SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters Life!) – Writer, director Ryan Murphy has built a Hollywood career making dark movies and television shows, including cosmetic surgery drama “Nip/Tuck.”

But in 2009, Murphy’s career kicked into high gear with the upbeat TV comedy “Glee,” and now he’s taken his career even higher by writing and directing mainstream, big-budget movie “Eat Pray Love,” starring Julia Roberts and Javier Bardem.

Murphy spoke to Reuters about “Eat Pray Love,” which is based on a best-selling book, his fast-changing career and why he may only have two more years on “Glee.”

Q. You’ve said “Eat Pray Love” changed your life. How?

A. “I had gone through a horrible break up — the world’s worst — and I was just sort of sad and looking for direction or something. I read this book, and I was a fan. Then I got the offer. I wrote it (the screenplay), and it forced me to sort of get out my comfort zone and travel around the world … In my personal life I feel a sense contentment and balance. I don’t think I would have gotten there without doing the movie.”

Q. Did you pray?

A. “I tried to pray. I tried to be spiritual. I’ve always wanted to be a spiritual person, and I’ve failed miserably. You know I can’t do yoga, I can’t meditate. I have what (author Elizabeth Gilbert) calls in the book, monkey mind.”

Q. How is directing a movie different than a TV series?

A. “I feel like it’s the same thing. I’m a show runner (on TV) and that means you choose (everything) if you want. And I’ve liked to do that. I approve every piece of wardrobe. I’m in charge of the look, the casting, the music, the editing. So it’s almost like directing a movie. This (the film) took a lot of pre-production. I had to fly around the world three times to go to Bali before we started shooting to pick the locations and the actors and all that stuff. I was also doing “Nip/Tuck” and “Glee” at the same time. It was a little bit of a difficulty.

Q. How did you balance the three?

A. “I have no idea. I had a really rough year. I smoked a lot and drank a lot. I feel like I’m coming out of it. I was shocked that everything was happening at once. I was like, ‘I can’t do this’ but I did. I had a lot of good people behind me, and I had a lot of love behind me and I just said, ‘yes. And If I die, I guess I die.’ What am I going to do? I’m not going to turn down a Julia Roberts movie, I’m not going to turn down the chance to do “Glee,” and I’m not going to turn down the chance to finish “Nip/Tuck” the way I wanted to. So, I went with it.

Q. And your career has changed a lot.

A. “I’ve had some mainstream success. I’ve always done very well and I’ve been very lucky, but my work has been mostly dark and edgy and quiet and what they call ‘culty,’ which is code for, ‘no one will watch that.’ The fact ‘Glee’ was such a big, international, mainstream success is shocking to me. I don’t really understand it because I still write it for myself.

“With this (‘Eat Pray’) I was like, ‘I want to do a mainstream movie, I want to do a movie star movie, I want to do a movie with Julia Roberts. I want to see if I can do it.’”

Q. Are you looking at anything else to adapt into a movie?

A. “No. I have to love it. It has to mean something to me. The message of ‘Eat Pray Love’ means something to me. It tells people it’s never too late to change your life. It’s never too late to be happy. And I think that’s a very powerful message that I really wanted to put out there. The message of “Glee” is very powerful, which is the most different thing about you is the most beautiful thing. Too many people are afraid of that.”

Q. Javier Bardem will appear on “Glee.” What role?

A. “I don’t know. He wants to play a Spanish rock star. I guess I should try that. Although I might be mean and make him a singing janitor. I’m just going to write something and send it to him and say, ‘Here it is,’ and see if he shows up.”

Q. Do you have concerns about “Glee” losing momentum?

A. “When you start worrying about that is when (audiences) do leave because then you start trying to second guess them …They can smell it a mile away.

“The only thing you can do is you have to write it for yourself … We still are in that we’re in love phase. I won’t do that show forever. I’m probably only going to do it for two more years after this and I’ll do something else.”

(Editing by Bob Tourtellotte and Patricia Reaney)

New movie “Eat Pray Love” debuts in U.S. theaters on Friday as among the most highly-anticipated films of the summer. It is based on best-selling memoir of Elizabeth Gilbert and her globe-trotting quest for self-discovery after divorce.

While big-budget Hollywood movies often are dreamed up around a fantasy, the stars of “Eat Pray Love,” Julia Roberts and Javier Bardem, say their film is different because it is real. And, in some ways, it helped change their own lives.

“We’ve all thought about leaving everything and taking a journey to someplace else,” says Bardem, who plays Felipe, Gilbert’s love interest and who recently married actress Penelope Cruz following the film’s production.

“The movie speaks about people trying to face doubts, fears, insecurities and that speaks to everybody,” he said.

