Oliver Stone: The Hollywood Interview

Filmmaker Oliver Stone.



OLIVER STONE U-TURNS WITH A NEW ROAD MOVIE
By
Alex Simon

Editor’s Note: The following article appeared in the October 1997 issue of Venice Magazine.

Oliver Stone is probably the single filmmaker working in America whose work consistently stirs debate, controversy and wildly divergent opinions. With films like Platoon, Wall Street, The Doors, Born on the Fourth of July, JFK and Natural Born Killers to his credit, like him or hate him, you just can't feel neutral about Oliver Stone and his work. At 50, the multiple Oscar-winning writer/director's latest effort is U-Turn, a road movie written by John Ridley, based on his novel Stray Dogs, with Sean Penn, Jennifer Lopez, Nick Nolte, Powers Boothe and Billy Bob Thornton rounding out the all-star cast in a film that is equal parts hilarious, horrifying, beautiful, repulsive, maddening, endearing and out-and-out psychedelic. But then it wouldn't be an Oliver Stone movie if it weren't a bundle of contradictions. Stone has also recently published his first novel A Child's Night Dream, based on his experiences as a 19 year-old, due out in October from St. Martin's Press.

Without revealing too many of the film's wild, whiplash-inducing plot twists, Sean Penn plays Bobby Cooper, a small time gambler/loser who is on his way to Vegas to pay gambling debt to a Russian mobster who collects fingers along with cash. His cherry '64 1/2 Mustang convertible breaks down in the depressing backwater town of Superior, Arizona. As he waits for his car to be repaired, Penn's character is catapulted into a nightmarish whirlpool that can only be compared to the third circle of Dante's Inferno. And for Bobby Cooper, hell looks pretty good in comparison to Superior, Arizona.

Those who expect a mercurial, stand-offish paranoid will be disappointed when they meet Oliver Stone. His demeanor is relaxed, confident and charming with an easy smile and a direct, penetrating gaze that lets you know he's taking in everything within (and probably beyond) his range. Mr. Stone took some time out recently to answer some questions about his remarkable career and his newest filmic slice of Americana.

Why do you think your films consistently spark so much controversy and debate?
OLIVER STONE: Well, I don't know, there are so many sources out there, you'd have to research the source. On The People vs. Larry Flynt (which Stone executive produced), for example, we got a bunch of postcards from women who said they refused to see the film. I wrote back a letter and said that I didn't think that was quite right, that it was like McCarthyism in reverse, that you should go out and see the movie and if you feel so strongly about it, see what it is you object to and deal with it.

Do you find that people have polarized reactions to your films?
I hope not. It's not necessary to have that. Definition is death, I think. I always want to be redefining myself, whether it's with a new film, or writing a book. Be redefined. Be fresh. Although I feel very proud of movies like JFK and Nixon, I'm not going to live off them.

You've gone through a lot of changes in your life in the past few years. Does this film mark a "U-Turn" in your own life? Do you feel now especially you need to redefine yourself?
I don't look at it that way. I've directed 11 films in the past 12 years and each one has been done in a different style, a different way, a different subject matter. Nixon, for example, is quite different from JFK both in its approach and in its subject matter. If you look closely Born on the Fourth of July is shot in a wholly different style than Platoon. So I've been redefining myself over those 11 films. This film is just another way of doing it. Perhaps it stands out more because it's lower budget and it's a thriller, but I feel good. I feel fresh. Making the film was really a lot of fun. It has all those domestic politics that I love: murder, sex, betrayal (laughs). It's good stuff! It doesn't always have to be about external politics.

You say in the forward to the screenplay of U-Turn that it's harder for you to make films now because people stereotype you.
Yeah. Unfortunately. I just don't want to get between the film and the viewer and that happens again and again...personal attacks come every time and it's perhaps planned, I don't know. It always seems to be a situation of going after the messenger, and that's a shame, because I don't mind being totally anonymous in this thing, and having people walk out not knowing who directed the movie and enjoying the movie. That's what I do.

A lot of the film, and I mean this in a good way, reminded me of a 1960's Roger Corman road movie. Is the film a homage to that genre?
In a good way, yeah. I hope it went beyond that, into the 90's because there was a limited ambition in those older films. But thank you. I love road movies and this is certainly a genre film.

Did you find yourself compromising anything because it was such a short shoot? Were you rushed in any way?
Yes. There were limitations. We set out to make a $20 million film and pretty much stuck close to that. I think we might've gone to $21 million. We went a few days over. It was a rugged shoot. The canyons were tough. The actors were hanging by ropes. Wind, sun, rock. We were in the middle of nowhere, way, way out. It was hard to get trucks out there...so we took some hits on coverage, but we moved fast...and that helped us develop momentum, which is how (my crew and I) prefer to work, anyway. I hate to sit around and wait. It destroys the momentum and the spirit on the set.

Why was it important to you to keep it low budget?
I have this system in my head when I sit down with the script and decide what I have. I sit down with (producer) Clayton Townsend and we go through it, decide how much it should cost. I didn't think this one should cost more than $20 million. Now you've got first-time directors making $60-$100 million movies that they haven't even earned the right to make! Consider that I've never made a movie above $43 million. I've always come in fairly close to budget and fairly close to my scheduled time. With so many filmmakers now, it just seems that the discipline is gone. Billy Wilder, whom I admire very much, has repeatedly told me that he used to shoot his stuff right on the money in 30 days, 35 days. Then he'd cut it right down to the wire. He'd finish the picture, it would be rough cut within three weeks and close to being ready to be shown. Hitchcock would do close to the same thing. But how do you do that? Modern technology has more toys to play with. Billy's day was a little simpler.

Was it a case of where the story itself led you to a smaller scale or were you looking for a small film to begin with?
It was the story itself. It takes place over 24 hours in a small Arizona town with seven people in the main cast. It doesn't require a large scale. And if this movie for some reason misses when it comes out, I'm not going to take a big hit. I think we can make (the $20 million) back. With a bigger film, I would've asked for more money.

What was it about this particular story that grabbed you?
John Ridley wrote a crackling good first draft. We worked on it also for a long time afterward, but it was there. I thought the dialogue was terrific. John was a standup comedian, and loved dialogue, but the script was too dialogue-heavy and we wound up cutting a lot of it. But what was left I thought was very juicy, great stuff.

The use of the film stock (reversal stock) was pretty inspired as well. How did you discover that particular type of stock?
As a function of cheapness! (laughs) We used it at NYU Film School. Reversal stock, 5239. And we basically used it to shoot through the sun and the clouds. It was winter and there were a lot of clouds and we knew that it would be a tough shoot and knew we couldn't stop and do a lot of the things that outdoor photography requires. So we went gangbusters and shot straight through with everything on reversal. We even used it on some interiors.

Tell me about "A Child's Night Dream."
I originally wrote it when I was about 19, then went back to it after finishing Nixon and reshaped it and rewrote sections of it. It's a personal story, about roots. One day perhaps, if I have the moxie, I'll go out and make a personal film like Truffaut or Fellini did. I'll probably get slammed for it...(laughs).

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Olivia Thirlby: The Hollywood Interview

Actress Olivia Thirlby.


THE WACKNESS OF OLIVIA THIRLBY
By
Alex Simon

The following article appears in the July/August issue of Venice Magazine.

Olivia Thirlby first gained notice as the tart-tongued best friend to Ellen Page’s Juno, in the eponymous sleeper hit of 2007 and this year’s Oscars. A native of New York City, Olivia made her film debut in Paul Greengrass’ acclaimed United 93 (2006), followed by David Gordon Green’s lauded, but little-seen Snow Angels (2007). Olivia can currently be seen in the Sony Pictures Classics release The Wackness, sharing the screen with Josh Peck (Mean Creek) and Academy Award winner Sir Ben Kingsley. Set during the summer of 1994 when hip-hop music was becoming the rage among rich white kids in NYC, The Wackness follows the exploits of recent high school grad Luke Shapiro (Peck) who, unsure about his future, spends the scorching summer months selling pot to his friends and eccentric therapist (Kingsley), while pining for the shrink’s comely stepdaughter, Stephanie (Olivia). Written and directed by recent American Film Institute graduate Jonathan Levine, The Wackness hits screens July 3.

Olivia Thirlby in The Wackness.

