The Gen Art Film Festival, a kind of mini Sundance, opens tonight with the East Coast Premiere of HappyThankYouMorePlease, the directorial debut of actor Josh Radnor. The film will screen at the 1500-seat Ziegfield Theater in Manhattan, one of the last of the grand movie palaces left in New York.

Radnor, best known as an actor, is pulling a Woody Allen with this debut film....writing, directing and starring. The fact that the film won the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival and could turn out to be this season's (500) DAYS OF SUMMER, makes Radnor the latest triple threat to climb to the top of the indie heap.

In an interview published on the Gen Art Film Festival blog site, Radnor waxes on the making of the film and his new status as indie god. 

If you could get a drink with a character from any movie, who would it be and why?
Celine from Before Sunrise/Sunset. I have a freakish, unhealthy obsession with those movies. No other movies have so successfully blurred the boundaries between fiction and reality—that girl exists for me, somehow, in some alternate reality, and I'd like nothing more than to walk around European cities with her discussing everything (and if we ended up having sex in a cemetery that'd be cool, too).

What was the movie that made you want to be a filmmaker?
I think I have to say mine. By that I mean, I had no overarching drive to become a filmmaker until I started making my own movie and totally fell in love with the process. It was kind of like that old thing about meeting the love of your life when it's the last thing on your mind. I loved every part of making this movie—pre-production, scouting locations, casting, shooting, editing, sound mixing, color correction—all of it.

Best and worst thing about filmmaking?
The worst is obvious and it's the same for everyone: money and time.

The best, for me, was having this incredibly powerful example of manifesting something that came from my imagination. I sat for months and months in front of my lap top dreaming up these characters and this world and then I got the opportunity to have it come to life, which was—and this is a huge understatement—thrilling.

Favorite movie snack?
This is gonna make me sound like kind of a freak, but I have to say it: popcorn.

What’s your back up career?
Painter, poet, essayist, travel writer—still would be something with words and images.

You’re having a dinner party and you can invite any five people—living or dead. Who’s on the list?
I need to invite six: David Foster Wallace, Bob Dylan, Sarah Silverman, Carl Jung, Zadie Smith and J. Krishnamurti.

What’s the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning?
Meditate.