Lawrence Kasdan: The Hollywood Interview

Writer/Director Lawrence Kasdan.


CHILLIN' BIG WITH LAWRENCE KASDAN
By
Alex Simon

Editor’s Note: The following article originally ran in the September 2001 issue of Venice Magazine.

The year was 1981. Being a freshman in high school is never a fun place to be, but being a freshman in Tempe, Arizona made the blow doubly lethal. Any other place in the world, extreme teen lethargy gives birth to teen anarchy, but in Tempe, it's just too goddamn hot, so lethargic behavior would remain the order of the day. What better way to mimic the lifestyle of the three-toed sloth than at the movies? Not just the movies, but that glorious invention of 1980's suburbia: the multi-plex. The multi-plex is proof that God does indeed smile down upon the suburbs on occasion. The Mann Fiesta 5 theater offered five screens for your viewing pleasure, often five at once if one was clever enough to master the art of theater-hopping, which my friends and I could have written the book on. This particular weekend we had a mission: see Raiders of the Lost Ark (Special Edition) for the 33rd time, a movie with our hero John Belushi called Continental Divide, and then sneak into this really cool R-rated flick called Body Heat (Deluxe Edition), a movie that (according to my friend's older brother who'd snuck in the weekend before) was so dirty, sexual and downright "bitchin'" (this was the 80's, remember), it would change the way we lived forever. Plus that chick Kathleen Turner was really hot. Good enough for us. We started at noon. We left at 7:15 pm. Our synapses were fried, and we went our separate ways on our bikes as we left the theater. During the ride home, many things went through my head: first, the exploding head in Raiders looked really real, and this having been my 33rd viewing of it, I was paying attention. Second, John Belushi and Blair Brown doing their Tracy-Hepburn number were really charming. Plus, Blair Brown was a hottie, and if a pudgy guy like Belushi could bag a babe, perhaps there was hope for me one day. Third, Body Heat, really blew my mind. It combined all the things I loved most about the film noirs of the 40's and 50's, with the hottest love scenes I'd witnessed outside my very active adolescent imagination. But there was one thing that kept bugging me. What was it? It took until after I had digested (sort of) my mom's turkey curry several hours later before it hit me: all three of these vastly different films were written by the same guy!!! I felt like I had discovered a wonderful secret, and I haven't let the work of Lawrence Kasdan out of my sight ever since.

Lawrence Kasdan was born January 14, 1949 in Miami. Raised in West Virginia, he attended University of Michigan during it's politically radical heyday in the late 60's. After earning a bachelor's in English Lit, Kasdan went on to get a Master's in Education, planning on becoming an English teacher, but wound up becoming an ad copywriter instead, winning a Clio Award for one of his first campaigns. In his spare time, he wrote screenplays and initially received dozens of rejections (The Bodyguard was passed on 37 times before it was purchased). After selling Continental Divide to Steven Spielberg, Kasdan was hired to finish the screenplay for the Star Wars sequel, Star Wars Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980 & 2004 Versions, 2-Disc Widescreen Edition), after original scriptor Leigh Brackett died. And suddenly, he was a screenwriter. Raiders of the Lost Ark soon followed, then his writing/directing debut with Body Heat. He co-wrote Star Wars Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983 & 2004 Versions, 2-Disc Widescreen Edition)(1983) with George Lucas, then jumped behind the camera again for the classic The Big Chill (1983). He co-wrote the tongue-in-cheek western Silverado (2 Disc Superbit Gift Set)(1985) with his brother Mark, followed by the quirky comedy The Accidental Tourist in 1988. I Love You to Death(1990) was a black comedy starring Kevin Kline and Tracy Ullman, and the modern L.A. fable Grand Canyon(1991) revisited Kasdan's favorite theme of moral ambivalence in a world that moves too fast. His 17 year-old script The Bodyguard (Special Edition) was finally filmed in 1992 with Kevin Costner and Whitney Huston, with Kasdan assuming producer status, but not directing. Wyatt Earp (Single Disc Edition)(1994) was a sprawling western epic with Costner again starring, and French Kiss(1995) was a romantic comedy with Meg Ryan and Kevin Kline. Kadsan has also directed for the stage, helming a 1995 production of Four Dogs and a Bone, by John Patrick Shanley.