For Olivia Thirlby, working with the legendary Ben Kingsley was akin to attending a master’s class in acting. “The thing about Sir Ben is that he knows exactly what he’s going to do each and every moment, but he makes them seem spontaneous. Whereas I’m much more a fly by the seat of your pants kind of actor, where the emotion just overtakes me. I wish I could be more like Sir Ben!” she says with a laugh. “I’m often surprised where the emotion comes out in a scene, and usually I can’t plan it. It’s funny, I know people who’ve attended drama school who try to forget what they’ve learned because it bogs them down. For me, it’s instinctual, the more I think about it the more my performance suffers. It’s amazing to see an actor who’s in such mastery of his skills, emotions, body and thoughts that he can actually cue himself to do those kinds of things. The other amazing thing about him is that he’s not intimidating. I almost have an image of him rescuing a little caterpillar off a leaf and saying ‘Don’t worry, you’re wonderful.’ He’s very generous with himself and his time and his acting. He’s very kind and encouraging. I think it says a lot about him that as someone who’s achieved the absolute pinnacle of accolades in his profession, he’s willing to stoop down to that leaf and have a tea party with all these little insects in the lawn.”

Olivia also found that working with a young director like Levine (this is the second feature for the 30 year-old helmer) was as rewarding as working with a veteran like Kingsley. “Jonathan Levine, the one and only. He’s remarkable to work with, because he’s so fun, so relaxed. In my experience the kind of person somebody is doesn’t always dictate their skills, but at least gives you an indication of what the working environment will be like, and if you’re in a positive working environment, with people who are earnestly trying to do something creative, it doesn’t matter what kind of skills and experience somebody has, because they will inevitably create something honest and fun. It was an insanely young crew. I don’t think there was a single person working on the movie that was over 40.”

Olivia and Josh Peck in The Wackness.

Olivia also adds that Levine’s laid-back approach was sometimes a bit perplexing. “My true respect for Jonathan as a filmmaker has been enriched by the final product of the film, when you see what he managed to do while being low-key, yet very energetic in his own very unique way. Sometimes we thought ‘Is Jonathan even paying attention? Does he care if we’re giving a shitty performance or a great performance?’ And it’s really because he knew exactly what he was looking for, and if he saw it, he didn’t need to say anything. He put a lot of trust in us and did something very wise, which was to cast actors to be as they are as people, as themselves. And there was something about the chemistry between Josh and I that was immediately like Luke and Stephanie. It was just so natural. We didn’t even need to be reading the lines off the script, and a huge part of their relationship is the games that they play with each other. That’s classic romance. That’s how Shakespeare writes it.”

With six more feature films being released between now and 2010, Olivia is busier than ever, but has just a single wish to impart to the viewing public: “Go see The Wackness. It’s dope.”

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George Hickenlooper: The MAYOR OF THE SUNSET STRIP Interview, 2004

(Rodney Bingenheimer, the subject of MAYOR OF THE SUNSET STRIP, and Andy Warhol, above.)


Filmmaker George Hickenlooper passed away on October 29, 2010, at the way too early age of 47. This is an interview I did with George in 2004, around the release of his documentary Mayor of the Sunset Strip, which I consider one of the very best films ever made about the entertainment industry and one of my Top 20 Films of the past decade. Hickenlooper's last film, Casino Jack, starring Kevin Spacey, has just been released. This article originally appeared in Venice Magazine.

With Mayor of the Sunset Strip, George Hickenlooper takes us on a tour of the modern history of celebrity, via the life of legendary pop music impresario Rodney Bingenheimer.

BY TERRY KEEFE

Filmmaker George Hickenlooper clearly loves the dreamers that drive the entertainment industry, but he's also very familiar with how Los Angeles can eat them alive. Many of his best works have at their center the conflict between the dreams that drive so many to this city and the price those dreams exact. Hickenlooper first came to prominence in 1991 with his documentary, Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse, on Francis Coppola and the legendarily difficult shoot of Apocalypse Now, in which Coppola loses and regains his sanity a number of times while dealing with monsoons, rebels in the hills, and Dennis Hopper. That same year would also see the release of another Hickenlooper documentary on a different American auteur, Peter Bogdanovich, entitled Picture This: The Life and Times of Peter Bogdanovich in Archer, Texas, which chronicles the difficult production of The Last Picture Show. As the '90s wore on, Hickenlooper became a noted narrative feature director as well, with films such as The Low Life (1995), a very underrated gem about a struggling Los Angeles screenwriter, played by Rory Cochrane, and the tragedy which befalls his roommate, played by Sean Astin, who is heartbreaking as a lonely guy who ultimately is too soft for Hollywood. Then in 2001 came the release of Hickenlooper's The Man from Elysian Fields, which stars Andy Garcia as a failed novelist who is forced to go to work at a male escort agency run by Mick Jagger. Although Garcia's character lives in Pasadena, the dark fog of broken dreams which hangs over the film is the same one which drifts through the Hollywood of both reality and celluloid. And if the characters in any of Hickenlooper's aforementioned films turned on the radio during their struggles, they might have heard the voice of famed Los Angeles disc jockey Rodney Bingenheimer, the central character in Hickenlooper's new documentary, Mayor of the Sunset Strip.


(George Hickenlooper, with President Barack Obama, above.)

If you grew up in Southern California anytime between the mid-seventies to the early nineties, you undoubtedly heard Rodney's famous nasally voice on KROQ-FM at least once. And if you were part of his target audience, he may have changed your life forever. Rodney joined KROQ in 1976, when the station was broadcasting from Pasadena with barely 1000 watts and with no money to pay the DJs. The station had no musical identity and was essentially playing everything and anything. But Rodney would quickly provide that identity. In 1976, no one in the United States was playing The Sex Pistols, until Rodney did. Over the next two decades, he would also be the first to play records by The Clash, The Cure, The Smiths, The B-52s, Duran Duran, Dramarama, Joan Jett, Nirvana, and even Van Halen, amongst many other notable names. He essentially pioneered the market for what would become the entire genre of alternative music on American radio, in the process also making KROQ one of the biggest and most powerful radio stations in the United States today. But Rodney himself is now relegated to a graveyard slot on the station, granted only a few late-night hours on the weekend. The empire he created allows his famous voice only a very narrow window of expression these days, although it once spoke to an entire generation of music lovers. In Mayor of the Sunset Strip, KROQ disc jockey Jed the Fish poses the question of how Rodney could have started so many careers but not be one of the most powerful music moguls in the world today. It's a question which the film answers in a general sense, as it becomes very clear that Rodney's career has been fueled largely by his pure love of the music, as well as by his love for celebrities and fame. And what a list of celebrities he has been friends with. He has lived an incredible, Zelig-like life, demonstrated most profoundly by the montage of footage and stills in the film which reveal Rodney as a trusted friend of everyone from Elvis to Gwen Stefani of No Doubt, another band which Rodney helped propel. What also emerges is a man whose very life force seems to be sustained by the aura of the celebrities whose careers he has helped to such a great degree. And in relation to that, there is also a sadness to Rodney, perhaps because fame is the type of lover whose charms can be fleeting.




(Rodney with the King, above, and pair of Runaways, Joan Jett and Lita Ford, below.)




I went to college in Southern California in the late-80s, so the voice of Rodney Bingenheimer on KROQ is inseparable from my memories of that time.

George Hickenlooper: That's fantastic. I remember that period also. I'm from the Midwest, but I went to school at Yale, in New Haven, Connecticut. And one of my suitemates was a fellow named Trevor and he was from Pasadena. He used to record Rodney's show and bring tapes and play them on the boombox in our suite. Because, you know, Rodney played all the best music. So I was very familiar with his whiny, unprepossessing, childlike voice which is very unlike the chocolatey timbres that you usually hear on FM radio. But I didn't really think of it much past that, other than that I remember Trevor referring to him as 'Rodney on the ROQ.' Then when I moved out here, I remember making the connection because I would listen to KROQ, and I would hear him on Saturday and Sunday nights, if I had the radio on. But I didn't really think more of it than that.

But your level of interest in him obviously changed at some point.

In 1996, Chris Carter from Dramarama approached me (regarding doing a documentary about Rodney). I met with Chris and he told me some more about Rodney and it sounded interesting. But it didn't pique my interest enough in terms of thinking it could sustain a feature-length documentary. I thought it would be a really compelling music documentary for a very specific music audience. But as a filmmaker, your goal is to reach the largest audience you can. I agreed to sit down with Rodney though, and we met at Denny's and he was very quiet. Very shy. Which I found ironic, considering that he did have something of a personality on the radio. But we went over to his apartment afterwards and Rodney transformed as soon as he was in front of all these photos of himself with all these celebrities and pop stars, and all these gold records and memorabilia. He became a different person; he became luminous. And that was what piqued my interest. Because here was a guy who, for some reason, found some type of warmth and comfort in all of this [celebrity]. It didn't strike me until later that evening that Rodney reminded me so much of myself. I started thinking about my own desires and my own needs to come to Hollywood. We're all sort of intrigued by celebrity. As Lance Loud says about celebrity in the film, everyone pretends they're not [intrigued by it], but everybody is, of course. So then I said, 'This is not just a story about Rodney, and not only does he remind me of myself, but this is sort of an everyman's story. This guy is universal. He's a metaphor for where our culture has come.' I started thinking more about celebrity. I read Leo Braudy's book The Frenzy of Renown, and how he writes that often when our culture becomes fragmented, with the divorce rate skyrocketing and the breakdown of a lot of traditional moral values, those gaps and cracks are filled with celebrity. Which, I think, is one of the reasons that, in the last 30 years, celebrity has just exploded. So I thought that Rodney's contribution to music was significant and interesting, but with his interest in celebrity, I saw him sort of as a metaphor for our culture. And then the more I got to know about Rodney, the more I thought that the theme of our film was that celebrity was just an extension of the human need to be loved. And there I saw a really universal theme and that's when I decided to make the picture.






