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Q&A: Steven Spielberg on Lincoln

Mike Fleming Jr. is Deadline’s film editor. This article appeared in the Dec. 12 issue of AwardsLine.

Steven Spielberg would like to dispel a few rumors about the kind of set he ran for his latest film, Lincoln. Yes, it’s true that star Daniel Day-Lewis remained in character even when the cameras weren’t rolling, and his sole contact on the set was the director. However, Spielberg himself did not have his costume designer dress him in period-appropriate attire every day—he simply wore a jacket and tie. And although the director admits that there weren’t many visitors to the set, perhaps helping to create the perceived mystique, the intimate nature of the production stemmed more from a sense of pride and respect over its main character than anything else. “Lincoln has not been honored in a dramatic motion picture for 72 years,” says Spielberg, adding that Raymond Massey was the last actor to play the 16th president on the big screen. That attention to detail and reverence for his subject matter has paid off in boxoffice, earning more than $86 million domestically at press time, as well as plenty of Oscar talk. Spielberg recently took time to discuss how he got his first choice of actor for every part and how he and screenwriter Tony Kushner found the right angle to tell the story properly.

AWARDSLINE: It seems unusual that the most successful director in Hollywood would require as long a courtship as you waged to get Daniel Day-Lewis to play Lincoln. How did you finally convince him?

STEVEN SPIELBERG: Daniel had about six years to think about it from the first time I offered him not this Lincoln, not the Tony Kushner-written Lincoln, and not the Lincoln written from Doris (Kearns Goodwin’s) book, but an original Lincoln script that I developed. After turning me down to play the character, I don’t think he ever forgot our encounter. What really did the trick was when he read the Tony Kushner script, and I was able to get a take two, because my good buddy Leo DiCaprio simply called him up one day and said, “You need to reconsider this. Steven really wants you for this, and he’s not willing to make the movie without you.” So Daniel, based on Leo’s phone call to him, offered to read the Tony Kushner script, which he had never read, and also the Doris Kearns Goodwin script, which he had never read. That was the beginning, and I think that’s when the courtship was over. Once he read the script, then he really had to come to terms with the big decision he would eventually have to make, which was, “Can I, with honor, equip this character in a way I’ll be able to live with the rest of my life?”

AWARDSLINE: Have you ever put in as much time convincing an actor to make one of your movies?

SPIELBERG: Never. I’ve never gone on a campaign to get (an actor). I pretty much took no for an answer. It’s one of the few times in my entire life where I was not willing to accept that answer. When he eventually said he would play Abraham Lincoln, the only caveat was he asked me to wait a year. Some of that was because he was sorting out his physical location, where he was living, between Ireland and then eventually he was going to move back to New York, but a lot of it was I think he wanted to really go deep into his own research. And I needed that year too, even though I was ambitious enough to jump into the picture four months after he said yes. We spent a lot of time on the script, and it gave me a year to cast the picture, which means I got all of my first choices. No filmmaker ever gets their first choices consistently, but by waiting a year, I was able to wait for actors to free themselves up for this one.

AWARDSLINE: Describe that eureka moment, if you remember it, where you found that kernel that became this terrific movie?

SPIELBERG: We were trying to tackle the last three years of the president’s life, which is the experience that the senators and representatives had, and that the president and his cabinet had. They didn’t see the action; they weren’t in the battlefields. Lincoln visited the troops, but he didn’t do it with the frontline, except once, and we depict that at the end of our picture. This was going to be a story of his last three years, but the script was 550 pages long. For me, the most compelling part of that screenplay was a 65-page section, which was the struggle to pass the 13th Amendment that abolished slavery. That section is where I stood up and said, “That’s it, that’s our story, that’s our film.” There were so many bullet points in Lincoln’s life that actually the more we spread that out over 550 pages, the (more) superficial his character seemed to feel. Once we focused everything on two great issues—the passage of the 13th Amendment and the Civil War—everything got a lot more concentrated and a lot more focused.

AWARDSLINE: When you have a great actor like Daniel Day-Lewis, how hands-on do you get?

SPIELBERG: Very hands-on, which is what I do, and it’s also what Daniel requires. He is very collaborative. You talk to the directors who have directed him before, from Scorsese to P.T. Anderson—he is an extremely collaborative actor, and the director is his only point of contact on an entire production. We were there for each other from the very beginning, and we spent three and a half months in active conversation, from the smallest moments to large pieces of history.

AWARDSLINE: What was most important to you and Sally Field about the way Mary Todd Lincoln was conveyed?

SPIELBERG: We wanted to be fair. We’ve all read different accounts of Mary and what her condition might be defined as in modern medicine. We knew one thing that everyone could agree to, and that is that Mary was the engine of Lincoln’s ambition. Without Mary, Lincoln would have probably taken his losses. When he lost the senate to Stephen Douglas, he probably would never have imagined that he could go for the highest office in the land. It was Mary that supplied the motor that put Lincoln in a direction with his own destiny. He looked to her as a guiding force, a light, also as damaged goods. He knew when she was being rational and politically savvy, and when she was being emotionally irrational. He would just sit with her for hours and let her vent until she came out of a fog. In that sense, he had so many burdens during his presidency.

AWARDSLINE: I read that you addressed your actors by their character names throughout and retained a feeling of period all the way through. It almost sounds like a Method set. How and who did this help?

