Broken legs, not broken hearts for new Ephron movie

The woman behind hits like "Sleepless in Seattle

," "You’ve Got Mail" and "When Harry Met Sally" describes her latest directorial venture "Lucky Numbers" as a "darkish comedy."

It is about a gang of dumb, foul-mouthed, small-town celebrities who embark on a hare-brained scam to win the state lottery that ends in three killings after detours into strip clubs and sleazy sex.

What Ephron fans will make of her departure into a world of broken legs rather than broken hearts is not something that is keeping this quick-witted writer and director awake at nights.

"Oh, I think they’ll all go shoot themselves," she said flippantly. "Seriously, it’s a big mistake to think that people really think about you that much. I hope they’ll see it as a funny movie because that was my intention."

Ephron, 59, a slight, dark-haired former New York journalist, has a tendency to see the funny side of life. Her wry sense of humour launched her from jilted wife to successful screenwriter when she turned the breakup of her marriage (to Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein) into the novel "Heartburn" and then adapted it for the 1986 movie of the same name.

Ephron, now on her third marriage ("Hope springs eternal, especially in the breast of a cynic"), sits perched on the edge of her seat delivering one-liners with the razor sharpness that has made her one of Hollywood’s most influential women ("That’s like being the third largest broom factory in Guatemala.").

Has she said all she has to say about romance? "I hope I haven’t said all I have to say about anything," she retorted.

Ephron was drawn to the "Lucky Numbers" script, written by relative newcomer Adam Resnick, because she found it "hysterically funny" and went to work on it herself and with star John Travolta to make it "richer and funnier," although she was more conscious than most of the sensibilities of the screenwriter.

"I used to say the process’ in movies is the word for the moment when the writer gets screwed. But the truth is that everyone who comes into a movie brings ideas, some good, some bad," she said.

Ask for the secret of her success and Ephron inevitably credits the actors. It was Meg Ryan, who starred in four of her movies, who came up with the idea of faking a climax in the celebrated cafe scene in "When Harry Met Sally," she said.

"When I started out as screenwriter I thought the actors must all say every word in the script because I wrote it and it’s great. But in When Harry Met Sally,’ the actors came in with ideas and I realised you had to be open and that it was not always what is said that is so funny but what the actor is doing when he says it," Ephron added.

Actors who have worked with Ephron speak of her in glowing terms as the coveted "actor’s director."

"She’s very clear and very smart and immediately you trust her. The things she comes up with are just so great, and when you come up with something and she enjoys it she lets you know," said Lisa Kudrow, who plays the scheming lottery girl in "Lucky Numbers."

Ephron, daughter of stage and screenwriting team Henry and Phoebe Ephron, turned her hand to directing in 1992 after "watching and learning like a sponge" from Mike Nichols and Rob Reiner as they filmed her screenplays for "Silkwood," "Heartburn" and "When Harry met Sally."

"Then I wrote a movie where the director didn’t make things better — it’s not important which one. I looked at that movie and thought I could have made just as big a mess as he did, so next time maybe I will try," she said.

Ephron says she is still learning the art of movie-making, but despite her golden touch she says she has yet to crack the enigma of how a good movie turns into a great one.

"I learned very early as a screenwriter that you couldn’t tell whether a movie was cut together until it was cut together. And when it’s a comedy you don’t know anything until you put it up in front of an audience that is not your close friends and relatives."