Is that sadness in Rodney, which is undeniable in the film, readily apparent when you meet him or does that emerge over time?

It comes out over time. You know, the thing about Rodney, people say it [his story] is sad but his story is very indicative of most people who come to Hollywood looking for the dream. The arc of Rodney's life... his coming from obscurity, the fact that he was an outsider, then he came to Hollywood and rose to prominence, then started to fade... is very typical and epitomizes the Hollywood experience for most people. Hollywood is simply kind of a metaphor for life. You know, we're born, we do something with our lives at one point, and then we fade away. So people say that Rodney's story is sad, but the reality is that Rodney's story is everybody's story. Whether you're in Hollywood or not. We're all born alone and we all die alone. The message perhaps that's different [in Rodney's story] is that it's more important to be loved by another person than it is to chase this sort of transcendental dream that we think will fulfill us, but doesn't really exist in the material world at all. I mean, Hollywood is a promise, it's a lie, it's a false god. It's something that we chase, but it's never something we can make part of ourselves, because it doesn't exist. And that's sort of how our culture has run amuck in the last 30 years, become sort of out of control and decadent. It goes back to the Old Testament, chasing the Golden Calf. But I don't find Rodney's story inherently sad, because his experience is so similar to that of many people who come to Hollywood. In this world of pop music or movie stars, you have this sort of hierarchy. And here Rodney pedestalizes a lot of these people, whose careers he's helped launch, but the one common denominator that they all share is this common thread of loneliness. And so, in many ways, they're all very much the same.

You bring up the question of money with Rodney in the film. He hasn't made as much as it seems like he should have with the great success of KROQ. Is that something that bothers him?

I think the thing about Rodney and money... he would like to have money obviously, he says so in the film. He does have an incredible memorabilia collection, which he could retire on if he wanted to put it up to auction. But I think one of the reasons Rodney hasn't benefitted from huge sums of money is because Rodney is a very selfless individual. He really likes people to be happy and he really likes the family atmosphere [that he has with his friends]. I think that when money becomes an issue between friends, you lose that unconditional love that is so important to Rodney. And also another reason Rodney hasn't been more financially successful... in the last 20 years, post-Howard Stern, and I like Howard Stern, I like his honesty, but the kind of sewer culture and decadence that has permeated the radio... those DJs do very well because they're very adolescent and crude. And Rodney doesn't have a crude bone in his body. Rodney has a lot of integrity in that sense. He has a lot of taste. Those other guys don't have taste.

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Jeffrey Dean Morgan: The WATCHMEN Interview

Under the Hood: The Tears of the Comedian

With the long-awaited arrival of Watchmen, it’s a whole new ball game for both the super hero film genre, and for actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan.

By Terry Keefe

(Note: This article is appearing in this month's Venice Magazine.)

Watchmen was the first comic to make me a little bit scared of super heroes. It also abruptly killed any lingering childhood fantasies of ever wanting to be one. Having read super hero comics since literally the day I could put the words in the thought balloons together, Watchmen arrived as a comics fan’s equivalent of a neutron bomb, not to mention a major reality check, during my mid-teens, in 1986. (And yes, they were still called comic books then, as the term “graphic novel” took many years to catch on, even though Watchmen was to eventually become the most revered graphic novel of all time.) Written by Alan Moore with art by Dave Gibbons, Watchmen was the first comic, along with Frank Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, to actually explore what type of people would choose to be costumed adventurers, and the answer wasn’t a pretty one. The masked heroes in Watchmen are many things, including psychopaths, megalomaniacs, fetishists, murderers, and rapists. The character who attempts to rape a super heroine in the Watchmen, in flashback, is also the one whose murder in the opening scenes by an unknown assassin drives the main plot: the Comedian, aka Eddie Blake. And, as you surely know from the billboards everywhere, Watchmen is now a huge motion picture, directed by Zack Snyder. The Comedian, featured on bus stations across town lighting his cigar with a flame thrower, is played by actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan. A feature film of Watchmen is something that fans of the novel never really expected to see, much less one which was great. As an unabashed fan who was not going to be satisfied easily on this one, I’m thrilled to say that both the film and Morgan’s performance are sensational. More on Morgan’s work as the Comedian in a minute, but first, a quick rundown on his character’s complicated backstory is in order. (Just a note to Watchmen neophytes: there are a few spoilers throughout the article.)

As mentioned earlier, the Comedian is murdered as a 69-year old man in his New York City apartment in the beginning of Watchmen, which takes place in an alternate universe version of 1985, similar in many ways to our version of the 80s but with some crucial differences. The main plot then kicks in as a murder mystery of sorts, as the last active costumed vigilante, Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley) starts to investigate what he believes to be a conspiracy against all the masked heroes who were active years before, prior to the passage of the Keene Act, which outlawed costumed vigilantes. Rorschach’s investigation brings him back in touch with former colleagues and teammates Dan Dreiberg, aka Nite Owl II (Patrick Wilson), Silk Spectre II, aka Laurie Jupiter (Malin Akerman), Ozymandias, aka Adrian Veidt (Matthew Goode), and Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudrup), the only one of them to have actual super-powers. And in flashback, we also learn of the forefathers of this last group, the Minutemen, who were the first costumed heroes back in the 1930s, when the novelty of the masked adventurers made the heroes popular and they were treated for a short time like film stars. The Comedian joined the Minutemen when he was just 16-years old, and he had the devil in him, to say the least, even then. After a meeting at “Minutemen Headquarters,” he brutally beats and tries to rape Sally Jupiter (Carla Gugino), the original Silk Spectre and the mother of Malin Akerman’s character. When costumed heroes are banned, the Comedian starts to work directly for shadowy parts of the U.S. government as the ultimate special agent, and he becomes a pivotal part of some of the more notorious moments in this fictional U.S. history. The Comedian is revealed as the shooter on the Grassy Knoll who kills JFK, and then, along with Dr. Manhattan, he helps win the Vietnam War for the U.S. in just a few months, committing many more atrocities along the way. Without the Vietnam War to drag down the march to power of the military-industrial complex, President Nixon is re-elected to five terms of office. Something very bad happens to Woodward & Bernstein along the way, also likely at the hands of the Comedian. He’s one part Captain America, the iconic Marvel Comics hero who represented all the classic virtues of truth, justice, and the American Way, but crossbred with the neocon philosophy, to create a masked monstrosity whose life story parallels that of this version of America. Triumphant and embolded by victory in WWII, the Comedian helps the U.S. achieve greater hegemony worldwide, but he is scarred by Vietnam, even though victory in this reality is swift. As the story of Watchmen begins, the United States and Russia are on the brink of nuclear war. An elderly Nixon huddles in his War Room with the nuclear football. And the Comedian himself is murdered….by an even far more insidious force looking to take over power in the world.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan has perhaps the most difficult role in a film which is filled with them. The Comedian is the one main character whose life straddles the multi-decades of the story, although thankfully he has some of the best lines as ammunition along the way. A complete nihilist, the Comedian deals with his embracement of man’s darkness by telling jokes about it, although they aren’t exactly of the “knock-knock” variety. Life itself is one big cosmic gag to him, and in that regard, he’s one part Joker, one part Loki, one part Robin Goodfellow, with a touch of Rambo. Morgan also succeeds at the tremendously challenging task of making the Comedian a somewhat sympathetic character. It’s the Comedian who discovers first what the world is about to become in the climax of the story, and even he is horrified by it. It turns out that the ultimate black hole of a man has a heart after all, which he reveals in a teary breakdown during a late-night break-in of the apartment of his former enemy, the cancer-stricken Moloch. His time has come. He’s a leftover. And he knows that what is coming down the pike is going to make him look like Clark Kent.

It’s shaping up to be a huge, career-redefining year for Morgan, who up until this point was best known for his role as Denny Duquette on “Grey’s Anatomy”, as well as his work as John Winchester on “Supernatural.” He is now poised to become a significant leading man in features.

I started our talk off by handing Jeffrey the dog-eared, original graphic novel of Watchmen that I purchased back in early 1987.

Here’s proof that I’ve been preparing for this interview for a very, very long time, Jeffrey. 22 years.