SPIELBERG: It helped me, principally, because I took this very seriously. We were playing with one of the most beloved—and mysterious—characters in American history. It doesn’t have anything to do with Method, it has to do with authenticity and having the actors come to work in the morning and feeling a bit like stepping back into time.

AWARDSLINE: You worked on this film for so long—have you ever had a project that’s taken this long for the pieces to fall into place the way they have here?

SPIELBERG: Schindler’s List took 12 years between the time Sid Sheinberg purchased the film rights to the book by Thomas Keneally in 1982, and I began shooting the film ’93, so that was 11 years. I bought the film rights to Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln in 1999, which Doris was just beginning to write. So to answer your question, you’re right. This is the longest.

AWARDSLINE: You skipped releasing this movie during the election because you said you didn’t want this to be a political football. Now it comes out amidst these contentious partisan battles to stave off the debt cliff. What qualities about Lincoln would you most hope to convey to these folks who find it so hard to agree on anything?

SPIELBERG: Lincoln’s leadership is based on a number of precepts, but my favorite one is that he acted in the name—and for the good—of the people. In that sense, the two great things he did at the end of his life—to end slavery, peace for the Civil War—was for the good and in the name of the people. And he put people ahead of politics, although he was artful in using politics to be able to accomplish his task.

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Q&A: Paul Thomas Anderson on The Master

Pete Hammond is Deadline’s awards columnist. This article appeared in the Dec. 12 issue of AwardsLine.

Paul Thomas Anderson is a genuine auteur, a writer/director who works when he wants, makes what he wants, and is considered now to be one of the film industry’s true talents. His list of films is small but significant: Hard Eight, Boogie Nights,and Magnolia to Punch Drunk Love, There Will Be Blood,and now The Master, just six films in 16 years but all winning wide critical acclaim. He has five Oscar nominations, mostly for screenplay, but he did score his first directing nod for There Will Be Blood. He hopes to continue the trend with The Master, though the film has polarized audiences, something that surprised Anderson but doesn’t necessarily disappoint him. How that translates into awards is anyone’s guess, but don’t say Paul Thomas Anderson is making movies you can easily dismiss.

AWARDSLINE: There have wildly different reactions to the movie. Is that something that you wanted?

PAUL THOMAS ANDERSON: It’s really interesting; it’s not something I expected. The final stretch of finishing a film, you find yourself in a kind of hypnosis that you made something that you understand and therefore everyone else will understand. And it’s an insane assumption, but it happens. And it’s temporary. I’m always surprised by the reactions, but this one in particular seems to have a real interesting messiness about people’s responses. I suppose the worst thing in the world would be pure ambivalence, and to have any attention paid to you is nice. Even if it’s negative.

AWARDSLINE: There are so many different themes in the film, but a lot of attention has been on the Scientology aspect. If anything, it’s the beginnings of that, but it’s not really Scientology as it is now. Was part of the attraction to the story the notion of people looking for some kind of connection?

ANDERSON: A lot of it, but those are the kinds of things that you discover after you’ve started writing. In many ways, it’s about trying to find ways to justify what I’m writing. Maybe you read something that got into your head a long time ago, and you find it coming back out of you. My dad came back from World War II, so there was an attraction to that era on a surface level in terms of cars and music. Anything that I was reading or learned about L. Ron Hubbard kind of tied into this era. It was very clear that (Scientology) was a result of a postwar hangover. And I read a line somewhere—I wish I could remember so I could give them credit—and it said something like, “Anytime is a good time for a spiritual movement to begin, but a particularly strong time is after a war.” It felt like a particularly good hook. It’s good for you as a writer when you get something like that to hang your hat on, to help guide you with what you’re doing.

AWARDSLINE: Are you still discovering things about this movie as you talk about it?

ANDERSON: I would like to think that there’s something in the human personality that resents things that are too clear. It’s impossible to walk into a movie and not have a plan, but it’s best when you’re executing a plan and your eyes open to a lot of other things that are there. It makes it interesting; it makes it fun to go to work every day. That’s why we didn’t do too much talking about what we were doing, except to really focus on the intense love affair and friendship between these two guys. On that note, I remember reading a great book called the Pacific War Diary by James J. Fahey. He talked about his absolute admiration for his masters and commanders, and when he would switch over to a different ship, how disappointed he was when he didn’t get a good master. It was hard for some fellows coming back from the war because they missed having someone telling them what to do. To suddenly be let loose and be of your own devices was incredibly difficult for a lot of guys. They really missed the comraderie and the kind of focus their lives had at sea.

AWARDSLINE: The symbolism of the ocean and the water is a big part of what you have in this film.

ANDERSON: That (opening) shot is never anything I could have imagined as a writer. I just want to know: Is it inside or outside and what are they saying to each other? Anything like that is a product of being on a boat and seeing that water, so beautiful and blue, and turning the camera on. Months and weeks later in the editing room, it just feels right to put it in there. Now in terms of it working for the story, it’s kind of self-explanatory. Freddie is so clearly more comfortable at sea than he is anywhere else and to use them as little chapter dividers or kind of transitional devices (makes sense). So much of our film is so claustrophobic and interior that having a breath of fresh air is nice, even as a palette cleanser.

AWARDSLINE: When you cast Joaquin Phoenix as Freddie Quell, did you get exactly what you thought you’d get or did you get more?

