Interview: John Patrick Shanley

Posted on December 15, 2008 at 12:00 pm

I spoke to writer-director John Patrick Shanley, who has returned to film to direct his Pulitzer Prize-winning play, “Doubt.” Best known to film-goers as the Oscar-winning writer of “Moonstruck,” he has spent the past few years working in theater. “Doubt” is the story of a nun who accuses a priest of molesting a child and the movie, like the play, does not reveal which of them is telling the truth.

The film is set in 1964 and one of the striking differences is the very extreme and formal attire worn by the nuns in the movie, with big black bonnets. Where does that come from?
They were in an order founded by Mother Seton. She was a married woman with five kids who took her husband to Italy. When he died there she took the mourning costume of an aristocratic woman, including the black bonnet and black habit. Our costume designer, Ann Roth went back to the Sisters of Charity to get the details right, even though they no longer wear it. It is quite elaborate and constricting and has no zippers. And it is an incredibly beautiful frame for the face, almost like a Dutch master, with a deep feeling of period.
You have written for both theater and movies. How do you think differently about story-telling as you change mediums?
Theater is highly stylized and pared down to bare essentials for financial and aesthetic reasons. Look at older plays like “Of Mice and Men,” “The Miracle Worker” — older plays have like twenty people but “Doubt” has four. Adapting it was daunting, but also liberating. I thought, “Oh, now I can show the kids in the classroom, the nuns in the convent, the way they live, the neighborhood that feeds the congregation.” It was organic and natural to extend the perimeter.
What is it like to direct acting powerhouses like your cast in this film, especially when you had such strong performances by very different performers on stage?
Meryl Streep is feisty, very creative, very playful, like a very feisty cat. She is very mentally rigorous and she lives in a wide imagination. Working with her and Philip Seymour Hoffman together was great. This is the third thing they’ve done together. They have a real rapport and work in a similar way. She is always trying to get the better of Phil and he’s amused and protective. Then there is Amy Adams. Her character’s kind of a ping pong ball batted between them and Phil and Meryl tugged over her.
What was the advantage of setting the story in the past?
Two years after the story was set the nuns were no longer wearing those habits, kids were not acting that way, the Bronx was in flames. The change that was coming was extraordinary and not good. The person trying to keep the future from coming is the short-sighted one in our tradition and the other is progressive. But that is not always true. If you’re a tailor in 1931, trying to keep the future at bay is not a bad thing. In the Bronx of 1964 it would not have been a bad thing.
Why have the nun’s character reveal that she had been married?
The founder of the order was married and had five children. We all make assumptions about what nuns are like, but as the story goes on your assumptions are called into question and you have to say “There’s more to this person than my mental shorthand allows for.” That’s my intention, as the story goes on, to make you take your assumptions and look at them, to say “My assumptions are not going to carry me through this movie.”
Do you think parochial school can be good for kids?
I don’t see anything wrong with parochial school. I went to Cardinal Spellman. They threw me out. Later they were bragging that I’d gone there, so I started putting in my bio that they threw me out. I went up there to visit and I was very impressed. The student body is 90% black, there is so much spirit, it is so terrific, the educators are so committed – I started to send them a check. Talk about full circle! I couldn’t pass any of my subjects. It was just not the right place for me. I have two sons, one doesn’t respond to structure at all and the other one does.
The title of the movie refers not just to the questions of doubt and certainty and questioning assumptions of the characters but of the audience as well. Do people ever come up to you and say, “Come on, you can tell me, did he do it?”
That comes up a lot, that’s understandable. People are preconditioned. If the question is whether the guy is going to get the girl, at the end of the movie you answer the question. But that is not most people’s experience of life, unsettled questions. Giving an answer is satisfying but simplistic, just a punch line. I want more than anything else for people to start talking to each other again, a real discourse. Any small part that this movie can do to make that happen is a good thing. People are not affected by things other people say any more. People are exhausted by that. There is a hunger for a real exchange; we have to get back together as a community and that means communicating with each other.
We’re living in a time that is so balkanized. The identity of the West is so in transformation from the influx of all these kinds of people from all nationalities and religions side by side by side, the oddest ship of fools imaginable. Defining commonality is a long process. We are interconnected and in each other’s face and up each others coats, cross-pollinating in a way the world has never seen. We are establishing commonalities, banding together in cafés, reconvening at the café level, cooking like a mad soup, reaching out through the internet. Maybe it is all Gnostic, just between the individual and the divine. People have a desperate hunger for community and communal worship.

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Interview: Leverage

Posted on December 6, 2008 at 8:00 am

“Leverage” is old-fashioned entertainment, a little bit “Mission Impossible,” a little bit “A-Team,” a touch of “It Takes a Thief,” and a lot of fun. It premieres tomorrow night on TNT at 10/9 Central.