Jeffrey laughs and eagerly flips through this classic edition.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan: Hey, man, that's fucking brilliant, man! It’s got that old...smell to it, you know? I fucking love it. That's awesome! It’s so well-worn.

Many reads. When was it that you read the entire graphic novel?

Yeah, you know, my heyday was the '80s, I guess, but I didn't know about this thing. I got a call from my agent one day, who said Zack Snyder, the director of 300, is doing this thing, Watchmen, and they're interested in you for the role of the Comedian, and we're going to send you the material. And I was very excited, because I had just seen 300, and I thought what an amazing director he was, and instead of sending me a script, which, you know, that's what we see as actors are these scripts…it was a Xerox copy of the graphic novel, black and white, thick as a phone book, and I was like, “What the hell is this thing?” [laughs] I mean, literally, I was almost angry, like, “They expect me to read this?” You know, you could barely read it, and you couldn't see the pictures, really, and then I did read it, and opened it up, and on page three, the Comedian gets thrown out the window! And I called my agent -

You’re like, “I'm dead!”

“I'm dead, man!” I mean, what the hell? And on page three, no less! Not much of a run on this film. But, you know, it was made very clear to me that I was being a jerk-off and that I should continue reading. And I did, and I remember I got to the last page, and I put it down, and I was like, “What the fuck did I just read?” [laughs] And I put on a pot of coffee, and I started over, started on page one again. And I read it three times in about a twenty-seven hour period, and then went and had my meeting with Zack. And I went into this meeting now knowing the material pretty well, and I met this guy who has so much energy and so much enthusiasm, and I think I said two or three words. I said, “Hey, I'm Jeff.” That was really the extent of the conversation that I had, and then watched him for two hours, bouncing around this office, and when I say bouncing, I mean literally he never sat down. He had sketchbooks out, conceptual costume stuff at this point, pictures, you know, panels from the actual graphic novel art, floor to ceiling his office is just covered in this stuff. And at the end of the meeting, he looks at me, and he finally sits down, and he's like, “Are you in?” And that was the beginning of a tremendous ride. We're nearing our finish line now. It's been two years of my life kinda dedicated to this, and I've become, like you, a huge fanboy of Watchmen, and actually saw the movie for the first time two weeks ago. At a little screening room at Warner Bros. And it blew my mind. And for the first time I can remember - I'm hyper-critical of seeing myself onscreen, I generally don't like to see myself - but I watched this movie, and there were no signs of me in it. You know, it was the Comedian. And I was just watching this experience. I don't know how else to explain Watchmen. Even if you're not familiar with the comic book, what you're looking at here is a massive filmgoing experience. It transports you to this alternate reality that is scarily similar to what's going on now, which is crazy, since this came out in 1986!

History repeats itself over and over again. And there's the classic “Big Lie” at the end -

That's exactly right.

- and the masses buy that lie. They just go with it, because society would fall apart otherwise.

Mm-hm. You're a Watchmen fan [laughs]. You know it, you know it.

(The Watchmen graphic novel's version of the Comedian, above.)

Did you give the Comedian much backstory yourself, other than what was in the source material?

No, I mean, having this as the source material, there's so much there. It's really fleshed out in the pages. It's a lot to work with. And you never have that as an actor, you know, something like this. I mean, you could turn to a page [in the graphic novel] on any given scene, and I knew where to start the scene, I knew where to be sitting, I knew the posture to have. You’d think that would be kind of constricting, confining in a way, but I didn't find it [that way] at all. I found it to be this kind of amazing reference point, because then you start filling in the gaps between these panels. And bringing the Comedian to life, you know, what I found most fascinating about this particular character…..was I didn't hate this guy.

He’s done horrible things, but even the original Silk Spectre loves him.

Yeah, Silk Spectre loves him…and I loved him, and when I read it….why would you love a guy who commits the atrocities that he commits, the horrible acts that he commits? Even to the person I think he's in love with. I think he's completely in love with Sally Jupiter. He just…he's just a screwed-up motherfucker. I mean, he's just a brutal, cruel, nihilistic, amoral man, but I had to find the humanity in him, and I did in reading it. There was a…you almost feel sorry for this guy, you know? But as an actor to try to bite into that - because what's in the script, if I threw this graphic novel away, and didn't have this as a reference, and just saw the script - I don't know how I would do that. But seeing in the graphic novel, the scene with Sally Jupiter, when he finds out about Laurie, the pain that he's going through….Trying to get ahold of that as an actor was thrilling and a challenge and I loved every second of it.

Obviously, a lot of effort was made to match some of the graphic novel panels that are iconic from the book. It’s good to hear that it wasn’t limiting, because one can imagine that you spent a lot of time on the set matching your blocking to the panels.

Absolutely. It's funny, you know, people ask me about the script all the time, and they did a great translation. You saw the movie, they did a very faithful translation from book to script, but, you know, there was never a script around. I don't remember even looking at a script on the set.

You don't have to when you have this graphic novel.

Yeah, that's exactly right. And, you know, another dog-eared copy of this [lifts up the graphic novel] and when I say “dog-eared,” I mean beat to shit, was sitting on Zack's monitor for six months, and someone had it in their hand at all times. If it wasn't us, the actors, it was Zack, if it wasn't Zack, it was our D.P., Larry Fong, or it was our costumer, Michael Wilkinson. I mean, this was the bible on this movie, more so than anything I have ever seen. It was an amazing tool to have, as filmmakers.

What's tragic about the Comedian, and one reason why you do feel sorry for him, is that his time has passed. He represents the dark side of America, but an America that’s going to be phased out, for something far worse.

And he knows it. And I think that realization really hits him in a much harder way than I think you anticipate when you start this story. I think he realizes in that the mistakes that he's made in his life, too. But it's such a telling scene, you know, the scene with Moloch when he says to Moloch, “You're the closest thing to a friend I got -”

Right. And Moloch was his enemy.

His arch-enemy. I think that is so incredibly telling, and fucking sad, that here's a man that's lived sixty-nine years of a life of adventure, and out of that sixty-nine years, he is completely alone. And it's his fault. And it hits him in a hard way. So, that journey of discovery, from being a sixteen-year-old vigilante in the Minutemen, to this sixty-nine-year-old beaten-down monster of a man, is an amazing roller-coaster ride.

The scene where the Comedian attempts to rape Sally Jupiter. I remember reading Watchmen as a teenager, getting to that scene, and being completely stunned. But at the same time, realizing that someone had finally acknowledged what had always been a major unspoken element of the stories of costumed adventurers. They dress up in leather costumes, as bats, cats, and owls, and then fight each other. Of course these people would be fringe personalities and worse! Of course they have sexual perversions and are into S&M and are fetishists.

That's right. It's a fascinating thing about this graphic novel….when this came out in 1986, nothing like this had ever been done. Comic books, graphic novels, they were very much geared, I think, toward a younger crowd. And the characters kind of, were all living with their aunts, and drinking milk. Watchmen comes along, and they're these flawed, drunk, you know, rapists - people that should be in prison or a mental hospital. What would really happen if we had super heroes? Who would be those people that donned these costumes?

(Morgan and Carla Gugino's Betty Page-inspired Silk Spectre, above.)

Yeah, it was twenty-three years ago when it came out in the comics world, and now mainstream America is finally going to see it as a movie. I think it is going to blow people’s minds all over again, on a much larger scale. Movie audiences have never seen a hero like Batman naked and having sex, and people are going to see the equivalent of that here.

Yeah, I think it's gonna change the landscape. I think much like this comic book changed the landscape of comic books, I think this film's gonna change the landscape of the genre film especially. But maybe film. Zack, you know, we've been giving Zack shit all day for these posters which are up all over saying, you know, “The Visionary Director,” but, the fact of the matter is, you can't argue it. He is a visionary director, the way he has a grasp on technology, and film, and beyond that, he's an amazing director to work with as an actor. Compelling, and he works with you, and it's very much this team effort too.

This takes him to a whole different level. He’s going to be at the top of the A-list now. Because everyone knows what a tough adaptation this was.

“The unfilmable graphic novel.”

Terry Gilliam couldn’t get it made.

Yeah, and Greengrass.

Paul Greengrass, right. There have been a lot of actors attached over the years as well.

And everybody walked away shaking their head, “Can't be done.” And, you know, I didn't know it going in because, again, I didn't know this [indicates the graphic novel]. And so, going in, you know, you kind of go in wide-eyed, and I was just happy to fucking get out of bed, and not play a nice guy. But in a very short time-span, you figure out that Watchmen fans are a very special breed. They're very intelligent, and very smart, and they they’ve got really high expectations. So, I figured out very quickly, we all did, what this meant to people. You know, they weren't all real happy with Zack as director, or with us as actors. Just the fact that this was being turned into a movie offended a lot of these fans, so we felt a kind of a huge responsibility, to kind of do this right. I mean, more than anything I've ever been a part of. This thing is so specific, Zack was so specific in making this for the fans of this, that it felt like it was a little independent movie that we all had our own money sunk into, the way people cared about this.