ANDERSON: The expectation is that any actor will give you everything, and even if they give you everything, perhaps that isn’t right for the film, no matter how hard they’re trying or their commitment is. But what he did was way beyond what I expected. The gulf between little black words on a white piece of paper and being on set in costume is huge! It’s this vast gulf, and he just filled it. I don’t even remember what I thought of Freddie Quell way back when I was writing him. I just know what he’s done now, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s a pretty great performance; I’ve never seen anything quite like it. I love it!

AWARDSLINE: People are also pointing to Phoenix’s comments about awards season.

ANDERSON: I don’t think there’s an actor out there—and I know lots of them—that feels comfortable when performances get turned into sport. But that doesn’t take away from the excitement or privilege of winning an Academy Award. Actors can be competitive, they have that gene for sure, but my experience with actors is that they are actually incredibly generous people who have a skill and a job that they really like to do, which is playing make believe. They’re more comfortable when they get to be somebody else, and having to appear as themselves can be very uncomfortable.

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Behind The Scenes On Life Of Pi

Paul Brownfield is an AwardsLine contributor. This article appeared in the Dec. 12 issue of AwardsLine.

The tank could hold some 1.7 million gallons of water, and it made waves you could surf on, says Suraj Sharma, the 17-year-old star who spent long hours in this fabricated ocean. The motion of the water could be programmed to affect the turbulence of troubled seas or a sudden calm, the swells only lapping at the makeshift raft on which sits a boy adrift in the middle of the Atlantic. He is alone with his thoughts—but not strictly alone, because the lifeboat to which his raft is attached is occupied by a Bengal tiger.

“I’ve never seen water done well in a movie, and I’m doing 3D. Water is the main show,” says director Ang Lee, discussing the challenges of adapting Yann Martel’s novel Life of Pi on open waters.

A boy loses his family in a violent shipwreck in Life of Pi.
A boy loses his family in a violent shipwreck in Life of Pi.

To hear Lee talk about the torque machines and energy-dissolving technology that enabled him to choreograph the motion and shape of the waves is to begin to understand what he means when he says the ocean, in the story, represents “the visualization of Pi’s internal feelings.”

“To shoot in water,” Lee says, “either you go through suffering the ocean, and not much gets done, or you create something like a bathtub,” with the water bouncing back and forth through the frame.

Lee, an Academy Award winner for Brokeback Mountain, wanted neither of these things. He wanted an actual physical environment in which to portray an experience that ventures into magical realism.

Thematically, Life of Pi is a story that asks its readers to consider what is illusory and what is real—and whether a fine distinction matters. It is part picaresque narrative, part allegory. “We view the whole thing as a film about stories and storytelling. How stories get us through life,” says screenwriter David Magee.

But movie magic had to do some evolving before Life of Pi could hit theaters. Lee’s film follows a curious and adventuresome teenage boy, nicknamed Pi, whose family owns a zoo in Pondicherry, India, where the many exotic creatures include a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker.

From these idyllic beginnings, the story soon turns apocryphal if not Biblical: When the family decides to leave India and relocate the zoo to Canada, they all set sail on a cargo ship that capsizes in the middle of the Atlantic. The sole survivors are Pi and four animals, huddled on a lifeboat—a zebra, an orangutan, a hyena, and the tiger. Soon enough (see under: Darwin, Charles) the allegorical framework is made apparent: Man and beast must learn to coexist in a horizonless expanse otherwise known as the middle of the ocean.

Richard Parker, the Bengal (and digital) tiger with whom Pi shares his lifeboat.
Richard Parker, the Bengal (and digital) tiger with whom Pi shares his lifeboat.

In the book, as in the film, the story is told from the point of view of the adult Pi, now living in Canada. As played by Irrfan Khan, the adult Pi retells his spiritual, emotional, and physical coming-of-age quest to a writer who while traveling in India has heard of the story secondhand.

Lee, even after completing the film, concedes that “it’s very hard to articulate what it’s about.” He calls it a “provocation for your imagination,” which is necessarily elliptical, given that the essential logline is that the story revolves around a tiger and a boy learning to coexist in the middle of the Atlantic.

Producer Gil Netter says the novel had already been passed on by every major studio, including Fox, when Fox 2000 president Elizabeth Gabler signed on to the project in 2002. The consensus had been that it was too difficult to realize as a movie. Netter optioned the book with screenwriter Dean Georgaris (the idea being that Georgaris might adapt it)). Netter says he and Georgaris pitched Gabler on Pi’s transcendent themes.

The book was already selling itself as a literary sensation, winner of the Mann Booker Prize, which didn’t much solve the problem of just how to make it into a movie. The challenge perennially boiled down to three words: Boy. Tiger. Ocean. Along the way, other words and phrases would arise, like “recession” and “no star potential,” neither of which dissuaded Netter, the producer of such films as The Blind Side, Marley & Me, and Water for Elephants. All of those movies are often called “heartwarming” or “uplifting” or “family-oriented.” Netter saw the same potential for Life of Pi. In the end, he also credited “the dogged enthusiasm and determination” of Gabler and 20th Century Fox executive vp Victoria Rossellini.

Some of the directors who attached themselves to the project went further than others. M. Night Shyamalan signed on initially to write and direct, and years later Alfonso Cuaron (Children of Men) circled the film, but no one before Lee got as far as Jean-Pierre Jeunet, the distinctive French director of such films as Delicatessen and The City of Lost Children.

