Diablo Cody at the Toronto Film Festival 2007 Photo by Matt Carr

VIEW PHOTOS: Toronto portraits
VIEW PHOTOS: AFI premiere
READ MORE: Juno review
READ MORE: Juno Cast, Crew Interviews
WATCH VIDEO: Diablo Cody and Ellen Page Q&A

"It's a real sausage-fest," says Diablo Cody, describing the stream of male journalists interviewing her on a cold November day in New York. The observation sets the tone for her chat with PREMIERE, which proves to be light-hearted and funny and touches on issues such as the labeling of the female voice and feminist politics.

Cody reclines languidly on a chaise lounge and meets her interrogator's gaze with frank directness. She peppers many of her answers with the phrase "wind up" — as in "we wound up making the film" and "I wound up writing a book" — as though there has been an element of chance to her success.

For the 29-year-old former stripper and phone-sex operator who began blogging under a pseudonym as a Belarusian secretary, Cody's trajectory has been the stuff that Hollywood dreams are made of. A stripper at 24, her memoir Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper came out in 2005 after a publisher took interest in her acerbic and incendiary blog "Pussy Ranch."

Now, Cody's first screenplay, Juno, has been directed by Thank You for Smoking's Jason Reitman and stars teen-angst idols Ellen Page (Hard Candy) and Michael Cera (Superbad). The story of a Minneapolis high-school renegade's unexpected pregnancy, the film won the Toronto Film Festival's People's Choice Award. With rumors of an Oscar nomination and a Showtime television project with Steven Spielberg in the works, many more good things could "wind up" happening to Diablo Cody.

Was the character of Juno fully developed in your mind beforehand, or was there some other key that began the process?
The character sort of leapt fully formed into my head when I wrote the script. I didn't have to think much about writing for Juno. It was a very easy character for me to write. She just felt like a part of me. But, interestingly enough, the character in the finished film is very evolved from the character that I originally wrote because you have Ellen Page bringing different aspects of her personality and her essence into her character. And I also think that the character is a reflection of [director] Jason Reitman in some ways as well. She was just a combination of all three of our sensibilities. So, my Juno and the Juno that is in the film are slightly different I think — in a good way.

Regarding your writing process, is your initial draft more plot-driven and the characters and dialogue follow? Or is it something more organic?
I wish I had documented the process more. I never dreamed that the movie would actually get made. So, to me, it was a very casual experience writing it: quick, casual, and not particularly tortured. But, yeah, I think dialogue is where I always start. Particular lines that I hear and that are amusing to me, I try to build a scene around them.