Behind the scenes: Frank Abagnale of 'Catch Me If You Can' fame talks about the movie

If you've read the book or seen the Steven Spielberg movie, Catch Me If You Can, you know who Frank Abagnale is. I conducted an interview with the former con man in October, and we focused on data security. But we also talked about the production of the movie, and until now, that part of our conversation has been left on the editing room floor.

I was fascinated by the book, which I'd read months before meeting Abagnale, and I enjoyed the movie as well, so there was a lot about his story and the cinematic adaptation of it that I was curious about. We'll get to all that in a moment. First, let me share a little behind-the-scenes aside.

After our interview, which was conducted in a hotel near Dallas, I happened to see Abagnale talking on a pay phone. I found that awfully odd. I mean, what independently wealthy individual uses a pay phone anymore? So I asked him about it, and he said he refuses to own a cell phone because he doesn't want to feel tied to it. Here's a guy who says he travels four days a week, so I can't imagine the inconvenience of that. Of course, it would appear that Abagnale is going to have to give in. Just this week, AT&T announced it's following BellSouth's lead and will phase out its pay phone business by the end of next year.

OK, back to our discussion of the movie. These outtakes will give you an idea of what Abagnale thought about the film, and about some of the events it depicted.

My impression was that the Tom Hanks character was much more dogged and determined to get you than Joseph Shea, the actual FBI agent, was in real life. Do you agree?

I think he very much was [dogged and determined] in the beginning. Tom Hanks did an incredible job of playing him, because he was an Irishman from Boston who had the Irish accent. Tom Hanks looked like him, he acted like him, he had his mannerisms. [Shea] was on the set during the making of the film, so Tom Hanks spent a lot of time with him. And the two younger agents were also on the set, so they had that opportunity. But I think he started out believing that this was his big thing, that I was some master criminal and he was going to catch me. I think when he came to the realization that I was just a kid, and I was a runaway, being a father I think he had a lot more compassion. [He realized] that he was really just chasing a kid and that he needed to stop me.

The characterization of your dad, who was played in the movie by Christopher Walken, had him almost complicit in your activity. Yet that's certainly not the impression I got from the book.

I think Steven Spielberg did a wonderful job of staying to the story. He did change minor things that were not relevant. But the one that bothered me the most was [the portrayal of] my father, because in real life I never saw my father from the time I ran away till he died. The agent bringing me back [from Europe] told me my father had died. So there was no relationship other than postcards from me to him.

My father was the exact opposite of the character in the movie. He was a self-made man who had been very successful, and then of course he lost a lot of money, not through any fault of his own. He had a brother who was in the business with him, and the brother never paid the taxes, and that kind of thing. And he ended up working for the post office. He was a very honorable man who always believed if you can't afford it, you have no business buying it. He didn't carry credit cards. He was a very ethical individual. I don't know where Spielberg got that - obviously, he didn't get that from the book. So I think that was just his little twist of that character.

In my real life my mother never remarried - he had my mother marrying and having a little girl in the movie. I have two brothers and a sister; he said I was an only child. The girl in the movie I was never engaged to - I was never engaged to anybody. I just assumed that was Hollywood and that was to be expected. But I didn't find it insulting. I thought Christopher Walken did a wonderful job of acting - but I don't think that really portrayed my dad.

How about your mom? Do you still have her?

My mom's 80 - she's in great health, she lives in New York. She is French, of course; as a matter of fact, she's back in France now visiting her family for a month. I thought the woman in the movie played a true characterization of my mom.

You've said your wife and family changed your life. So the French prison didn't change you?

No, it just made me decide I would never go back to France and commit a crime again. But that didn't rule out other places.

The most fascinating part of the book to me was the part about your six months in that French prison. It's hard for me to fathom how you survived it.

When Steven Spielberg was interviewed by Barbara Walters, he said to her, "When I first sent my crew over to France, I assumed the building was there, so I wanted them to shoot the exteriors of the building. But my scout called me and said, ‘No, this is still the prison.' So then we contacted the Minister of Justice and asked if we could film inside the prison in the cell Frank was in."

He went back and actually reconstructed that cell according to the logbooks during my stay there. Most of the crew said the prison had not changed much. The truth is, as harsh as the French prisons were, I thought they were the most effective of all. No one ever came in and beat me up or physically abused me, but what they were literally saying is, "You don't know how to live in society, so we're going to take you out of society. You acted like an animal, so we're going to treat you like an animal. We're going to put you in this box, and you can think about what you did."

I think it was much more effective as a deterrent than sending you to a U.S. federal prison, where I played miniature golf, I watched movies on the weekend, I had the best of food. Someone took care of every need I had - medical, dental. It wasn't a bad life. And it's even better now. When I was in a federal prison, you could never make a phone call - the only way you got a call is if you had a death in your immediate family. Then you went to the warden's office and got to speak for 10 minutes to a family member. Now you have pay phones, you have the Internet, you have your computer. If you're married or have a girlfriend, you have conjugal visits. So it's not much of a deterrent. When you go to a French prison, their rate of recitism is less than 1%, and that's the reason. Ours is like 67%. When I go to France now, I don't double park, I don't jaywalk, I don't do anything that would put me at risk of going to jail.