NICOLE LAPORTE is a former film reporter for Variety , where she covered the Hollywood movie industry for several years. She also wrote the "Rules of Hollywood" column for the Los Angeles Times Magazine and has written for The New Yorker , the New York Times , the Los Angeles Times , the New York Observer , the Sunday Telegraph Magazine , and W magazine. For The Men Who Would Be King she did more than 200 interviews with subjects at every level of the entertainment business.