Jeunet completed a script, which Netter says was more of a fairy-tale interpretation. “He wanted to shoot on the ocean, with live animals,” Netter explains, speaking with a wry delight. “To say that the studio was a little nervous is an understatement.”

Existential themes permeate Life of Pi.
Existential themes permeate Life of Pi.

By 2008, seven years after the book’s film rights had first been optioned, Lee was immersed in flower power and hippiedom as he readied his 2009 film Taking Woodstock. Around that time, Lee says, he got a call about Life of Pi from Tom Rothman, then cochairman of Fox Filmed Entertainment.

“He said, ‘It’s a family movie,’ ” Lee recalls of their initial conversation. “I said, ‘What do you mean, family movie?’

“In a strange way, it’s like the book,” Lee continues. “Yann Martel told me he thought he wrote a philosophical book for adults. He didn’t know why teenagers connect to it. It looks like they might with the movie, too.”

Lee was in postproduction on Taking Woodstock, when Fox came back to him to direct Life of Pi. Admittedly, Lee says, the book haunted him, and the question of “how do you crack this thing?” began to take hold of his imagination, particularly the prospect of telling a story as a 3D experience. As Lee puts it, the question was, “How do you examine illusion within illusion? We all know movies are based on illusions—the image, this emotional ride. How do you do that while you’re examining the power of storytelling?

“I thought of 3D maybe adding another dimension,” Lee continues. “What doesn’t make sense could make sense. And I thought of the older Pi telling stories and having the first person going through the story while the third person (is) examining it, but they’re the same person.”

This was months before James Cameron’s Avatar hit the theaters and promptly advanced the cause of 3D beyond movie gimmickry and into the realm of storytelling art. “It’s very daunting,” Lee says of shooting 3D. “You cannot trust anything people tell you, because it could be wrong, because it’s so new. And the audience hasn’t had a relationship with it yet.”

According to producer Netter, “Fox was challenging us all to figure out how to make this a four-quadrant international family movie. In order for that to have a chance at working, it’s got to feel like an event. So in the discussions to figure out how to event-ize it came the 3D discussion, and then Ang was smart enough to come up with a philosophy of how he could approach doing that.”

Netter jokes that he referred to one particular room on the set of Life of Pi as the Beautiful Mind room—it was where Lee had meticulously diagrammed “completely from top to bottom, all the way around the room every single detail of fact that needed to be known,” Netter says, down to the changing pallor of Pi’s skin as he endures a life at sea and the gradual aging of the oars.

The Taiwanese-born Lee had not shot in his home country since making his 1994 film Eat Drink Man Woman. The Life of Pi production was based in an abandoned regional airport in Taichung, which was converted into soundstages with an international crew of 150, some of whom enrolled their kids in schools in Taiwan during the year they were making the movie.

“Last time I tried to bring the American independent way, like New York independent filmmaking, back to Taiwan,” says Lee, juxtaposing his location shoots 20 years ago for Eat Drink Man Woman with the mini-studio he created for Life of Pi. “I was there alone. I just tried to bring the method there. This time I brought Hollywood.”

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Q&A: Wes Anderson On Moonrise Kingdom

This article appeared in the Dec. 12 issue of AwardsLine.

The deadpan, rhythmic pop-and-snap banter. The dysfunctional parents and rebellious teens. And that classical-funk soundtrack played against those doll-house sets. These are some of director Wes Anderson’s stylistic hallmarks, idiosyncrasies that point to the cinematic evolution of absurdist theater. “I certainly have often thought of Harold Pinter,” says the Houston, TX, native about his muses, which have also included J.D. Salinger and François Truffaut. “(Pinter’s) a writer who has always inspired me. Samuel Beckett maybe in a more distant way, but Beckett through Pinter is one. The sparseness and abstractness of Pinter has always been a real inspiration for me.”

But while a number of absurdists maintained cynical views toward humanity, Anderson couldn’t be more optimistic. No more is this apparent in his Cannes Film Festival-launched summer arthouse hit Moonrise Kingdom, which has earned $65 million worldwide. The tale about two lost, romantic adolescent souls whose lives are more together than their parents has charmed critics since its bow, and its momentum has continued to a Gotham Award best film win and five Indie Spirit nominations including feature, director, and screenplay.

AWARDSLINE: What was the genesis of this project?

WES ANDERSON: It was some years ago, and I wanted to make a story about my memory of falling in love at age 11, but also my memory of the fantasy that went with it: The desire for something bigger to happen and the desire to be living a fantasy life, which was a strong feeling for me at that age. Moonrise Kingdom is autobiographical in the sense that it’s very close to the experience that I envisioned for myself when I was the age of those characters. All of my films are filled with personal details, and a lot of those personal details are where the emotional connection comes into it.

AWARDSLINE: Is it easier for you to launch a production nowadays? Do you simply make a phone call to producers Scott Rudin and Steven Rales?

ANDERSON: Even if you have people like Steven and Scott supporting you, one still has to figure out the foreign-sales numbers and other factors, like who is in your cast and how much are we getting for various territories, which helps you figure out a reasonable budget number. While that’s happening, there’s another kind of preparation that needs to be done and that I like to do: There’s a thorough, rigid preparation for my movies. Plus, the biggest thing with Moonrise Kingdom, once there was a script: Who are the actors for these two kids? Because if we can’t find them, we don’t have a movie. So we set aside time to search.