Tonally, what type of direction did Zack give you all to make sure you were all on the same page? Because this is one big cast to manage in that regard.

You know what the great thing is….he hired a cast that a lot of people were [initially] disappointed with. He could have gone, I've heard him say, the Oceans 11 way, and gone with big-name people. It probably would have made people much happier, initially, that were fans of this. Maybe they would have felt safer. But what he did was…he hired, I think really good actors, that he trusted. There were no egos.

That might have been one of the secrets to making something this size work.

By putting us in it, the people that weren't the Tom Cruises or Jude Laws of the world, what you do is…you make this material the star of it. And that was more important than anything else. And Zack knew that well before any of us did. Visionary. You know? [laughs]

Let’s talk about the fight scene at the beginning of the film where the Comedian is murdered by an unknown attacker. Zach decided to show a little bit more of the attacker than is shown in the graphic novel, where the attacker is mainly seen as a pair of hands. Did you shoot it a few different ways so there were editing options of how much of the attacker to reveal?

Well, the attacker was always supposed to be in shadow. But what Zack really wanted to do was start this movie off with a huge bang.

It's one kick-ass fight scene.

(The iconic murder of the Comedian, above, complete with blood-stained Smiley Face button.)
Yeah, yeah, unbelievable. I trained, I was in Vancouver two months before we started shooting this movie, just training for that fight. Just the choreography of that fight. It’s a hell of a way to start a movie. Between that and the opening montage, I think we're off to a hell of a start.

That opening montage is also incredibly well done.

Yeah, it tells a whole history of these guys, in a seven-minute span.

And it mixes in this super hero world with re-creations of our actual history. That’s something which we’ve seen in comics but which is very new to the screen. Zack added a lot of great imagery of his own for the montage, using the novel as a jumping-off point. Such as the twisting of the iconic photo of the WWII soldier kissing the girl in Times Square, only now it’s the lesbian super hero, the Silhouette, and her girlfriend. And then there’s JFK. The JFK Assassination is only mentioned in passing, in the novel, as you know. But here, you see it. Now we know who was on the Grassy Knoll!

When we shot that, I was like, “Holy shit. This is gonna stir up some stuff!” But what a cool scene to shoot and see. Amazing.

Another of the most disturbing scenes in the film is in the bar in Vietnam where the Comedian shoots the pregnant girl in front of Dr. Manhattan, who has the power to stop the bullet but doesn’t. I assume Billy Crudrup, as Dr. Manhattan, must have been covered in motion capture devices. Let’s talk about shooting that scene with him.

Billy was basically, in essence, wearing white pajamas and a white skullcap, that was covered with blue LED lights, and he had black spots all over his face. You know, what's so amazing about his performance is it's all in his face. And you don't even see his eyes -they're these white sockets, you know, so that expression, you can't even see that. So everything is done with his face, and it's just another performance that knocked it out of the park. And acting with him, you know, there were the initial giggles that you get, when you saw him, because literally it was the human diaper, with blue LED lights. And basically, he was a lighting source for actors. And, you know, it's to his credit, he never broke. He could have easily gotten pissed at us for having giggles, and a lot of actors would. But to his credit, he knew that his tool was his face - the crack of a smile, the squint of an eye - that was his performance. The tilt of his head. And he was so in it, that very quickly, after like one day of working with him, you forgot about the silly outfit that he was wearing, and you bought him as Dr. Manhattan, man. He just had his shit down.

You played the Comedian at a lot of different ages. Mentally, how did you change it up?

You know, I'd like to say there was a point when he was maybe more naive in his younger years, but he was so kind of brutal, always. And cynical. You know, the minute he kind of crosses that line in the CrimeBusters meeting, there was really only one way to go with him….until he figures out the Laurie situation, I think, really. I mean, that's kind of the first moment when, you know, I'm searching for this human side. But the age thing, I mean, the makeup guys, everybody involved in this movie was so meticulous. When I looked at myself in the mirror at the age sixty-nine, man….

Really?

It was a scary reality. “Fuck, this is what it's gonna look like!” [laughs]

Let’s talk about another one of your co-stars, Jackie Earle Haley. He’s fantastic as Rorschach.

I've been sitting with him for the past three days. His portrayal of Rorschach is...scary. It's just scary, and spot-on. And, you know, the minute he opens his mouth and starts speaking from his journal, it sent chills up my spine. Unbelievable performance. I think everybody was just on the money…but, yeah, his performance, you brought him up, is just insane.

One of the trademarks of the novel is that there is so much detail that you pick up little new pieces of information each time you read it, both visually and in the text. The film is like that too. One example is at the end, when we’re outside the office of The New Frontiersman - you see a car parked there, and they don't make any big point of it by zooming in, but it's an electric car. The background detail of the shot subtly tells you of some of the smaller changes in the world since the big climax.

That's right. The car is plugged in and charging. And there are things in this movie like that…you'd probably have to watch the movie twenty times, like the book. You notice something new every time. I still notice things and I've probably read the thing forty times. I think the movie is filled with these Easter eggs, these nuggets. The attention to detail is just insane.

You’ve also recently shot Taking Woodstock, with Ang Lee.

Yeah, yeah, that's done, that's in the can. It’s kind of the behind-the-scenes of Woodstock and how that came to be. Working with Ang Lee. Are you kidding me [laughs]? It’s an amazing, amazing story. And working with Ang, I was like, pinch me, somebody pinch me. The last year has been one big “somebody-pinch-me” moment, you know?

And you're also starring in All Good Things, which was directed by Andrew Jarecki.

Andrew is one of the smarter people I think you'll ever meet in your life. This movie, the documentary he did, Capturing the Friedmans, scared the crap out of me. An amazing piece of work. So, this was his first [fiction] feature film, you know, and I was working with Ryan Gosling, and Kirsten Dunst, and Frank Langella.

Did you deliberately seek out material during the past few years that was very different from your role on “Grey's Anatomy?”

Absolutely. Sure. But I didn't know if somebody was going to give me the chance. Certainly, you know, I remember when I read Watchmen, I was like, “You know, they're never gonna fucking hire me for this.” And I think that's kind of the part of Zack that is so brilliant. He was like, “Fuck, you can do it, man.” He trusted me. Most directors would be like, “Are you kidding me? That's about as far away from a guy that can play this character as anyone I've ever heard of.” You know, wiping Denny out of people's minds is a hard thing to do. He made such an impact on so many people, but I think if anybody could do it, it's the Comedian, you know?

(Morgan and Katherine Heigel in "Grey's Anatomy," above.)

Will you do any more appearances on “Grey’s?”

No, as far as I know, I am dead. And I'm busy doing other things. But I owe that show everything. Shonda Rhimes is a brilliant writer and a good friend, and I wake up every morning and I thank her for giving me that opportunity. I owe everything to her, I really do, and I know it. You know, between that and “Supernatural,” it was a really great way to kind of kick-start a twenty-year career. Yeah, and I loved the opportunity, and I had so much fun working with the people over there, especially Katie [Heigel]. The chemistry we had was completely unique and special, and it was worth every second of it.

Let’s talk a little about your background and your path into acting.

Sure, I grew up in Seattle, outside of Seattle, a little city called Kirkland, Washington, then lived in Seattle, downtown Seattle, for years during the big grunge movement.

Good time to be there.

It was a great time to be there. I knew all those guys.

Did you?

Yeah, yeah. I knew a lot of Mother Love Bone. They turned into Pearl Jam, I knew them. Some of the Soundgarden guys.

Were you a musician at all?

I was, but I had no musical talent whatsoever. I just couldn't do it. Believe me, at that time, everybody was a musician that I knew, and I just couldn't do it. No, I fiddled around, kind of made a living with various ridiculous jobs, and then on the side I was painting, and I used to sell my artwork at coffee shops.

Do you still paint?

You know, I haven't in a while, but I would love to. I had moved to New York for a little while, did some graphic art, went back to Seattle, continued doing graphic art, and then I moved a friend down to L.A. I drove the U-Haul down, and he was an actor, and I met somebody who said, you know, you should give this a shot. And I did, and I got this horrible Roger Corman movie really quickly after being in Los Angeles. And I didn't know really what a mark was, or anything, but I fell in love with it. I loved the art of acting, and wanted to learn. I embraced it, and spent twenty years chasing that dream, and really kind of came to the end of the rope. And then, you know, in a quick six month span of one summer, my life changed. And here I am talking to you.

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TONY LEUNG and 2046: The Hollywood Interview Retro Flashback

(Tony Leung, above.)