Kasdan's latest is one of his most delightful films, one that hearkens back to the quirky tone of The Accidental Tourist. Mumford tells the story of a young psychologist (Loren Dean) who becomes the hit, and talk, of the tiny town of...Mumford. When he starts to have more than professional feelings for a comely patient (Hope Davis), Mumford's mysterious past and a dark secret he's been hiding become unraveled. Mumford is the sort of movie that Lawrence Kasdan does best: a thoroughly-entertaining film that also asks its audience to think, rather refreshing in this age of comedies that revolve around fart jokes and apple pies. Lawrence Kasdan sat down recently to discuss his amazing filmography, politics, and the manners and mores of the world we live in.

Mumford struck me as sort of a Frank Capra/Preston Sturges paean to small town life.
Lawrence Kasdan: You know, I had taken some time off. I think was getting a little discouraged about Hollywood. A few things happened in my personal life. My son (Jake Kasdan) made a movie (Zero Effect, 1997) that was completely personal, and a studio supported him, and it was a really terrific film. I was really proud of him. So I started thinking that maybe things weren't really all that bad, and that it was possible for me to do what I had always done, which is to make personal movies. I think it's more difficult now than it was, but that's it's still possible. So I think that (Mumford) came out of that resurgence of optimism. And the movie surprised me with how optimistic it turned out to be. I just started writing it, without knowing how it would turn out in the end. I had written another movie, a big, expensive effects movie that sort of represented everything I find difficult about Hollywood now. Looking back, I probably shouldn't even have pursued it. I spent a lot of time having to deal with movie stars...and in the end didn't end up making the movie.

Why is it more difficult now than when you started 20 years ago?
The environment is totally different than it was in the late 70's and early 80's. We were still in the glow of the 70's, which was the best time in Hollywood. There was still the desire to do the best, most original work. Each time. Everyone was trying to top their friends. But now it's only about money, and the only topping that happens is financial. Movies are pretty much judged on how they do commercially, and that's it. Even the Academy will forget about a movie if it doesn't do well at the box office. Now if a movie fails financially, it's looked at as being a bad movie. It's funny, when I broke into movies in the late 70's, people were still talking about making great art. Five years later, people would look at you as an idealist if you were still talking like that. Even the rhetoric of having ambition for quality had disappeared.

Do you think that's because filmmaking became a corporate process, as opposed to an artistic process?
There's no question that when the multi-national companies and conglomerates bought the studios and saw that one hit film, Star Wars Episode IV - A New Hope (1977 & 2004 Versions, 2-Disc Widescreen Edition)(1977), could change their balance sheets and could change the corporations' future forever, that attracted an entirely different group of people who were only in it for the money. It brought a lot of corporate thinking to what is essentially a mysterious, artistic process.

Do you think the advent of digital technology will make it easier for young filmmakers to break out?
There's no question that technology is in favor of cheaper movies. Anybody can make a movie now. The trick is, does the culture nurture artists who are going to be ambitious. It's not enough to just be able to do the movie. You have to have the ambition to do something good. During the 60's and 70's, every time you went to the theater, your mind could be blown. And the people who were making the movies were trying to do that. People were very excited about having every movie challenge you. Now, movies are about researching what will be most acceptable, about what will disturb the fewest number of people. The 60's and 70's were all about trying to disturb the most number of people.

It seems like a lot of those great directors from that period have just given up. Many who I've interviewed feel that those days are dead and gone, and if they want to maintain their lifestyles, they have to do what they're told and what they're given, even though there's still the capacity to produce great art within them.
You see, that's the trap, becoming a slave to your lifestyle. Then you've given up the power. You can't fight the power if you've given them the power. If that becomes your priority, which is understandable when people reach middle age, they become used to a very comfortable lifestyle that is enviable because you get to do work you like and then you're well-remunerated for it. But when that becomes the priority, you're dead meat as an artist, because you no longer control your destiny. The only way to control your destiny is to not need things...I've got as many weaknesses as anybody, but what I can't buy is people complaining that they have to do this kind of work. Why do they have to? In Hollywood, I think you can make almost any kind of movie if you're passionate about it.

It's comforting to hear that you've retained much of your 60's idealism.
I hope so. It's tough. I don't feel self-righteous about it at all. Every day is a test, you're tempted. The culture agrees with the opposite values. It agrees that money and fame is an end in itself, and for an artist, that's a disease.