AWARDSLINE: Expound on your filmmaking relationship with Scott Rudin.

ANDERSON: My hunch is that Scott does something different on every movie he works on, and he has very different relationships with moviemakers. On some movies he’s saying (to a director), “Here’s a book you have to do” and bringing the material. And on some movies, he is on the set every day giving feedback. On my movies, his role has been very consistent over the years. He’s my producer-ial adviser—he’s my key adviser along with Steven Rales—and Scott is a great script reader and analyst. He has a very good feeling for storytelling. The main thing he gives me is a bunch of criticism that I may or may not use and that may aggravate me, but always leaves me with something to do next. The best thing you can ask for is that your conversation with your collaborator continually results in making a project better. He’s also important when it comes to releasing a movie and how we’re going to handle it.

AWARDSLINE: Every awards season, you seem to be in the conversation. What’s your takeaway on the season?

ANDERSON: It’s great to get (Oscar) nominations; I have not gotten many. I’m not one of those guys (that) if you go to my office, you find a staggering number of trophies on the shelf. We got one for Darjeeling Limited at the Venice Film Festival called the Leoncino d’Oro. At first we thought we won the Golden Lion, but slowly realized, “Wait a second, this means the Lion Cub.” It turned out it’s an award given by school children in Venice. We took that home, and it was really small. That same year, we also got an award from the American Association of Retired Persons as their favorite film of the year, which was strange. We were honored by the youngest Italians and older Americans. I always find something like this very moving and a surprise.

AWARDSLINE: It goes without saying that your filmmaking style stands out. Would you ever change it up?

ANDERSON: What makes my movies like my other movies—all those different things I do that prompt someone to say, “Well, I think we know who did this one”—those things are like my handwriting to me. What I’m focusing on (in each movie) are those things that are different and that I’ve never tried before. I’m always directing a movie where I wrote a script with a collaborator. It’s something that I invented and feels automatic and natural to do in my handwriting. If I was adapting Dashiell Hammett, I might find myself working in ways that are less recognizable as my thing. I’m not positive about that. But at some point along the way, I don’t want to force myself to make my movies unlike my other ones. Instead, I want to force myself to make them as entertaining, personal, and moving as I can make them.

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Q&A: Tom Hooper on Les Misérables

Pete Hammond is Deadline’s awards columnist. This article appeared in the Dec. 12 issue of AwardsLine.

Tom Hooper has had a distinguished career in television for more than a decade, earning an Emmy in 2006 for Elizabeth I and nominations for Prime Suspect 6 (2003) and John Adams (2008). But his feature-film career consisted of only two small films—Red Dust (2004)and the critically acclaimed but little-seen The Damned United (2009)—before he hit the mother lode with The King’s Speech in 2010, winning both the DGA Award and the Academy Award for best director on his very first time out. Now, defying the odds again, Hooper is back with the movie version of the worldwide musical smash, Les Misérables. This overnight film-business success at age 40 is among those top-tier contenders who could take it all again for finding a way—after producers have spent a quarter-century trying—to make Les Mis sing on screen as powerfully as it did on the stage.

AWARDSLINE: I was talking to Hugh Jackman about the audition process, and he said at that point you weren’t even involved. When did you get involved?

TOM HOOPER: I was involved. I didn’t want everyone to think the film was going to happen until I worked out how I was going to cast it. People always wanted to make the film regardless, but I needed to have the right cast. We needed actors that could sing at this level. The audition back in May of last year was huge—it was an extraordinary moment. That’s when I knew I had a movie. I’d go so far to say, the movie wouldn’t exist without Hugh Jackman. There was no second choice; I still don’t have a second choice. (He’s) an extraordinary actor and singer, with extraordinary musical-theater training. He had a great moral compass, very fitting for this very spiritual man. When he sang, he accessed an acting I had never seen in film. The singing really opens up new possibilities for these actors—possibilities you can’t do with normal dialogue. The sheer power of singing

AWARDSLINE: I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen a musical film with the singing done live, which Jackman said is 99.9% live. It gives it so much more power. I imagine that was still a risk on your part.

HOOPER: There were a lot of people telling me it wasn’t a good idea, that less of it should be done live. But I said the film wouldn’t have happened without Hugh Jackman, and I thought the film wouldn’t have happened if it were not done live. I love the movie musical, (but) there’s something slightly distancing about it. There’s a lack of fundamental realism or naturalism. It’s one thing for the musical to be light or comedic, but this is all about emotion. I thought if we did it live, it would make it much more real. Once you do it live, it becomes a completely different medium.

AWARDSLINE: You used the original book in helping you craft this.

HOOPER: It’s what I used for inspiration—it’s a truly brilliant work. One of the things I got from it was a great line: “It was the second white apparition which he had encountered.” The first taught him virtue, the second taught about love.

AWARDSLINE: What was the biggest challenge of doing a film of this scale?

HOOPER: I think one of the challenges that’s less obvious is doing it with the live piano, not a pre-recorded track. Each scene was a one-off event. You couldn’t cut the scene because of the tempo of the piano or the singing of the actor. I had to preserve the integrity of each scene and make sure I had all the camera coverage I needed to cut shots from each scene. Each time I shot with at least three cameras, up to six cameras. Each scene was a unique event.

