who make interesting films. Of course, the more successful ones are the Coen Brothers and the great Woody Allen who is so prolific. But then there?s a bunch of young talented filmmakers who want to make more personal films, are willing to have small budgets and that they don?t personally get paid a lot of money. The idea that a movie director is rich and lives in a big mansion in Beverly Hills and has four or five wives is an archaic idea because if you really love cinema, you?re not going to make a lot of money.

And if you really love your wife ...

If you love the wife, then you don?t have four. You have one and you save money that way.

What motivates you these days to keep making films?

Now that I?m in a position to finance my own films, I intend to write the stories myself ... If you ask me about the audience, of course, just as if I were making dinner for all of you, I would like you to like the dinner. I am not doing it for business. I am not doing it for career. I am not doing it to make money. I am doing it just out of the love of doing it.

E-mail the columnist at rvnepales_5585@yahoo.com and read his blog, ?The Nepales Report,? on http://blogs.inquirer.net/nepalesreport.