TED DEMME / DIRECTOR-PRODUCER

It’s Ted Demme’s season. The New Yorker has directed the big-budget comedy “Life” with Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence and the small-budget “Monument Ave.,” set in Denis Leary’s old Boston neighborhood. Demme, 34, also (via his Spanky Productions) produced “Rounders.” Next he is producing an HBO film of Ernest Gaines’ novel “A Lesson Before Dying” and developing a feature about the Go-Go’s.

LOOSE CANNONS: “I guess I’m kind of like John Madden when he coached the Raiders--I love taking these ‘bad boys’ and ‘rebels’ [like Murphy, Lawrence and Leary] and finding a way to put them together and make it work. I really love these guys, love their humor. I get it.”

THE PAYOFF: “I’ve been working my tail off for the last three years and it’s come to a head. I take cues from heroes like Francis Ford Coppola, guys who wear different hats.”

TRUE GRIT: “Everyone in the world was saying ‘Monument Ave.’ was a compelling script, ‘But the ending, there’s got to be a happy ending.’ I’m a fan of realistic endings. And it’s a personal story for Denis. He grew up there. He has to go back and face his family and friends, and I wouldn’t do that to him.”

CAREER MOVES: “The reasons you do a movie like ‘Life’ is you get a chance to work with ‘movie star’ actors and a ‘movie star’ studio and the best producers in the world--Brian Grazer and Ron Howard. It elevates your status. ‘Here’s a guy who’s done a movie for $3 million and this for $70 million. What can’t he do?’ ”

ENTRY LEVEL: “In the ‘80s I got a job as a production assistant at MTV. That was my film school. I created ‘Yo! MTV Raps’--you can be a production assistant there and come up with a show idea. So I went overnight from being a P.A. to producer and director of a hip-hop show that ended up being an enormous influence.”

RISING STAR: “When I saw ‘Saving Private Ryan,’ I couldn’t believe how great Giovanni Ribisi is. Those scenes broke my heart. He’s unbelievable.”

CALLING ORSON WELLES: “It’s encouraging that studios are hiring big husky guys. We’re a minority that’s been deprived of work for years. The millennium will be good for the husky. Watch out, you skinny bums.”

UNCLE JONATHAN: “If you’re a young director saying who you’d like to pattern yourself on, he’d have to be one of them. . . . Imagine if you’re a baseball player and your uncle is Babe Ruth. That’s how I see it.”