Tim Hutton plays Nathan Ford, a former top insurance investigator turned agent of justice, who has assembled a crack team of experts who can turn the tables on any bully or big shot. It plays into the audience’s fantasies about the ability to use all kinds of cool skills, from breaking and entering secured locations via bungee cord or breaking and entering secured data banks and computer systems via hacking. And of course each of the characters has some attitude and some issues along with the skills. I spoke to producer Dean Devlin (“Independence Day”), who created the series, and Aldis Hodge, who plays Alex, the team’s master tech guy.

One of my favorite parts of the pilot episode was the scene filmed in Chicago’s magnificent Millennium Park. How did that come about?

Devlin: When Barack Obama gave his acceptance speech we were all watching it together and going “Hey! That’s where we shot the scene!” When I was young I worked on a film my dad made in Chicago called “My Bodyguard.” I always wanted to go back. We were filming there and had a scene that was supposed to be set in an intersection, but when we saw Millennium Park we had to move it there. It is such a great space. We shot the pilot in Chicago and the rest in LA but we go everywhere in the show.

I liked your episode about the disabled Iraqi war veteran.

Devlin: The actor is a real Iraqi war veteran, stoplossed for years of duty. His manager also manages my wife and James Franco and he said, “I have the real guy.” He was great in the role. I think he will be very successful as an actor.

How did this series come about?

Devlin: I created The Librarian for TNT and when we finished the second one, they asked, “When do I get a series out of you?” I immediately told them I wanted something not heavy, dark, cold, and procedural, which is what we have a lot of on TV right now. I wanted to do very smart, mainstream con stories like “The Hot Rock” and the original “Oceans 11.” I always wanted to do a show about high tech thieves who become modern day Robin Hoods. Coincidentally, John Rogers, who is a top writer, said he was thinking of doing something like those kinds of shows, too.

Aldis, you play a member of a team where everyone has skills that almost amount to a super-power. Which are the most important?

Hodge: One thing I’ve learned is that every skill gets used equally, On some shows some are more necessary than others but everybody is vital. Beth’s character (the fearless, athletic break-in artist) is absolutely crazy. She will jump off any building any time. You also have to have the classic grifter, someone who can convince anybody of her reality. And Eliot (expert in defense and hand to hand combat played by Christian Kane) saves me many times.

How are your tech skills?

Hodge: I can type. I can also do graphic design, art and architecture, super geek, but don’t know how to hack into anyone else’s computer.

Devlin: We hired Apollo Robins to teach us how to be thieves, not just how to steal but to think like a thief. It was so much fun. When he came in everyone would be holding their wrists or checking their wallets, and you could see the actors react start to adopt the pattern of thinking. Beth was the best at pick pocketing. If we don’t get picked up, she has a new career.

This was your first time directing, right? How did you like it?

Devlin: It was an absolute ball. The trick is to surround yourself with good people. We had one of the best scripts ever, an amazingly talented cast, talented director of photography, a phenomenal editor. So all I had to do was say, “Okay, do it again!” “Are we done?” “Can I go home?” “Thank you!”

What did you look for in assembling the cast?
Devlin: Talent! Well, you might say, duh, but these days it is against the trend. More often they want to know who had a sex tape and is really famous. Celebrity has trumped talent. But Michael Wright from TNT is a former actor and I am a former actor and we know what matters is who can act.

We needed people who were going to be outstanding. I had someone else in mind for the role, but the agent kept saying, “You should see this kid.” He knocked it out of the park, really redefined the character for me. And he got the word that he had the part on his 21st birthday.

What was your idea of the character that was so different?

Hodge: I didn’t see him as a geek, He is a nerd, don’t get me wrong, but I didn’t see the general geek outlook, to me he was just a person not a character. What I wanted to show was that he loves his job and he loves his life.

You certainly see that in the brief flashback showing him living it up on Mick Jagger’s credit card!

Devlin: Yes, and a shout-out to George Lucas, who gave us permission to put the girls in the “Star Wars” costumes!

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Interview with Brittany Curran

Posted on December 4, 2008 at 8:00 am

One of the best moments for any movie critic is the discovery of a bright new talent. Brittany Curran, who co-stars with Lucas Grabeel in The Adventures of Foodboy, caught my attention from her first moment on screen because she did something many actresses with twice as much experience cannot do — she created a vivid and relatable character in a role that could have just been as the usual “girlfriend of leading male.” She projects a combination of confidence and sweetness that is very appealing and has a superb sense of comic timing. Curran and Grabeel have a nice onscreen chemistry that left me hoping to see them together again. Her upcoming projects include “The Ghost Whisperer” and a straight-to-DVD sequel to “Legally Blonde” called “Legally Blondes.”

I was very happy to get a chance to talk to Brittany about “The Adventures of Foodboy” and her other projects. I began by asking her what she did to create such an appealing performance.