A lot of those issues are addressed in Mumford.
It's funny. Oftentimes, you don't know what it is you're writing about until you've finished. This is a movie where everyone in it has to reconcile the face they put on for everyday society and their life, and the secret impulses that they have. Mumford even says "I want to get some idea of the secret life people are having." I think for all of us there's a split between the way we present ourselves and our private impulses. We all have secret lives. What happens very often, is a kind of pressure builds up as people struggle to maintain their acceptable face for life against these impulses. What we see in the paper everyday, is where the division has cracked between those two things, and it can sometimes be very scary.

Do you think that as life becomes more complex, people will hearken back to the simplicity of small town life, as they do in Mumford?
You don't even have to falsely idealize small town life, to recognize that there are certain things about it that are just more attractive and nurturing than big city life. Big city life is very alienating, very isolating. We've become inured to what a rough life it is, because we get used to it, and everything becomes like white noise. When you go to these little towns, you become amazed by how quiet and relaxed it all is.

Let's talk about your own experience growing up in a small town in West Virginia.
Growing up in Wheeling and Morgantown was great. Not only was it a different and simpler time in the 50's and 60's, but those places were just the way you'd think they'd be. They're not unlike the town in Mumford. There are real advantages for a child. When I was a kid, if you had a bicycle, you owned the town. And there weren't places you were afraid to go. You could go anywhere. You didn't need a car, or anybody's permission. My life was in my neighborhood. You had total freedom. My kids didn't have that growing up in Los Angeles. Part of what Grand Canyon is about, is that we have accepted the fact that our city is not our own. That for people from south-central, for them to go into Beverly Hills and West L.A., the police are on the lookout. They feel unwelcome, are under threat. And vice-versa. Our cities have become these little armed camps. When you make movies, you find yourself obsessing over the way the quality of movies has declined, but it's nothing compared to the way society has accepted selfishness and false values.

What did your dad do?
He ran an electronics store, but that's not what he had intended to do. He'd gone to Brown University and had wanted to be a writer. He had a very frustrating life and died quite young, and I know it had an enormous impact--I did not want that to happen to me. My mother had wanted to write as well, so I grew up in a household where writing was an acceptable thing to do, but there was also a great deal of frustration. Both my parents were from educated families and there was a feeling in the house, in spite of all the frustration and disappointment, that reading was important, and therefore writing was possible.

When did you fall in love with movies?
I loved the movies from the time I was very young. The Magnificent Seven (Special Edition) (1960) and The Great Escape(1963) were two favorites, but when I saw Lawrence of Arabia in 1962, that just blew my mind. I knew then that I wanted to make movies. My brother Mark was at Harvard at the time, had fallen in love with movies himself. He took me to see it, and said "Look, this is something that someone has made. They've written each scene, thought about how to shoot them..." and that was the first time I'd ever thought about that. So from that moment on, there was no question in my mind.

From there, you went on to University of Michigan.
I went there because there was a writing contest there that was the richest college writing contest in the country. Arthur Miller had won it. I had no money, so that contest put me through school...During all the student unrest there I was the classic observer. The first screenplay I wrote was called Just This, about a guy, obviously a lot like me, who becomes involved in a bombing plot. That was the first screenplay I entered into that contest. Before I had been writing fiction and drama. It was the first screenplay that won the contest. Ann Arbor was the hotbed of radicalism in those days.

After graduating, you went into advertising, right?
I did. I came out to UCLA to go to film school, but I hadn't gotten into the directing program, I got into the writing program, which I didn't want to be in. So I went back to Ann Arbor and went to work in a record store, got married, and got a Master's in education, thinking I'd teach high school English. But when I got out, the market was glutted with education majors and there were no teaching jobs to be found. It was harder than becoming a movie director! (laughs) I met someone in Detroit who owned an ad agency. Since I was writing screenplays anyway, he asked me to show him some stuff I'd written, and he hired me. It started five years in advertising, six months of which I liked. I couldn't stand it, but I had a kid, and I wanted to continue to write screenplays.

One of which was The Bodyguard, right?
Yes. I moved here in 1975. It took two years for my agent to sell the script. 67 people passed on it, many of whom are still big names in the business. (Kasdan has this list of names framed in the hallway of his offices). It was influenced by Kurosawa's Yojimbo - Remastered Edition (Criterion Collection Spine #52) (1961) and I wrote it with Steve McQueen in mind for the lead. John Calley wasn't able to get McQueen, but then (director) John Boorman got involved, which was great fun. He's a hero of mine. I went to Ireland. We did a treatment for a new movie. He completely changed it, but I still loved him. It was going to be with Ryan O'Neal and Diana Ross, but that never happened, either.