(As the new decade begins, we're going to be running a few interviews with top talents, and on noteworthy films, from the Naughties that we haven't posted online yet. This interview with Tony Leung, on the subject of the film 2046, appeared originally in Venice Magazine.)

To 2046 and Back with Tony Leung

by Terry Keefe

2046 is a film which re-teams one of the biggest stars of Asian cinema, Tony Leung Chiu Wai, with one of its most enigmatic and innovative directors, Wong Kar Wai. It's the sixth feature collaboration between the pair, which began in 1989 with Days of Being Wild, and reached its most famous heights on these shores with Chungking Express and In the Mood for Love, the film to which 2046 is an almost-sequel. "Almost" because Leung plays what might best be described as another incarnation, or different shading, of his character from In the Mood for Love. He inhabits the same skin, but he is a very different man. The character is Chow Mo Wan, and when we met him in Mood, he was an aspiring writer, who seemed as if he might actually overcome his penchant for philandering and devote himself to one woman. He was also quite charming and dashing, in an old Hollywood star sort of way. An unspecified number of years have passed between the two films and the Chow of 2046 has given up all artistic aspirations, now churning out dime store paperbacks. He has also given up on true love, although he seems perpetually in the mood for love of the hit and run variety, as the film follows him through a series of temporary romances with the likes of Ziyi Zhang, Gong Li, Faye Wong, Carina Lau, Dong Jie, and Maggie Cheung. You would think Chow might find happiness somewhere in such a line-up, but he seems inherently unable to. Leung's Chow spends much of his time forever pining over the past, although he will not admit this to himself. He claims to want to move on and change but continually self-sabotoges any chance of this. The Chow of 2046 looks similar to the Chow of Mood, but his mannerisms are quite different, as is his very voice, which is that of a man badly bent, if not quite broken. Kar Wai creates a dreamlike state for the film with nonlinear editing and story structure, and although ostensibly set in 60s Hong Kong, 2046 might just as well be inside Chow's mind, a mind haunted by memories. The title of the film refers to a girlfriend's room number which appears in both films, and at the same time references the year 2046, the setting of one of Chow's futuristic novels. This particular book tells of a mysterious train which can take you to the year 2046, a year where nothing ever changes and you can recapture lost memories.

Leung has carved out his stardom via both the art house and the mainstream multiplex, alternating between complex works such as 2046, and blockbusters such as Infernal Affairs and Hard Boiled. For his part, Kar Wai is one of the most discussed directors of his generation, as much for his methods as for his often mesmerizing work. His shoots are frequently lengthy affairs, sometimes taking place sporadically over a few years. He often shoots without a solid script, giving the actors little pieces of story as they go along. Some who have worked with him say that he has the entire story in his head from the beginning, while others feel that he finds it during shooting and editing. The truth, as it often is, is likely somewhere in between.

2046 reportedly took five years to complete?

Tony Leung: We didn't shoot it all at once though. We were shooting it on and off. We encountered a load of difficulties, because there are a lot of big stars in the film and they don't expect to shoot that long and they had committed to other projects in-between. So there were scheduling problems with the actors. And then the SARS epidemic happened in-between, so not only show business, but all the other businesses, were shut down. There wasn't anyone willing to work at that time. And the epidemic lasted quite some time. Then there were the locations. We weren't shooting in only one country. We were shooting in three countries. We were only able to shoot indoors in Hong Kong, and we had to shoot outdoors in Bangkok. Because we weren't able to find the kind of streets in Hong Kong that existed in '68. It had changed that much. There were also the labor costs. We had to build the futuristic set in China. Another reason that it took so long is that the filmmakers are perfectionists [laughs].

How long did your part take to shoot?

About a year total, but once again, we were shooting on and off. I've done three other movies in-between! [laughs]

Was it hard to get back to the character of Chow each time you returned to the project?

Really tough. To stay in a character for five years is really tiring. It was really hard every time I went back to the set. I needed 1-2 weeks to warm up to get back to him again.

And he's not a real happy guy. You probably didn't look forward to inhabiting his skin.

Sometimes. But at least there were so many beautiful actresses in the film. That helped.

You've made a number of films with Wong Kar Wai. What is your collaborative process like from the start of a project?

I think that the way Kar Wai works is that he wants people to stimulate him. To inspire him. He gives a lot of freedom to everyone on the set. Not just the actors, but all of the crew. Our relationship is very strange. We never talk on the set. He'll just give me a little hint, a little clue, at the very beginning [as to what the project is about]. I start off knowing very little. We develop everything on the set, as we shoot. What I know at the very beginning is just my character. That's how we work together. We've always done it that way. It's how we worked together back on Days of Being Wild, in our early days. No one will work like Wong Kar Wai. I find it quite inspiring. Sometimes you have more space in creating your character. Because he will not give you a specific direction, so you can do whatever you want. Nothing is right or wrong, because you don't know what is right or wrong. Every time is like an adventuresome journey. No one knows what is happening during the shooting. And no one knows what the story is about. Not just me, but everyone on the set. And we shoot so much footage that we can cut it into five different movies.

But do you think that Wong Kar Wai has it set in his mind what the film is going to be from the very start?

I'm not sure. I think that he might have an idea at the very beginning, but he changes as he goes along.

Does he have a solid script in terms of the dialogue?

Sometimes. We used to give us the script for that day. When we arrive on the set, they give us the script of that day.

2046 contains a few characters who have appeared in Kar Wai's other films. You've spoken about this film as almost a summation of all your previous films together. Do you think you'll revisit these characters again?

I hope not [laughs]. I don't want to revisit Mr. Chow again. I think we should do something different. I talked to Kar Wai on the set, and said that this is the best we can do, in terms of the types of movies we've been doing since Days of Being Wild to 2046. We can't do it better and we should try something different.

Did you spend much time thinking about the Chow from In the Mood for Love while developing his current incarnation?

I tried to avoid thinking of that original Mr. Chow. Because on the first day, Kar Wai told me that he wanted to play me the same character again, but that he wanted me to play it differently this time. That he wanted me to play him as a dark, cynical playboy. And he wanted me to act differently, but with the same face. So I was trying to get rid of that Mr. Chow, to get rid of his past. Very much like what the character did in the movie. I didn't ask Kar Wai why he wanted me to do that on the first day, but I think he had a reason. When I saw the movie, I realized that Chow is trying to get rid of his past, but things keep reminding him of it. In the first few months, while I was trying to create this new Mr. Chow, I would jump back to the old Mr. Chow subconsciously. I don't know why. I had this difficulty. And Kar Wai kept reminding me, "No, Tony, this is not right. This is the voice of the old Mr. Chow." I was trying to create a new Mr. Chow, but things kept reminding me of In the Mood for Love. The scenes, the room number, everything. You're trying to be a new man but things just keep reminding you of the past. This is how I felt on the shoot. One day I discussed with the art director, "Do you know what we are trying to do? 2046 or In the Mood for Love? It seems like everything just keeps reminding me of In the Mood for Love." At the time, I didn't know that the story would be about lost memories [laughs]. But it works for the character and it really helps.

And do you think Kar Wai knew that conflict would be there for you and that it would help the film?

Yes, but he never revealed it to us during the shooting.

Kar Wai's shots seem incredibly meticulous in their construction. Even in the smallest, seemingly least consequential ones, there is great design in the camera movement and framing.

He spends a lot of time on every shot. We spend a lot of time waiting there, in a sense. He averages 3-4 hours on a shot. So we didn't do much on one day of shooting. He spends lots of time on the lighting and camera movement. And we do it over and over again. Many takes. Even the very intense scenes, like I did with Gong Li, the kissing scene...he'd do it forty times. And Gong Li would have to cry forty times! And it's exhausting. Every time we'd do that shot in a 1,000 foot magazine. We'd do a ten minute take for every shot.

Does he give you lots of correction in-between takes or do you just keep doing it over and over?

We usually just keep doing it. He feels that everything is okay, but something is off...the lighting, the camera movement, so we have to do it all over again.

It sounds like Stanley Kubrick's style of working a bit. The repeated takes and the meticulous perfectionism.

Uh-huh. I sometimes think that Kar Wai is trying to make you exhausted [laughs]. To make you get rid of all those skills you have. Because in the first few takes you still have a lot of energy and are trying to do some technical thing. And I think he hates that very much. He wants you to just be yourself. No techniques. No skills. I think that's why he kept doing things over and over again. Because then you get exhausted and just act naturally.

What do you think happens to Chow after this film? Can he ever be happy?

No. He'll never be happy. Because he loves to live in his dreams. He loves to live in the past, and he never wants to take any more risk. He never wants to commit to any relationship anymore because he doesn't want to get hurt. I think he's a coward in some respects. He can't take failure well. So his ideal relationship is in the past.

What does the title 2046 mean to you?

