Oliver Stone is no stranger to controversy. Even when the director makes a film like "World Trade Center," which received acclaim from most critics and has no conspiracy theory-driven agenda, Stone is still criticized - this time, by 9/11 conspiracy theorists who felt Stone whitewashed the terrorist attacks and even by firefighters and rescue personnel who opposed making a 9/11 film and then fumed about inaccuracies. Nevertheless, the movie received strong reviews and was hailed as one of the best films in Stone's distinguished career, which includes the Academy-Award-winning "Platoon" and "Wall Street." The movie tells the true story of two Port Authority police officers John McLoughlin (played by Nicolas Cage) and Will Jimeno (Michael Pena) who become trapped underneath the wreckage and rubble of the south tower of the World Trade Center after it collapsed.

At the recent Screenwriting Expo 5 in Los Angeles, Stone sat down with fellow director David O. Russell ("Three Kings," "Flirting with Disaster") to talk about making of "World Trade Center" and the real-life events and people that inspired it. During the discussion, Stone discusses the controversial nature of his movies, the hidden themes he believes are in popcorn films like "Wedding Crashers," and why he feels movies no longer inspire social change in today's world.

Slide Show!

David O. Russell: How did you get involved in working on "World Trade Center"?

Oliver Stone: The screenplay was the beginning, and it was in 2004 after I finished "Alexander." And it came to me, and I thought of doing 9/11 like this because it was such a massive event and you think of all the global implications, and here was a chance to go to the pit of hell, right between the two towers. There were 20 survivors and 3,000 dead, and of these 20 survivors these are two very coherent stories from men who were side by side, so they corroborate each other. Plus they went almost to the end. They were in there the longest; they're not going to be alive forever; they're well, they were able to deal with the experience and they're strong men. They ingested it over about two years, their wounds were terrible, they came back from hell, and their wives went on this journey with them. And both had great luck in their lives, in the sense that they had great marriages. And they're very enduring marriages. One was a young love affair and the other one was an old love affair.

And of course, this is an incredible rescue. I mean, it's something that was so bad...during the previews we did, the people in Seattle thought we made up this story. We had to put a card in at the end that said 'look, this guy existed;' that was what the preview cards said. They really thought we made it up.

Russell: Discuss the thing about one of the rescuers coming forward as being African-American.

Stone: It's a little more complicated than that, as is all things. The ex-Marine [Dave Karnes, played by Michael Shannon], he was an accountant in Wilton, Connecticut, and he came down to the site - and he was a born-again Christian - and he did as was pictured in the film. And he procured a Marine uniform, cut his air and he went in [the Ground Zero zone]. In there he met a second Marine - it's so typical of life - he met a second fully uniformed Marine who had also come from a distance [Jason Thomas, played by white actor William Mapother, who drove in from Long Island to assist with the rescue]. This man turned out to have been an African-American, and we didn't know it when we were casting it [Editor's note: Thomas' identity wasn't made public until last August]. And this man came forward, he was a very humble man, a completely different character than the white Marine, Dave Karnes, who had re-enlisted for Iraq.

I would like to just clarify that it wasn't quite that simple. As we showed in the movie the fire brigade, many of those people were really angry; it was a bit of a snafu. People were being pulled out because it was a very dangerous situation. We didn't know what was going to happen next, people were talking about chemical, they were talking about nuclear, they were talking about everything; there were all kinds of rumours [about] chemical and biological warfare. It was at night, it was a very dangerous scene to move around there. But a lot of crews were brought out, a lot of people snuck back in. There was all kinds of crazy volunteers all over the place. So it wasn't quite that black and white. There were people getting in there and there were people still looking at night; it hadn't just completely emptied out.