A lesson in perseverance.
Then when I started directing, they wanted me to do it, right after Body Heat. By that time, I had re-written it a lot for various people, plus I wanted to do The Big Chill, so I let it go. Costner had read it while we were doing Silverado, before he was a star, and said "I really want to make this movie." And he really did. Six years later, we both produced it.

How did you land the jobs of writing The Empire Strikes Back and Raiders?
I had written The Bodyguard, which wasn't selling, then I wrote another script which my agent told me to throw away, then I wrote Continental Divide, which was a reaction to this movie in the middle which was so big and so expensive that, at that time, was unmakable. Now you could make it, although I don't think I'd want to. So I decided to write something that I could make for $100,000. I came up with this idea of (Chicago newspaperman) Mike Royko meeting (naturalist) Jane Goodall. I wrote it very fast. Just as I was finishing it, John Calley bought The Bodyguard. He asked me what else I had, and I told him about Continental Divide, and he hated it. My hopes were dashed, then the next week, three people tried to buy it! There was bidding, and Steven Spielberg bought it to produce. I met him on the Universal backlot for the first time where he was producing I Wanna Hold Your Hand (1978). He said "You know, I'm gonna do this movie with George Lucas and I want you to write it." I thought, 'terrific!' (laughs) But then he says, "But listen, George is going to going to try and get you to write More American Graffitti (1979). Don't do it!" (laughs) I had been in advertising a week earlier! But I said 'Okay.' So went to see George and he said "I want to make this adventure movie. I don't know too much about it, but the hero is named after my dog Indiana, and he has a whip." Then Philip Kaufman told me about the lost ark of the covenant, and that was it. We all stood up and shook hands, and then George later asked me to take over writing Empire. I liked Steven and George enormously.

So what was it like going from ad guy one week to being the biggest screenwriter in town?
It had been seven years that I'd been trying to sell something, and I hated the work I was in, so the relief was almost indescribable. On top of all that, was the excitement of making it in the movies! You get to get up in the morning and do what you want, which to this day I really value. The truth is, anyone who gets to make a living doing what they want, that's a gift. I wound up working for George for about a year. People suddenly wanted me to write everything, whereas before, I couldn't get arrested. I said, 'I'm not going to write anything. I'm going to direct.' So that miracle thing where you're able to parlay being a hot screenwriter into being a director, happened exactly as I had hoped. I told Alan Ladd, Jr. about Body Heat, and he said 'Okay.' Laddie had just started his own company and it was one of the first pictures made there.

What was it like making the jump into directing?
Part of it had to do with George, because Laddie said "You have to get a sponsor," because that's what was happening then. So I went to George and he said "I can't put the Lucasfilm name on Body Heat because it's too dirty. But I will sponsor you." So he went to Laddie and said "I'll sponsor Larry to do Body Heat. Here's a quarter of a million dollars, and if he goes over (budget), you can use that to cover his overages," which just astounding! George never came to the set, but when we were editing, George spent one day in the cutting room with me, which was very helpful. But making the jump was not hard, because I had been imagining directing for a long time (laughs). Every movie I had written, I had already directed in my head, so it turned out to be not that big a deal. I was so happy. People don't talk about that too much. We have a way of being cool about our careers. The truth is, I'm happy about it, that I get to (make movies). It was true 20 years ago, and it's true now.