In the film, it means a room number, or the train to the past. To me, 2046 means something very personal. A secret that you can not share with others. I have this kind of thinking.

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Catching up with WAITING FOR SUPERMAN's Davis Guggenheim

Four months into the release of Waiting for Superman, glimmers of possible change in public education illuminate the horizon.

(A charter school lottery in Waiting for Superman.)

by Terry Keefe

(Note: I spoke to Davis Guggenheim, and wrote this article, a few weeks ago, when Waiting for Superman was considered by many a shoe-in for an Oscar nomination. It didn't receive that Oscar nomination but would have nonetheless been well-deserving of it. The article is currently appearing in Venice Magazine.)

Waiting for Superman director Davis Guggenheim might be wishing for a few super-powers of his own with the virtual non-stop schedule he's been keeping to promote his documentary about the crisis in American public schools, since its release at the end of September. A front runner for the Best Documentary Academy Award, Waiting for Superman has already scooped up the top feature doc prizes from the National Board of Review, the Critics Choice Awards, as well as those of numerous regional critics groups, and the last few months have required a whirlwind tour of screening appearances as part of the awards campaign. There's a weariness in Guggenheim's voice when we speak on the event-packed Golden Globes weekend, which he apologizes for, although his enthusiasm for both his film, and the issues it addresses, haven't dwindled at all. Undoubtedly keeping the director inspired is the fact that the end result of more awards for Superman will be realized not just in dollars and prestige, but also in a larger audience for the film that can potentially help make the changes in public education that the film reveals to be desperately needed. The awards stakes are a bit higher in a real-world sense for Superman, rather than for, say, Black Swan. Winning the Best Picture Oscar won't likely save many actual psychotic ballerinas, but winning top documentary for Superman might eventually make a big difference in the lives of many public school students.

(Director Davis Guggenheim, above. Promotional art for Waiting for Superman, below.)

The title of Waiting for Superman comes from a quote in the film from charismatic education reformer Geoffrey Canada, who says, “One of the saddest days of my life was when my mother told me ‘Superman’ did not exist. Cause even in the depths of the ghetto you just thought he was coming… She thought I was crying because it’s like Santa Claus is not real. I was crying because no one was coming with enough power to save us.” Canada is a former teacher who entered the profession as an idealistic young man who believed he could fix what was wrong with public education pretty quickly, but just as quickly became disillusioned with the rigid bureaucracy that worked against any significant changes being implemented. He has since founded Harlem Children's Zone, a group of charter schools which have proven remarkably successful in improving graduation rates and creating future college students in some of the most impoverished areas of New York.

(Geoffrey Canada, with students, above.)

Charter schools and the alternative they offer to traditional public education are at the heart of Waiting for Superman, partially as a prize which five young students hope to win admission to in a series of “school lotteries,” in which public school students compete for a limited number of spots in the top charter schools. However, they don't compete via merit, but instead via the random mercies of an actual bouncing lottery ball.

Guggenheim divides his film into two distinct segments, which he intercuts. On one side, he tells the stories of the young students from New York, California, and Washington: Daisy, Francisco, Anthony, Emily, and Bianca, as they head towards the lotteries which will literally decide their futures. On the other, he introduces us to the adults administrators, reformers, and teachers who are at odds over what types of changes in public education should take place, if any. Finding themselves in direct conflict are Michelle Rhee, the reform-minded Chancellor of Public Schools in Washington, D.C. since 2007, and Randi Weingarten, the leader of the American Federation of Teachers union. Rhee has pushed for numerous reforms, such as the right to fire poor teachers, including those with tenure, and a merit pay system, where better performing teachers receive higher salaries. Many of her ideas have faced entrenched opposition from Weingarten and other union leaders.

Davis Guggenheim first came to true prominence when he directed the Oscar-winning An Inconvenient Truth in 2006, the landmark film which tackled another “large” problem, that of climate change. The son of the late documentarian Charles Guggenheim, Davis Guggenheim had planned to become primarily a director of narrative material, but decided to make his first documentary after being fired as the director of the studio feature Training Day. That 2001 documentary was The First Year, which also dealt with the topic of public education and followed five inner-city teachers in Los Angeles for the initial 12 months of their careers.

Since Waiting for Superman has been released, have you noticed any changes in public education that you can attribute to the film, at least in terms of attitude, if not in policy, so far?

Davis Guggenheim: Well, yes. The most exciting thing is that the tone and the content of the conversation has changed.And when I started out [on the film], I think the hardest task was... how do you get people to re-engage this issue? Because I think for a lot of people like myself, these problems were around when we were kids. And so there's this unspoken sense that this is just too complex, and that maybe the problem is just too complicated to ever be solved. And so how do you bring the audience back? How do you bring regular people back into that conversation? So, you know, in screenings, you see regular people, moms and dads, talking, just having light-bulb moments, going, “I didn't know that my kid's school is in the state that it is.” And the other part which is exciting is you're seeing people like Randi Weingarten, the head of the teachers union, saying that tenure is not... should not be, a lifetime status.

That's a significant change.

Yes, so there's these things that were not even discussed and off the table, which are now being discussed and are on the table. Which I think is really significant, the idea of reforming tenure, the idea of merit pay, the idea of really thoughtful evaluation. You're seeing people on both sides of the issue having real conversations about how do you evaluate teachers? As opposed to this sort of polemical thing. There's still the polemical thing, but you're seeing, you know, good people now part of the conversation.

Have there then been any changes in the attitudes of the teachers unions in regards to the concept of merit pay, which they refused to even vote on in the film?

Well, yeah, since the film, they did come up with a deal in D.C. And that's the good news, and it was about two-thirds of what our reformers wanted. The bad news is that Michelle Rhee's mayor (Mayor Adrian Fenty) got booted out of office... and that had a lot to do with, you know, the union putting a lot of money against him. And when I say this...I never thought of myself as a guy who would be criticizing unions. You know, I'm a leftie, I'm a Democrat, my father used to talk around the kitchen table about how it was a great day when workers organized. And I'm a member of the Directors Guild of America trade union. I believe in those principles. But when you go into these schools... these rules and these restrictions are not the only thing, but they are one of the big, big restrictions to change.

As you mentioned, the problem is immense and very complicated. And also from a storytelling point of view, it must have been very daunting to even start to think about narrowing this topic down to a two-hour documentary.

That's right. I think...this is by far the hardest movie I've ever attempted to make. The complexity of the issue...how do you make things simple enough for a wider audience to grasp, and then how do you get people to care, and to invest? So that finding these kids and showing what's at stake, you know: If they go to this school, this; and if they go to that school, that. And showing that it's a matter of luck whether you get a good education. That was a sort of breakthrough. The lottery piece was a huge breakthrough.

It works as a great storytelling device, but were you as horrified as I was when you realized it was an actual, physical Lotto-type lottery?

Yeah. Tom Friedman [of The New York Times] wrote a piece about witnessing a lottery in Baltimore. And that piece sort of gave me the idea for the structure of the film for the kids [segments]...you know, not every kid in America goes through a lottery with a bingo ball, but it's a great metaphor...there is kind of a lottery for all of us: you know, what zip code you're born in, what district you're in, what teacher you have.

In terms of the structure, is it accurate that the two storylines of the film, that of the kids and that of the adult teachers and administrators, were not actually intercut, as they are in the finished film, during much of the post-production?

Yeah. The structure was very experimental. I built two separate films, one about the kids, and one about the system, and I had this feeling that if I kept them apart, if I cut them and finished them, beginning-middle-and-end, made them work separately...then when I cut them together it would have this sort of magnifying effect.

Many times Lesley Chilcott, my producing partner, would say, 'You know, it's a month before the Sundance deadline. Don't you think you should start cutting them together?' And I'm like, 'No, they're not ready, they're not ready.' But I just had this instinct that there really is this tension between the dysfunctional system the adults have created, and that's its own story. But first is the reality of these kids...who just expect a lot from us and who just want a chance, you know? And if I put those two things in opposition to each other, [I knew] there'd be some powerful drama.

The two stories are great counterpoints to each other. Did you know generally what the film was going to look like early on in terms of overall content, or did you take the tack of: 'I'm going to do a lot of interviews, and then possibly discover it as we go along?'

A process of 'discovery' sounds so productive. My process was far from productive. It was really banging my head against the wall. And pursuing many different storylines, interviewing a lot of different people, and building six or seven scenes...storylines, that I would just throw out.

And you were cutting as you went along in the shooting process?

That's the exciting thing about where my process has changed since An Inconvenient Truth, or because of An Inconvenient Truth. If you look at a traditional documentary, they usually go like this: You pitch an idea, you raise the money, you go shoot, you come back, you edit it, you find your stock footage, you finish. So, shooting and editing are separate steps. But with Inconvenient Truth we were shooting so fast...we were shooting as we were editing.

