Life After Darko

by Jeffrey Wells

Freckled and babyfaced, Richard Kelly looks like a former USC film school frat guy who occasionally has trouble getting past bouncers. Which is pretty much what he is, except that he's penned a $57 million Tony Scott–directed behemoth hitting theaters August 12. With Domino, in which Keira Knightley plays a real-life Ford model -- turned-bounty hunter, Kelly has, much to his surprise, finally gone legit.

In 2001 the Virginia native, now 30, released his first feature, Donnie Darko, a sci-fi take on teen angst that managed to scramble Jake Gyllenhaal, a huge snaggletoothed rabbit, schizophrenia, and Patrick Swayze all into 113 wildly perverse minutes. "Donnie was about getting this adolescent stuff out," says Kelly. "Like vomiting onto a canvas." Critics at Sundance savaged the flick. "I went into a long depression," he recalls. "I was a 26-year-old failure." But then a funny thing happened. Months after Darko vanished from theaters, fan sites for the film began cropping up, midnight screenings of it played to capacity, and DVD sales busted the $10 million mark. "When Darko was resurrected, I suddenly had leverage in Hollywood," says Kelly, still somewhat incredulous. Ironically, the project he's currently directing, Southland Tales -- a $15 million black comedy starring Sarah Michelle Gellar and Seann William Scott -- was written as a fuck-you letter to L.A. during his post-Darko funk.

These days Kelly seems far from haunted, living with buddies in a Venice Beach, California, bachelor pad. "I'm basically an aging frat guy who likes to have a good time," he admits. "Which is why people are shocked that I write these bizarre scripts."