Mindy Cohn and Simon Baker in Sex and Death 101 Courtesy of Anchor Bay Entertainment

Mindy Cohn still looks just like she did as Natalie in The Facts of Life. Not everyone would think of her as an automatic choice for a lesbian assistant...
No. It was funny. I did some press with her yesterday and everybody acted like we had to be old friends or something. But she got it the old-fashioned way, just auditioning. It was very funny because there was a lot of different ways it could go, and in fact we had like a mini-playoff with the four who I thought were the four top actresses for that role, and they could not [have been] more different. I think they were actually all sitting on the couch together thinking they were going in for completely different parts. But Mindy was great because Simon is the laid-back Australian, not the natural zim-zam-zoom comic timing guy. So I think putting Mindy in there [worked because] he doesn't like playing catch-up. He's like, "Oh, shit, she's going to steal the movie if I don't get my game up here."

I think also the fact that people see her and know her and have warm feelings for her is great for the movie because she's the control in the experiment. There are times where we need that comfort zone of Mindy — not just the character of Roderick Blank — but us as an audience. You think like... "Oh, please, give us back Mindy."

Winona Ryder in Sex and Death 101 Courtesy of Anchor Bay Entertainment

Were you on the set during the filming of Heathers with Michael Lehmann and how well did you know Winona before you cast her in this film?
No. Quite to my discredit, I fought very hard for Jennifer Connelly, and thought Winona was not pretty enough because I'd only seen her in Lucas and Square Dance when we were casting the movie. She never lets an opportunity go by to remind me of that. Although I'm mad at her for not doing more press for the movie [Sex and Death 101] so I'm telling everyone that I'm making Heathers 2 with Audrey Tautou... So hopefully that'll get her to take off her sleep mask and call me back. But I'm sorry, I kind of forgot the question.

Did you know her from Heathers casting?
Well, Michael Lehmann had been friends with Michael McDowell who had written Beetlejuice, which was shooting at the time. And Michael Lehmann had slipped the script to Michael [McDowell] who gave it to Winona. Winona's comments about the script were like "this is one of the greatest pieces of literature I've ever read," and it was just kind of like, "OK, I love her." Again, it's a common theme here. I need to be loved. Even though I write scripts that I know 50 percent of the audience is going to hate... But yeah, she was just so passionate. And of course, she is quite pretty, that I learned that the hard way...

NEXT: Bring your note pads and pencils...