Tell us about the genesis of The Big Chill.
When I did Body Heat, it was a very intense, but good, experience. It was a very tight little circle with William Hurt and Kathleen Turner and me. We were all beginners, really. As stimulating as it was, it was also a little claustrophobic and airless. So I thought I'd write a movie this time where there were a lot of actors. I had this idea about a reunion around a funeral. Also there was something I was trying to address, which I'd also tried to do in Body Heat. There's something about my generation, and that every generation feels, when they come out of the protected cocoon of college life into the real world. In many ways, Ned Racine in Body Heat could have been one of my friends, one of the guys for whom things came easily, he wasn't that smart, and suddenly things get harder, and he gives into a lot of temptation. The Big Chill is a much more realistic treatment of the same theme, but funnier. I found the dilemma funny, because we felt very entitled, and I think me and all my friends were a little foolish, because we all thought things would go our way, when in fact, entering the world is much more difficult and complicated than that. The Jean Renoir film Rules of the Game (1939) was really the inspiration for The Big Chill. It's about a weekend in the country, but it's hard to put your finger on exactly what Rules of the Game is about, because it's about so many things, and evokes so many feelings. Like The Bodyguard, nobody wanted to make The Big Chill. Really the only ensemble movie up to that point that worked was American Graffiti (1973), which was a great movie. Nobody wanted to make it, even though they wanted to be in business with me, nobody got it. Then when it was successful, it was a really great thing for me. I got final cut, and I didn't realize it then, but for 20 years, I've done only what I've wanted to do. It gets back to this issue of "can you do what you want to do?" I think the answer is 'yes' if you're really passionate about it. I think The Big Chill had a lot to do with me being able to get that sort of power.

Next came Silverado.
It very much came out of my relationship with my brother. Not only had he introduced me to movies in a passionate way, but he particularly introduced me to westerns. So when I came off of Big Chill and could do anything I wanted to do, I said to him "Let's do a fun western." This was a time when westerns were very much out of style. We wanted to show people what was so great about westerns, what a great landscape and canvas it is. So we sat down and wrote something sort of post-modern. Unlike Wyatt Earp, it appreciates the fun aspects of westerns, and plays upon our expectations about certain kinds of set pieces. It was a wonderful experience.

The Accidental Tourist was sort of a departure down a different road for you.
It was. John Malkovich was one of the executive producers on that and brought me the book. I had been thinking about doing a script by Carole Eastman called Man Trouble(which was eventually directed by Bob Rafelson in 1992 with Jack Nicholson and Ellen Barkin) with Robert De Niro and Jessica Lange. But that didn't work out, and at that moment, they brought me The Accidental Tourist. What appealed to me about it, was the theme that is central to my concerns, which is you can't control the universe. Issues of control and dealing with chaos and fear is really what interests me.

That really describes all your films, especially Grand Canyon.
That was a very pleasant experience because I decided to write a movie with my wife (Meg Kasdan). We decided to write a story about having our sons and living in this city and this country right now, and some of the ambivalences that you feel. The thing I'm interested in is ambivalent feelings, which really hasn't been the subject of a lot of American movies. American movies are usually about winning and losing and overcoming adversity. But feeling ambivalent about things is the story of my life. Grand Canyon is really a story about feeling two ways at once.

You've done two films that you didn't write, I Love You to Death and French Kiss. Explain the difference between directing from your own material and someone else's.
It's more difficult. In both cases, I liked the writers very much, and had them on the set all the time. It was great fun. But both those experiences were for me very much what it must be like to be an actor, where you come in every day, and even though your heart is there and you really want to understand it, there's a slight distance between you and the material. When you write and direct, that distance is never there. You can be just as wrong and make something bad, but you never have a doubt about what you're doing.

You've directed one play. What's the difference between directing for the stage and for the screen?
There's very little connection or overlap. The only overlap is working with the actors, and even there it's different. I'm drawn to very naturalistic kind of acting, very tiny and subtle. Theater encourages people to be bigger, whether it's necessary or not. The thing about making movies is, you are in complete control. You can't control how people respond to what you do, but you can control where they're looking, what details they see...In theater you have a new challenge: to direct the attention of the entire auditorium to the place you want it to go. And that's a particular skill. I hadn't done it for a long time when I did Four Dogs and a Bone, and I'd like to do it again.

Any advice for first-time directors?
George Lucas said the most useful thing to me as I was about to do Body Heat. I said "George, I don't know that much about the technical stuff." And keep in mind that George is Mr. Technology, right? He said "Making movies has nothing to do with the technical stuff. It has everything to do with what kind of person you are." It was the most important thing anyone ever said to me about directing. I had a lot of confidence in the sort of person I was. I knew the kind of stories I wanted to tell. I knew the kind of atmosphere I wanted to create on my set. I knew the kind of life I wanted to live and how I wanted my work to embody that life, so the fact that I didn't know anything technically didn't really matter. You can learn the technical stuff like that (snaps fingers). So the fact that it was George who told me this was very comforting. And it turned out to be absolutely true.