AWARDSLINE: I didn’t know Russell Crowe could sing.

HOOPER: He actually started in musical theater; that was his original passion. He’s so passionate about singing, he said, “Tom, the rest of my life, whenever I am starting on a movie, I’m going to be wishing I was starting Les Misérables all over again.” He trained for six months for the demands of live singing.

AWARDSLINE: What was it like having the original creators of the musical available?

HOOPER: So exciting! Every change I made was with them, like the new song (“Suddenly”) was with them. The fans will recognize the original DNA.

AWARDSLINE: I know you had the world offered to you after The King’s Speech won best picture. Was this the obvious followup for you?

HOOPER: The secret thing I was doing during The King’s Speech was reading the (Victor Hugo) book on the planes back and forth. I explored it very thoroughly. For me, to choose a movie, you have to fall in love with it. It’s not an easy musical to adapt, but I got very addicted to the music. The brilliant thing about The King’s Speech was how it made people feel; the best reward was how it touched people. I want to work in an emotional place, a story with song, music. I also thought I should use some of that success to take a little risk and take myself somewhere new.

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Q&A: Judd Apatow And Leslie Mann on This Is 40

Paul Brownfield is an AwardsLine contributor. This article appeared in the Dec. 12 issue of AwardsLine.

The first scene in Judd Apatow’s dramatic comedy about marriage, This Is 40, is the only love scene. Pete (Paul Rudd) and Debbie (Leslie Mann) are having birthday sex in the shower, but what Debbie doesn’t know is that Pete has popped a Viagra. Thrusting is soon followed by tumult.

First seen in Knocked Up, Pete and Debbie functioned in that film as “the ghosts of Christmas future” for the two main characters, played by Seth Rogen and Katherine Heigl. But This Is 40 doesn’t pick up where Knocked Up left off, it starts afresh.

Let us assume the Viagra shower episode hasn’t happened in the real-life marriage of Apatow and Mann. But both the writer/director, edging into more mature terrain, and his actress wife, truly starring in a major Hollywood film for the first time, are aware that they’ve made something that feels, anyway, like an autobiographical film. In the time before making This Is 40, Apatow went back and watched, among others, Ingmar Bergman’s Scenes From a Marriage, “which had more humor in it than one would expect,” he says.

AWARDSLINE: Early in the movie, Pete and Debbie go away for a romantic weekend to get away from domestic and work stresses and reconnect as a couple. I think they have sex but they mostly do platonic things, like get stoned and order off the room-service menu. I’m curious what each of you thinks that says about marriage and long-term relationships.

JUDD APATOW: Well, I intended it to look like they had sex. If Paul Rudd had agreed to show me his behind, maybe that would have been clearer. The intention of it is to show that everybody has too many things they’re juggling. Between their marriages, work, all the kid stuff, it is very stressful and time-consuming, in addition to their extended families and health issues. Sometimes you need to get away for a few weeks just to figure out who you are again.

LESLIE MANN: But originally we had (Pete) taking Viagra.

APATOW: There was a funny shot where she sees him try to sneak the Viagra, and she just gives a look like, “Oh, God.”

AWARDSLINE: There’s another scene where Debbie catches Pete in the bathroom at home, playing Scrabble on his iPad, and says to him, “Why are you always trying to escape?” That seemed like a crucial line in the film.

APATOW: I’m a big fan of Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus. They talk about how men like to go to their caves, and women are always trying to get men out of their caves. That’s always my excuse for my escape. And it probably is just that I’m exhausted, and it’s fun to read the Huffington Post for 12 minutes on the toilet. Leslie will track how long I’ve been in the bathroom based on my Tweets. She’ll say, “I know you’re not going to the bathroom, you’re Tweeting.” She never opens the door. I think the second I hit the toilet, she signs on to Twitter to see if I’m really doing what I’m saying I’m doing. But I think everybody does that. There’s no guy who’s seen this movie that doesn’t say that they escape into the bathroom. I just think it’s a natural thing. Do you think women don’t do that, honey? They don’t feel the bathroom is a place to escape?

MANN: Um.

APATOW: To catch a breath?

MANN: I don’t think so.

APATOW: Where do you catch your breath?

MANN: We don’t. We’re women. We’re stronger than you are.

AWARDSLINE: Judd, The New Yorker once described your process for scriptwriting as involving a mostly male “Bucket Brigade of actors, writers, and directors” punching up each other’s scripts. Did that happen here?

APATOW: Not really on this one. Some movies are more of a joke fest, so it’s helpful to have a lot of input. Some movies survive just based on how funny each individual joke is, but because this is a more intimate movie, it really started with this idea and a year of Leslie and I talking about it and what our feelings were at this time of our lives. So I would tell Leslie some of the story I was thinking about, and then she would comment on that and pitch me ideas for scenes based on what she was going through. That’s how I outline. I just list hundreds of scene ideas, and then slowly the actual plot starts revealing itself.

AWARDSLINE: Did you workshop the script or show it around?

APATOW: The first person to read it is Leslie because we talk a lot about it. Leslie doesn’t like reading the early, really crappy drafts, so I tell her how it’s going and talk through the scenes with her. Then when I feel like it’s pretty decent, I give her the script. I’m also well aware that if she doesn’t like it, we’re not making the movie. So that’s actually the only scary read for me. Then I’ll get her notes and do a pass, and I do give it to a ton of people, which makes Leslie very nervous. I’m always just sending the script to people, and a lot of friends who are the writers I most admire read it. James Brooks read it, and Eric Roth, and Jake Kasdan, and Adam McKay. I send it around and say, “Am I crazy? Does this make sense at all, what we’re trying to do here?” And they’re very, very supportive and insightful and helpful.