Roberts, who portrays Gilbert, told Reuters in a separate interview that she could relate to Gilbert’s soul-searching.

The actress, 42, was once Hollywood’s highest paid stars. She won an Oscar in 2000 for her role in legal drama “Erin Brockovich,” but since then has starred in mostly small roles in movies and taken time to get married and have three kids.

“I haven’t done a main part in a movie in a long time and I wondered if that kind of work load would still be interesting to me, and I was very happy at the end of this that I felt incredibly fulfilled as a creative person,” she said.

Roberts made headlines this past week when she said in an interview that she was now practicing Hinduism.

PASTA, PRAYERS AND BAD AFFAIRS

The film charts Gilbert’s year-long trek to Italy, India and Indonesia, where she seeks new horizons through large portions of pasta, prayer and spiritual guidance from a Balinese medicine man.

She carries heavy emotional baggage too — an ex-husband (Billy Crudup) with whom she went through a nasty divorce that she has difficulty reconciling and an ex-boyfriend (James Franco) with whom she had a torrid affair after her marriage.

The excess weight of these bad love affairs eases as Gilbert regains her footing and learns to move on.

Yet letting yourself go — the crux of Gilbert’s story and the film’s mantra — opening yourself up to new experiences and taking risks was not an easy endeavor. Nor was it simple for both Roberts and director Ryan Murphy, the co-creator of television mega-hit “Glee”, as they made the film.

“I was definitely outside of my comfort zone but, I mean, as an actor that’s what you want to go to work for. It’s to find a thing that’s challenging and unnerving and far reaching,” Roberts said.

Part of the “challenge” for the tall, slender Roberts was gaining weight. She put on roughly 10 lbs. in Rome, wolfing down eight slices of pizza in under an hour for one scene. In another instance, she ate about six bowls of pasta in one sitting relishing, she said, every bite.

Like the others, director Murphy admitted to coming out of the film “a different person” because of the travel to exotic locales and experiencing different people and cultures.

Spanning four continents, the cast and crew literally went off the grid, filming at actual locations Gilbert visited, even shooting at an ashram in India and at the real home of a Balinese healer — an important figure in the book and film.

The cast faced brutal conditions in India, including viral infections, building sets in Bali from scratch, and a revolving door of production crew at each new location

Murphy, who worked closely with Gilbert throughout the production, said he read her memoir for insight at every stage. By his count he’s walked in Gilbert’s footsteps at least 120 times, and he still has the first handful of copies he bought.

At the end of his trip, the books’ dog-eared and heavily underlined pages had to be carefully pieced back together.

“I feel like the only person in the world who knows that book better than me is Liz Gilbert,” Murphy said.

(Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)

The smartphone appeared to be sold out for walk-in purchases at the vast majority of Apple outlets in the United States a day after it launched, the latest sign Apple was having a hard time meeting demand.

“The demand for the iPhone 4 is off the charts. We’re working hard to get them to everyone as quickly as possible,” Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris said.

But there were a handful of stores where, to the surprise of some shoppers, the iPhone was indeed available.

Seattle had four stores with supply on Friday morning, while another city in the Pacific Northwest, Portland, Oregon, had two stores with iPhones in stock.

Even a store in Los Angeles had some on hand, an outlet at The Grove — one of the city’s busiest and best-known malls.

“I came to shop for my boyfriend and realized the line wasn’t that long, so we decided to wait and get it,” said stylishly attired thirty-something Brittany Davis, camped out near the front of a line of over a hundred.

At a packed retail store in Bellevue Square — an upscale mall in Bellevue, Washington — about 25 “standby” potential customers waited in line for an iPhone.

“I didn’t think I’d be getting one today,” said Chris Bohm, who waited an hour for his purchase ticket.

But in general, IPhone availability appeared to be the exception.

When contacted on Friday, roughly 60 Apple stores said the iPhone 4 was sold out. When asked when new ones might arrive, store employees responded they did not know.

Some outlets reported they had received shipments that day, but they did not include iPhones. A few said they did not expect to get more iPhones for a week or more.

Outlets in Boston, Houston, Washington, Denver, Phoenix, Minneapolis, Chicago other metropolitan areas reported no iPhone 4s on hand for walk-in purchases on Friday.

And none of the devices were available at Apple stores in at least 11 states, including Pennsylvania, Connecticut and Hawaii.

Only one outlet in North Carolina reported any stock — and that was almost gone, a store employee at Charlotte store said on Friday afternoon.

One store in the Houston area and another in San Francisco said they had iPhone 4s available on Friday morning “if you come right now.”

Apple has more than 200 retail outlets in the United States.

