Only one thing prevents Simon Beaufoy from becoming the hottest screen writer in Hollywood. He doesn't want to.

Producers wielding cheque books the size of doorsteps have been beating a path to his door ever since he struck gold with his debut feature, a low budget comedy he had originally titled Eggs, Beans and Chippendales.

That he later changed its name to The Full Monty and watched it become the most financially successful film of the year helped, of course, to fuel America's interest.

"Sadly, the offers from there have been quite easy to turn down," he says. "It's not what I'm about. I don't write to make money."

Beaufoy has paused in his schedule of developing his own projects and turning down everyone else's to conduct a seminar at the fourth Bradford Film Festival.

"Events like these are tremendous," he says as he prepares to give a speech to a cinema full of acolytes. "It was on such an occasion that we first showed The Full Monty to an audience. It was a defining moment for us."

Though he has forsaken his home turf of Glusburn near Keighley for the professionally richer pastures of London, he has, he says, no plans to go the full Monty himself and up sticks to Hollywood. Creative considerations aside, he can't afford to.

"I didn't earn very much from Monty," he says, ruefully. "Just a little above the Writers' Guild minimum. It's given me no financial security whatsoever."

It's one of the ironies of film making that a production which cost $3m and has taken nearly $200m at the box office has made almost nothing for those most closely involved. Most of the actors were paid the union minimum.

"But we had no idea it would take off," says Beaufoy. "It was a tiny little film. We thought we'd only ever get a limited cinema release.

"God, I wish I was on a percentage - it would have made me. But you can't be bitter - that was the deal. I was lucky to get the film made."

On Monday week, he will know whether Hollywood has chosen to honour him with an Oscar in lieu of cash. He is nominated for Best Original Screenplay; the director, composer and the film itself are also shortlisted. "To be honest, none of us have any real expectation of winning," he says. "We never even thought the film would be released in America. We're just thrilled to be going along. For my part, I'm looking on Oscar night as a really good party."

Although he enjoys their hospitality and respects their marketing acumen, Beaufoy is quickly developing a love-hate relationship with Hollywood's executives.

"It's difficult keeping a balance between what they want me to write and what I want to do," he says.

"I've been bombarded with offers from them, but they're not based in a world I know - and that's why I'm not interested. I need to write about aspects of life which are closer to home.

"People say, 'Come and do a rewrite of Run For Your Wife for John Cleese and Hugh Grant'.

"Stuff like that has a massive paycheque attached to it, but as a writer it just doesn't interest me. Instead, I'm going to carry on doing what I've always done. If people like it, all well and good. If not, it doesn't matter because I feel I've got to do it anyway." Right now, he says, his problem is in finding the time to write anything at all. His other problem is having to deal with an unwelcome plagiarism suit from the people responsible for a New Zealand play about male strippers. Its timing has clearly been engineered to damage his chances at the Oscars.

"It's very sad," he says. "The fact it's taken them six months to get around to filing suit I think speaks for itself. We've been accused of stealing their work. Now, if someone steals from you, you don't wait six months before telling the police. You go down there the next day.

"The Full Monty is 100 percent original. No one is going to prove otherwise. People know a real film when they see one - and they know a ripped-off film when they see one."

Beaufoy's next movie - which he had written long before Monty was released - is, he says, very different. "There aren't any laughs in it. So there's an inevitable air of disappointment among the money men of Hollywood, because they know they're not going to make millions of bucks."

Among Giants, which stars Pete Postlethwaite, is on the face of it a similar exercise to Monty - a drama about a gang of pylon painters on the Yorkshire moors.

But, says, Beaufoy, "it's a much more serious piece of work. It's basically a love triangle about Pete and his much younger mate and the woman who walks into both of their lives."

The film will be distributed by Twentieth Century Fox, who became interested when they saw the profits from The Full Monty.

"You'd be surprised, though," says Beaufoy. "Having a successful film is not that helpful unless you plan to make another exactly like it. And I don't.

"I've moved on from my Monty phase. I don't expect any of my other films to do as well. If just one more success comes along in my lifetime I'll be very lucky.

"Basically, I'm content just so long as people go and see my films and laugh at them, and perhaps are moved by them."

All the same, he insists: "Next time, I'm negotiating a percentage of the profits."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.