AWARDSLINE: How long did it take to get from first draft to a shooting draft?

APATOW: Very short. I only finished the script because we were about to start shooting. So I drafted the script in December of 2010, and we shot in the summer of 2011. But we started doing rehearsals and table reads about five weeks after I finished the rough, vomit pass. Very early Leslie and Paul’ll come in, and we all talk and play and see how we feel and what’s missing.

AWARDSLINE: Since this film is somewhat close to your personal lives and is such a family affair, did it feel different when you started shooting?

MANN: I feel like Judd always protects me from anything that would stress me out in that way, so it’s only about being creative, which is stressful enough. But he kind of shields me from all of the little things, the business things. He creates a really safe place for us to be just creative. So I didn’t think about, “Oh, wow, this is however much money the budget was.” (To Apatow) How much was the budget? See, I don’t even know. So I didn’t worry about that. I think he may have been worrying about that but didn’t say anything about it. He’s just really snotty and having stress allergies.

AWARDSLINE: Did you feel as though you were crossing a line, putting your own family life on film?

MANN: I don’t see it that way. I know that there are certain things that are kind of pulled directly from our lives. Like, we don’t have wifi in the house.

AWARDSLINE: Really?

MANN: We have it in my bedroom, but don’t write that because (our daughter) Maude doesn’t know. But most of it, emotionally, I feel like it’s true, and what a woman goes through and what a man goes through at that stage of life feels really honest. But I think that’s pretty universal. So I didn’t feel like I was exposing this really personal thing about myself. I just felt like I’m playing a character and this is different from my life, but the same emotionally, you know? Does that make sense?

AWARDSLINE: You mentioned your daughter Maude. Both your kids act in your movies. Did that feel risky this time, to expose them to more scrutiny? I guess in this era of social media that isn’t the big deal it once was.

MANN: It’s weird because they haven’t been able to see the movies. I mean, Maude just recently saw some of Knocked Up, right?

APATOW: She fell asleep at the halfway point, which was very insulting to us.

MANN: Their friends don’t see the movies, and they just go to school every day, so they don’t really know what they’ve done. It kind of doesn’t affect them in their lives at all. But now that Maude is almost 15, it’s probably a little bit different.

AWARDSLINE: And she has a big part in the film.

MANN: And she’s really good in it. And I think that can’t hurt her. I don’t know, we’re very protective of them, and we’re just going to do our best. I hope that it doesn’t hurt them in some way.

APATOW: We think of it more like a singer-songwriter. You write about what you care about, and you share that with people. And hopefully that makes it OK because you are doing it with a positive intention. When people do that in their music and in movies, I always really appreciate it. I think it is what we liked about Annie Hall. We all knew that they dated. We didn’t think it was like that exactly, but we knew that something had inspired it.

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Themes Of Struggle Link Foreign-Language Film Contenders

David Mermelstein is an AwardsLine contributor. This article appeared in the Dec. 12 issue of AwardsLine.

Fairly or not, European films are widely considered more serious than their American counterparts. Certainly the movies eligible for the best foreign film Oscar this year fit the mold. Several make struggle a central theme, doing so in varied but consistently engaging ways.

Pablo Larrain’s No, from Chile, examines the 1988 plebiscite forced on General Augusto Pinochet, the result of which marked the beginning of the end of his dictatorship. In the film, a gifted marketing executive, Rene (Gael Garcia Bernal), must choose between middle-class comforts and his conscience—a choice complicated by his family’s ties to leftist politics. His boss (Alfredo Castro), who is firmly in league with the pro-Pinochet forces, plays Mephistopheles in this situation, reminding Rene, in no uncertain terms, that the creature comforts he enjoys are by no means guaranteed. Complicating matters are Rene’s shaky relationship with his politically engaged wife, Veronica (Antonia Zegers), from whom he is already separated. All of which leads to the film’s central question: What price bravery?

Denmark's official Oscar submission is A Royal Affair, which transports viewers to the 18th century.
Denmark’s official Oscar submission is A Royal Affair, which transports viewers to the 18th century.

Chen Kaige’s Caught in the Web, China’s contender this year, essentially flips the individual-versus-society question as it examines the struggles faced by Ye Lanqiu (Gao Yuanyuan), a mild and attractive executive assistant who is given a grim prognosis of advanced lymphatic cancer. That dire news triggers a chain of events in which the stunned secretary acts rudely on a public bus, and her behavior, captured on a young reporter’s cell phone, creates a cause célèbre, catapulting her to national vilification as “Miss Sunglasses.” This double blow of fate and ostracism is compelling, but Chen is more concerned with turning the lens around, from the individual onto Chinese society. There, he suggests, obsession with technology has reduced public empathy to everyone’s detriment.

Iceland's The Deep is based on the true story of a fisherman who survives a shipwreck.
Iceland’s The Deep is based on the true story of a fisherman who survives a shipwreck.