Wall Street does not think the tight supply will hurt demand for the latest Apple smartphone — although it is likely to dampen early sales figures.

THE BIG LAUNCH

Some analysts estimate the company sold 1 million to 1.5 million of the devices on the first day. The iPhone 4 went on sale in five countries on Thursday, creating a carnival-like atmosphere and drawing tens of thousands of eager fans to Apple stores and retail partners.

The launch was not without hiccups. Some users reported problems with reception due to the iPhone’s redesigned antenna. But few expect such glitches to impact sales.

The newest iPhone — the fourth-generation of the device — boasts a thinner profile, video calling and longer battery life.

Customers can order the iPhone 4 via Apple’s online store. But according to Apple’s website, orders for the iPhone 4 currently ship in 3 weeks.

AT&T Inc, the exclusive iPhone carrier in the United States, will have the smartphone available in its retail outlets starting Tuesday.

Apple received more than 600,000 preorders for the newest iPhone, the largest number ever. The company was forced to apologize when the online ordering system broke down after being swamped.

Wall Street expects Apple to sell roughly 8 million to 9 million iPhones in its fiscal third-quarter, which ends on Saturday. That total includes older models.

The shares of Cupertino, California-based Apple fell 0.9 percent to close at $266.70 on the Nasdaq.

(Additional reporting by Carolina Madrid in Los Angeles and Laura Myers in Seattle; editing by Edwin Chan and Andre Grenon)

(For more business news on Reuters India, click in.reuters.com)

Sales of the iPhone 4, which boasts a higher-quality screen and longer battery life than the previous model, have blown past expectations, overloading systems and causing Apple and carriers to halt taking pre-orders as supplies run out.

In Japan, where the gadget was launched before other countries due to the time difference, fans dressed up like iPhones and painted iPhones on their faces.

“I can’t stop smiling,” said Noboru Takahashi, a musician who had waited in line since Monday at Softbank’s (9984.T: Quote, Profile, Research) flagship store in a posh Tokyo shopping district. He was the first in a queue of more than 320 people.

The iPhone has been a huge success since it debuted in 2007, boosting Apple’s margins and transforming it into one of the world’s leading mobile device makers.

However, the supply shortage, which an analyst said was worsened by a lack of LCD panels, could cap initial sales and hurt Apple when it faces a slew of new competitors, namely high-powered handsets based on Google Inc’s Android software.

“The Droids are coming and current demand for the iPhone 4 implies a titanic battle between Apple and Google is imminent,” industry tracker comScore said in a statement.

Apple has announced sales of more than 600,000 iPhone 4s, a record for just a single day of pre-orders last week, meaning it sold seven of them per second.

The iPhone is Apple’s main growth driver, and is expected to soon become its biggest source of revenue as the company expands the smartphone around the globe. Some analysts estimate more than two-thirds of iPhone sales now come from overseas.

Graphic on specifications, click r.reuters.com/xap73m

Graphic on iPhone sales, click r.reuters.com/tym68k

The device, which also offers video chat via WiFi, and a gyroscope sensor for improved gaming, comes less than a month after Apple’s iPad went on sale outside the United States and has beaten sales expectations.

The iPhone 4 debuts in the United States, France, Germany and the UK later on Thursday.

At Softbank’s flagship store in Tokyo, there was only enough inventory for non-reserved customers who had lined up by the day before the launch. The price starts at 46,080 yen ($512) in Japan, but customers can get one for free in real terms if they sign up for certain services.

Takahashi and many others in the queue were using the Ustream online broadcasting service and Twitter microblogs to report on their movements and solicit camping gear and supplies, including umbrellas, as they waited through humidity and rain.

Ayaka Sato, a 22-year-old worker at an IT firm, who broadcast herself through Ustream, described iPhone 4′s front camera as the most attractive new feature of the phone.

“It was kind of hard to take videos of myself like this,” she said, holding her iPhone backward. “I am so looking forward to using the front camera.”

WAITING IN SLEEPING BAGS

In the United States, the more avid of the Apple faithful have already begun lining up, a day before the launch.

Roughly 20 people waited patiently in a bedraggled line amid sleeping bags, pillows and a neon-colored inflatable couch outside an Apple store in San Francisco on a windy Wednesday.

One fan with a blue sleeping bag who gave his details only as Imran, 25, said two people had approached him about buying his spot in line.

“I haven’t slept in 30 hours,” said Joseph Lobato, 31, sitting alongside cardboard signs that read “Oil sucks” and “More bike lanes.”

“I’m in line to replace the first generation [iPhone] that I ridiculously stood in line for the first time, and am ridiculously standing in line for again,” he added.