My first read was in my room. I knew I needed to do something to make her something more. It’s so easy to slip into just being the girl and I wanted to make her more whole. I only had a week leading up to work on it. So, I read it over a bunch of times, just kept reading it to think about what kind of naturally came out of the lines. I wrote down some notes, letting the natural quirkiness that comes in everyday life guide me, and then later when we were filming tried to let myself go and be spontaneous.

What is it about food fights that makes them so much fun? And was the huge food fight in the movie fun to film?

They’re fun because you can throw all this junk around and not worry about it. It’s a non-lethal way of having fun and fighting, like a silly fight I got into with my friend where we threw ice cubes at each other, or like a pillow fight. But when we did it in the movie, it ended up looking really gross. It was all over and in my hair but the worst was the smell. I constantly had so much stuff in my face and I was aware I was making unflattering facial expressions just when I was supposed to be in the shot. I am usually not conscious of the camera but this time because so much was going on there was a lot of direction to “turn this way,” “look over here” so I was aware of it.

What scene was the most fun to film?

I liked kissing Lucas! The most fun was when it was just the two of us, talking like regular kids. We got along really well and I enjoyed working with him.

What’s on your iPod?

A lot of Led Zeppelin! They’re my favorite band of all time. And the Beatles and the Who and my dad, he’s a musician, too. I’m a major classic rock fan.

You’ve worked on a variety of projects. Has anyone given you some especially memorable advice?

I just worked on a episode of “The Ghost Whisperer” with Jennifer Love Hewitt. The director said, “I know what you want to do. You have the freedom to go where the words take you.” If you know the goal of the scene, you should find your own natural way to get there.

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Interview with Toto’s Trainer

Posted on December 3, 2008 at 10:00 am

Bill Berloni is the man behind some of Broadway’s biggest stars — the non-human ones. From Sandy in “Annie” to “Bruiser Woods” in “Legally Blonde,” he has trained the animals in some of the biggest theatrical productions. I spoke to him in Washington D.C. where his two “Toto” dogs are on tour with “The Wizard of Oz.”

How many Totos are there?

There is one dog named Princess, eight years old, and another as her understudy. The one we use is the more energetic of the two. “Wizard” is one of those shows that happens all the time so we always have a pair of Toto dogs ready. This is a major national tour, three years long. Princess will probably do two.

How long has Princess been performing?

If you asked me how long I was married I’d be off but I can remember the answer to that one — seven years three months, performing as Toto for five. We started training her as an understudy until around age five and then she was mature enough.

Is there a particular scene that was especially challenging for Princess?

To me the most important iconic moment of the play is when Dorothy says, “There is such a place, Toto?” and then goes into “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” If Toto’s scratching or does something to distract the audience, it’s a problem. We train them to focus on Dorothy and not move. You have to make sure the dog has the right temperament for performing. You can take a calm dog and teach them to walk across a stage but you can’t take an excitable dog and get her to stay still. They have to be able to deal with stress and be calm which for a terrier breed is tough. Staying perfectly still for “Over the Rainbow” is the hardest, then going through smoke and haze to get to the curtain. Her favorite trick is to find Dr. Marvel — she gets to eat the hot dog at the end of his stick!

In a show like this one with so many special effects, how do you protect the dog and prevent her from getting distracted?

I can manipulate the special effects so the speakers are away from the stage. The audience hears thunder but she is behind them, where it is not loud. We cover her eyes during the pyrotechnic effects and explosions. We go to great lengths to protect the dog rather than getting her used to it. For her a flying monkey is no different from a flying pigeon. The fog is co2, dry ice. It’s just a cooling mist. So those things do not bother the dogs. That’s my job — to say, “You can do that to humans but not my dog.” Toto is not always in the shot in a movie but in the play he is supposed to be with Dorothy all the time. But you think he’s on stage a lot more than he is.

How did you get started?

It’s a “right place at the right time” story. I wanted to be an actor and was building sets at the Goodspeed Opera House. They needed a dog for a new show and everyone else threatened to quit if they had to train the dog. But they offered me a part and an equity card if I would find and train a dog. My gullibility and the chance to get on stage are the reason I accepted. I found a dog at a shelter and the show was “Annie,” with Sandy the first real theatrical performance part for a dog in a major show, where the action depended on the dog and he was more than a prop. Mike Nichols’ office called and said they were doing it for Broadway. He is the best — loyal, intelligent, courageous, admits when he makes a mistake and expects everyone to be the same. The show opened at the Kennedy Center and I became a famous animal trainer.

Did you have pets growing up and did you train them?

Our pets did things because they loved us, not because we trained them. I learned I could achieve repetitive behavior without negative reinforcement.

Do you have to train the actors as well as the animals?