It's a great way to do it because editing is really as close to writing, as anything. You know, the process of putting images together is editing, but what you're really doing is you're saying, 'Where's this going? What leads to it next?' And it's as much writing as anything. So, you know, we're shooting up until the last day of editing. It's really wonderful...it is a way in which technology has really changed the way you can do documentaries.

I can only imagine trying to do the same thing on a flatbed with 16mm film.

That's the way my father made documentaries. And it was exactly the way they would do it. You say, well, let's restructure the first third of the movie. Well, that might take a week.

If you're lucky.

If you're lucky, just physically unsplicing and splicing things back together, and then you look at it and say, 'Oh, that didn't work.' And in that amount of time, we can go shoot for two days, re-cut things, try three different ways and go back, it's really...the technology is so incredible right now. And the fact that you can get a fairly inexpensive high-quality camera that anybody can put on their shoulder, that's pretty exciting.

I imagine after An Inconvenient Truth you were presented with every possible cause to make another documentary for, and what struck me when I went to your Waiting for Superman website was that, unlike a lot of filmmakers who finish their film and then can just promote it, you have a whole additional step with a film like this where you have a responsibility on your shoulders, to answer the audience question 'What can I do about this problem as a citizen?' Was that daunting in taking this on?

Well, yeah, it's not just making a movie. It's part of a movement. This is awards season, and awards in general are very confusing, and can often be a huge distraction. But for something like this, they're essential, because they just bring more attention to the issue. We finished the film in May, and I've been working on it full-time, up to now. That's all about the social action campaign

Because unless you get a wide audience to see it, you're basically preaching to the choir.

That's right.

Do you plan to revisit the kids with a camera anytime in the next few years, to see how they're doing and how they've changed?

Well, in September I took them to the White House [Editor's Note: Where they met President Obama.] So I interviewed them the morning of that, and I got to reconnect with them. I've seen them all at different screenings and stuff. But yeah, I think it might be interesting to see what happens with them. I think you need enough time to pass. Like five years, maybe. You know, when they start going to high school. But the biggest thing is...you just fall in love with them. When I hear a piece of good news, like Anthony's grandmother called me and said that he's on the dean's list...

Oh, is he? That's great.

Anthony's a kid that's really at risk, you know? He never knew his father. His father died of a drug overdose. And the fact that he's on the dean's list, it's the most exciting thing you could hear.

In the film, Anthony says, 'I want my kids to have better than I had,' I couldn't help but wonder, 'What kid at that age thinks that way?' It's very remarkable.

Well, certainly not kids in my world, because kids in my world, they're sort of given everything, and so they don't ask those really tough questions. But a kid like Anthony, who sees all sorts of trouble and chaos around him, really does think about those things. That's what he'd say, because he hears those conversations, and he sees friends and neighbors, you know, fall.

Did you get any feedback from President Obama on the film?

He said that he found the movie very powerful. He was very moved by the kids, by their stories.

Do you think that his philosophy toward public education would be similar to that of Michelle Rhee?

I would say they're in the same family of reform. I think he's in a really careful political position.I think he wants all these reforms, but it's a very tricky position, because, you know, the teachers unions have been one of the biggest givers to the Democratic party, it's in the movie. And so what I think he's doing is exactly right. He's pushing for these things, but he can't be as overtly critical. But what's very exciting is Arne Duncan, his Secretary of Education...he's been the most effective member of his Cabinet. And actually pushing a lot further than most people give him credit for.

(Michelle Rhee, above, and Randi Weingarten, below.)

Have you spoken to Randi Weingarten much since the film was released?

A lot. You know, I knew that this was going be politically uncomfortable. But immediately before the movie came out, I said, 'Let me screen this for you. I know we're not going to agree on everything, but I I would just love it if you stayed part of the conversation.' So she's been, I think she's served on three panels with me. She's very openly critical of the film. At the same time, she's been an essential voice in the conversation.

That's good to hear.

And that's what the movie's about. A documentary can say things that people can't say. When you read the L.A. Times, which is a great newspaper, The New York Times...that sort of journalism kind of follows the puck: 'Well, this official said that, and this official said that...' and it sort of describes the conflict. But this documentary can really say, 'Look, these rules are really holding things back.' The movie has this great effect of being a way in which people come together around this, and it brings more people into the conversation and heightens the conversation. This is what I've observed, with this movie in particular: It's accelerated this sort of sense of 'Let's get this done.'

You chose to narrate the film. Was the narration something that you knew you'd be doing from the beginning?

You know, originally when Diane Weyermann, she's the head of documentaries for Participant Media, asked, 'Would you be interested [in directing the film]?' I originally said no. I had done a movie about public education ten years ago [The First Year] and I felt like, well, I'd done that. And I also felt like it was too complicated. And then I sort of had a breakthrough, which was that maybe the only way you could make a documentary about this is if you had a really strong, pointed voice in the movie. In the same sense that Al Gore did for Inconvenient Truth: He wasn't trying to say, 'Well, some people say this, some people say that.' He was saying, 'This is what I believe, and let me show you why,' you know? And I would not equate myself with Al Gore -- he's much more knowledgeable about global warming than I am about public education -- but I felt like what the great 'bingo' on the film was, was a personal point of view, like: I have children. I want them to have a good education. And I made the film, and I had this anxiety, because I believe in this thing, that America is grounded in great schools for everyone, and yet every morning I go and do something different -

Your kids go to private school? Was that it?

Yeah, exactly, so I didn't have the strong desire to narrate it. I probably will never do it again. It just felt like an effective storytelling device.

It feels a little bit more daring to do because you lose a layer of remove between yourself and the subject matter of the film.

Yeah, and I grew up thinking that narration was old-school at best, and, what you learn in college is that it's this authoritative voice-of-god thing. But I think there's been a sort of a shift of more of a personal voice to these films and it allows...there's some lines in the movie that you just couldn't do, things like: 'Now that we know, that it's possible to give every kid a great education, what is our obligation?' [which is said in the narration at the end of the film.] That's sort of the one time the movie stares the viewer in the eye and says, 'What are you going to do about this?'

Charter schools are regarded by many as an alternative to the public schools, but what are some of the problems that charter schools have?

Well, there are a lot of terrible charters that should be shut down. Charters are public schools, but they can be run outside the rules and restrictions of the district, and outside the union contracts, so they have much more freedom to do what they want. But they can still suffer from what other schools suffer from... bad leadership, poor quality teachers, often they get crippled by these huge start-up costs, because charters don't get as much money, per student, as the district does.

But it's interesting, how I think the enemies of the film would say the film is pro-charter. I think even the reformers would not say it's pro-charter. The exciting thing about charters, and why I like them in the film, is that the successful ones are so successful, so remarkably successful. They've disproven the long-held and sometimes unspoken belief that you can't do it. 'You just can't go into Harlem and teach those kids. You can't go to East L.A. and teach those kids. Those kids can't learn.' And that's a powerful breakthrough. That has happened since I made the first film [about education].

The charters that hold, they're like incubators for new ideas. It's kind of like if you look at the post office, and how the post office is run all the way up to now, but in the '70s, there was one way you could send a package. And walking into the post office was like going into any kind of Soviet-era government building, where the time stands still, and then FedEx came along. And Fed Ex was free from all those restrictions, and they found a way to revolutionize the way you send packages. That doesn't mean that every new company that sends packages is going to succeed. It just means that they had the freedom to do it, and the exciting part about it is, that FedEx really kicked the postal service in the butt, and made them evolve. You know, since FedEx, you can send something overnight. There are more flexible ways to send a package.

Do you know what you're working on next?

No. I think I'm gonna take a breather from a big issue film like this. Partly from exhaustion, partly just because an equally-satisfying film [for me] was this movie It Might Get Loud, which is an electric guitar film (featuring the Edge, Jack White, and Jimmy Page) which was really one of the most exciting projects to work on. And so I kind of want to do something like that to, you know, work another muscle.

Thank you for talking with me. It's a great film, and I hope everybody sees it.

Well, me too. I mean, it's so funny: I moved out here twenty-three years ago, and I had a plan to sort of become a director, but I had one thing I was certain of, which was that I would never make documentaries. And so to suddenly find myself making documentaries is pretty extraordinary.

Was your dad based somewhere other than L.A.?

Washington. And he was just so good at what he did, and I felt like, you know, I could never do that.

Did you grow up with a flatbed in the house?

Yeah. Even, actually before that, a Moviola.

I've worked on both and had to master both horrible devices...the flatbed being a lot easier.

The flatbed being the total revolution. That Moviola is grinding [imitates Moviola sound], and: 'Oh, Dad's up at six!'

Waiting for Superman is currently in release. Information on the film, the crisis facing public education, and what can be done about it, at www.WaitingforSuperman.com

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