The forlorn group belied the excitement that has raged online the past week. On eBay, iPhone 4s had been going for thousands of dollars apiece, with one enterprising seller offering a black iPhone 4 at an exorbitant $15,000.

For the current quarter, which ends June 26, analysts roughly expect Apple to sell 8-9 million iPhones in total, which includes sales of older generation models. Analysts expect Apple to ship 10 million or more a quarter, as output ramps up to meet demand.

Apple unveiled the slimmer iPhone 4 earlier this month, kicking off its fastest-ever global product roll-out.

BGC analyst Colin Gillis expects Apple to set a new record for being the first company to sell a million smartphones in a single day. But he warned that production snags might dampen supply and hurt initial sales.

“It is very possible that the iPhone encounters production issues — a normal occurrence as a cutting-edge collection of technologies goes into scaled production,” he wrote. “This could create a situation where demand is greater than supply –limiting the number of iPhone 4 phones sold.”

The latest phone would be available in 18 countries in July and 88 by September in the quickest-ever international roll-out for an iPhone, Apple had said when it unveiled the iPhone 4.

(Additional reporting by Edwin Chan in Los Angeles, Georgina

Prodhan in London, Nathan Layne in Tokyo, Tarmo Virki in Helsinki

and Gabriel Madway in San Francisco; Editing by Anshuman Daga)

(For more business news on Reuters India click in.reuters.com)

But ahead of the movie’s U.S. debut on Friday, it is easy to see that Tinseltown and animation have changed a lot since “Toy Story 2″ hit screens in 1999 and, certainly, since 1995′s original “Toy Story” started a revolution in animated movies.

Computer animation became an industry norm, media giant Walt Disney Co bought the films’ maker, Pixar Animation Studios, for more than $7 billion, and the hottest thing going in Hollywood is 3D, of which “Toy Story 3″ takes advantage.

Still, when Hanks and Allen sat down with Reuters to talk about the movie at Pixar’s studios in Emeryville, Calif., east of San Francisco, they said it felt like home.

“It’s honestly like we’ve never left the place,” said Hanks, the voice of the gangly Woody ever since Pixar began.

“It just seems like moments later,” chimed in Allen, the voice of Buzz.

Trouble is again afoot for the toys. Their owner Andy is no longer a young boy and is heading to college when Woody, Buzz and their friends including cowgirl Jessie (Joan Cusack), Barbie (Jodi Benson) and Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head (Don Rickles and Estelle Harris) get mistakenly tossed away.

The group winds up in a day care centre where they are turned and picked over by a group of toddlers when all they really want is to go home. The gang also meets a host of new toys — including Barbie’s main man Ken (Michael Keaton) and Lotso (Ned Beatty), a plush strawberry scented bear.

Woody gets discouraged, Buzz gets reprogrammed and hope for a reunion with Andy seems lost until they hatch an escape. Yet, to move on, they must first learn what it means to grow up.

PIXAR, ALL GROWN UP

In the 15 years since “Toy Story,” Pixar and movie animation have done a lot of growing, too. In 1995, the first movie’s style — characters made by computers instead of drawn by hand — seemed a big risk because movie fans had never seen that type of full-length feature film.

But with $360 million at worldwide box offices and another $485 million for “Toy Story 2,” the pair of movies kicked into high gear a Hollywood animation revolution that was joined by DreamWorks (“Shrek”), 20th Century Fox (“Ice Age”) and others.

For its part, Pixar cranked out successive box office hits, titles such as “Monsters, Inc.” “Finding Nemo,” “The Incredibles,” “Cars,” “WALL-E” and “Up.” Seeing a potential competitor, Disney acquired Pixar in 2006 and gave it free rein to crank out hits.

But scoring a box office smash is easier said than done, and “Toy Story 3″ director Lee Unkrich knows it. He understands that with each successive movie in a franchise, audiences often find themselves fatigued looking at the same characters.

“We knew that there was a curse on having the number ’3′ after the title of your movie,” said Unkrich, who co-directed “Toy Story 2.” “I think the bar was very high on the first ‘Toy Story.’ We tempted fate by even making a second one.”

To update the characters, “Toy Story 3,” animators rebuilt Woody, Buzz and the gang from scratch using new software. They also added 3D at a time when 3D is all the rage among fans and theater owners who charge higher ticket prices for 3D films.

So far that combination — along with the good storytelling that has become Pixar’s hallmark — has won over critics. The movie scores a 100 percent positive rating on website rottentomatoes.com.

Veteran critic Todd McCarthy of film site indieWIRE writes that “the third installment is most often where filmmakers trip up…Does ‘Toy Story 3′ break the jinx? Pretty much so, yes.”

(Editing by Peter Henderson and Bob Tourtellotte)