I’m in the wings so I have to make sure the actors know how to do whatever the animal needs. Going back to “Annie,” I said to Andrea McArdle, “You have to pretend like he’s your dog.” We have to train the actors to be as adept trainers as I am. It is much more challenging with adults. Some don’t like dogs or are allergic and that becomes my problem, showing them how to work with the animals so they fulfill those commands with respect and love. Cassie Okenka (Dorothy) is the real deal, not jaded, hard-working loves dogs, and she can sing.

We have a handler at every performance. We take the concept from the director and then can put a handler in. We’re always educating the directors and the smart ones listen. But some will give the actors six weeks to get it right and give the dog seven days. They won’t think about what the special effect will be and how the dog will respond to it.

What kinds of animal performances in movies do you like?

I am not fond of movies that make dogs talk with CGI and anthropomorphize them too much. I enjoy films where they get to act like dogs. “As Good as It Gets” was a good one.

And now the big question — what kind of dog should the Obamas get?

I am a huge shelter animal advocate and a humane society volunteer. Their decision to get a shelter dog would be the biggest thing in animal shelter I could remember. Every animal shelter is holding their breath. But they need a perfect dog, a theater dog. They need to be there and bond with the dog. But this dog will need to be a performer. I can find Broadway stars in a shelter. Through no fault of its own it has ended up homeless, nothing wrong with it. I don’t take abused animals. But I take abandoned animals.

This is my secret. You go into a shelter and walk down the row of cages. One is screaming at you, “Let me out! Let me out!” One shivering in the back. Don’t take either one of those. Take the one in the middle, the one who is hanging and dealing. It is such a stressful place for an animal, any dog who can deal with it can deal with a lot of stress. Throw a leash on it and take it home. Leave the others to people with training experience.

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Interview

Director Andrew Stanton on ‘Wall?E’

Posted on November 21, 2008 at 10:08 am

Disney provided this interview with writer-director Andrew Stanton (of “Finding Nemo“) about the ideas and experiences behind Wall?E:
QUESTION: What inspired you to make Wall?E?
ANDREW STANTON: It was a love letter to all the movies that really affected me in my formative movie going years…from 1968 to 1982…embracing sci fi movies but some of the love stories too. These ere films like 2001, Star Wars, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, Alien, Blade Runner and Silent Running. It is an amalgamation of the effect it had on me to go into the theatre and be transported
by any of those.
QUESTION: What are the origins of the idea to the realization of a film that may come to be regarded as a masterpiece.
ANDREW STANTON: Well I never thought that, at the end, but it did have a long journey. It was this one sentence out of a lunch in 1994, we were in the middle of making Toy Story and we said simply ‘what if mankind left Earth and somebody forgot to turn the last robot off?’. The idea of something doing the same thing forever was, to me, the ultimate definition of futility. I just thought that was the saddest character I’d ever heard of, and we said it should speak in the manner that it was built, much like R2D2 did. And wouldn’t it be cool to see a whole movie with a character like that. For us as filmgoers, we thought that would be great, but we immediately said nobody would ever give us money to do something like that. We hadn’t even finished Toy Story, we hadn’t proved that we could make any movie so that where it sort of lived and died. It took for us to make, I think, five or six more movies for me to get more confident as a filmmaker and for the technology to improve. And so about seven years later I’m in the middle of Nemo and I find my brain drifting to this little lonely robot, wondering who he is, what the story should be, what it should be about. By then I knew a lot more and I realized it was the loneliness that appealed to me, and the opposite of loneliness is love, and so it should be a love story. And then the idea of a love story combined with the sci-fi genre, then I was just hooked. I found myself, even at my busiest schedules, hiding in my office, starting
to write this. That’s always a good sign; I was pretty much hooked after that. By then I had more confidence that the audience trusted Pixar that we could go a little more out on a limb, and people might follow us then.
QUESTION: Can you recall what was on the menu of the famous lunch when so many ideas were born for Pixar films?
ANDREW STANTON: Knowing me I probably had a cheeseburger and fries!
QUESTION: Apart from being great entertainment is WALL?E quite profound?
ANDREW STANTON: To be honest we try to do that to all the films. I was trying – through this little robot – to answer the question of what is the point of living. I did not have an environmental agenda or an obesity agenda…or any of those things. But I am not stupid; I saw that as the movie was finishing that in a very eerie, prophetic way it was matching the headline. But it was all more metaphorical. It was all about loving the idea of telling the point of living through two programmed machines and that got me thinking that humans can be more robotic than machines, depending on how they choose to live their life. So I ended up on a premise of irrational love defeats life’s programming. That it takes a random act of kindness and love – whether it is in a one on one relationship or on a global scale – to kick us out of our habits and routines that unconsciously keep us from connecting with one another. So everything else is just abstract or fictional devices used to support that premise.

(more…)

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