The Dream House portfolio was conceived in 2002. Kathy Ryan, Photo Editor of the New York Times Magazine, approached me concerning a new portfolio series that the Times was embarking on.We met for lunch, neither of us with any preconception of what would happen. I just brought two unrelated ideas to the table. One was that I had always wanted to photograph Tilda Swinton and the other was that I also wanted to make a series of photographs in a particular uninhabited ranch house in Vermont. Kathy followed the lead and together we amassed an additional list of actors, who I felt could inhabit the world of my pictures: Dylan Baker, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, William H. Macy, Juliane Moore and Gwyneth Paltrow. By the end of the meal we had mapped out a concept: to spend the entire month of August, with a production crew, in the house, separately photographing thes factors. Looking back at the pictures now, I see a particular coming together of oppositions. Perhaps more than in any of my other work, there is this odd schism between the real and the imagined. The appearance of recognizable actors in this setting, serves to create another layer of illusion in this hall of mirrors.All this helps to create a very defined and unique series of pictures. Although this project stands on it's own, the photographs, I feel, exist in the same world as my larger body of work.'