Based on real incident, The Deep, from Icelandic filmmaker Baltasar Kormakur, relates the incredible story of a simple but happy fisherman named Gulli (Olafur Darri Olafsson) who finds himself the sole survivor of a sinking ship. Battling nature and the guilt he feels at being unable to save his crewmates, he makes an improbable bid for survival, defying long odds and swimming to safety. Yet doubts confront him once he does, with people—especially those in authority—refusing to believe his death-defying accomplishment. Then, after confirmation of his experience, he is subjected to medical tests, in hopes of finding a scientific basis for his fortitude and good fortune, so unwilling is the establishment to accept extraordinary actions from such an ordinary man.

Struggles of a strictly private nature lie at the heart of Michael Haneke’s Amour, a French-language film flying the Austrian flag. Centering almost entirely on an aged couple (Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva) who must suddenly come to grips with infirmity and—by implication—mortality. Though the much-lauded and singular Haneke would not seem an obvious choice for such a picture, his utter lack of sentimentality pierces the essence of what it means to grow old. Here, Riva must contend with the ravages of a stroke while Trintignant watches his life partner disintegrate before him, powerless to do much more than offer limp comforts.

Transporting viewers to 18th-century Denmark, Nikolaj Arcel’s A Royal Affair uses a historical romance between King Christian VII’s wife, Caroline Mathilde (Alicia Vikander), and the king’s physician-cum-chancellor, Johann Streunsee (Mads Mikkelsen), to explore the challenges facing enlightened nobles attempting to improve a backward nation. Beneath the rustle of damask and flickering candlelight, Arcel asks eternal questions regarding a nation’s leaders and their responsibilities—questions made all the more pointed when the populace is too ignorant to embrace its own interests. This particular tale did not end well for those involved, their struggles and sacrifices made apparently in vain. But history takes the long view, which Arcel clearly appreciates in his touching coda.

Said Ould Khelifa’s Zabana! also takes a page from history to appreciate the short life of the Algerian freedom fighter Ahmed Zabana, whose execution helped bring about Algeria’s war of independence from France. And though Australia’s entry for an Oscar this year, Lore, is fictional, its German-language story is grounded in a historical subject that film lovers never seem to tire of: World War II and its consequences. In this case, the protagonist is teenage girl whose parents were ardent Nazis.

Such films as these aren’t are always shortlisted, let alone award winners, of course. Last year’s outstanding A Separation, from Iran, delved deeply into matters of perception and truth, but on an intimate scale. Still, the Academy clearly has a soft spot for foreign films that tackle big issues in which struggle figures prominently. Haneke’s The White Ribbon (2009), from Germany, is a perfect example, with its implicit societal indictment. And so is Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s The Lives of Others (2006), also from Germany. Both contend with man’s eternal battle to come to terms with both himself and the society in which he lives. And these are struggles to which we can all relate.

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Doc Branch Rule Changes Yield Mixed Results

Pete Hammond is Deadline’s awards columnist. This article appeared in the Dec. 12 issue of AwardsLine.

The release of the documentary short list of 15 finalists on Dec. 3 was seen as a litmus test for new rules that opened up the process to the entire peer group and, in theory, would make it easier for more popular docs to make the cut. It was thought these basic rule changes would discourage the proliferation of faux docs (TV docs trying to pass themselves off as features) that started taking over the category and lessen the number of entries. But, in fact, this year saw those TV docs finding ways to skirt the new rules, so the number of overall entries increased. This put a tremendous burden on the already overworked branch members who now found they had as many as 80 docs at one time dropped in their mailboxes.

Chasing Ice documents the melting of the polar ice caps.
Chasing Ice documents the melting of the polar ice caps.

The result? Mixed. Although a number of better-known and critically acclaimed docs made the top 15, there were still those HBO docs like Ethel that made the cut even though its TV airdate has come and gone. Yet high-profile, acclaimed theatrical docs like West of Memphis (which had Hobbit heavyweights Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh backing it), The Central Park Five (from awards magnate Ken Burns), and Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel were snubbed.

Nevertheless, prominent members of the doc branch seem to think the experiment, though not perfect, is starting to work. Academy governor Michael Moore spearheaded many of the changes because he thought a major overhaul was necessary to bring credibility back to the documentary process of the Academy. “(It) seems to be turning out to be a really good thing. I’m now very optimistic about it,” Moore told me at the Governors Awards. Here is a brief snapshot of the contenders.

AI WEIWEI: NEVER SORRY

A look at Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei as he works on new projects and exhibitions, despite interference from the government. It’s a definite contender.

BULLY

The Weinstein Co.’s doc covers a compelling subject in a personal way: Teens being bullied. It made its point effectively, leapfrogging it to frontrunner status for much of the year. Its timely themes could take it to the winner’s circle.

CHASING ICE

A National Geographic photographer chronicles the changing condition of the Arctic glaciers. At 74 minutes, it’s quick and beautiful, but it might not be complex enough.

DETROPIA

Using Detroit as a metaphor, this intriguing doc explores the loss of U.S. manufacturing. As timely as it gets, this one could strike a chord with voters, but its relatively low profile might hold it back.

Ethel looks at the life of Ethel Kennedy, who raised her children alone after her husband, Bobby, was assassinated.
Ethel looks at the life of Ethel Kennedy, who raised her children alone after her husband, Bobby, was assassinated.

ETHEL

A look at the life and times of Ethel Kennedy, who had to raise 11 kids on her own after the 1968 assassination of her husband, Robert F. Kennedy. The TV imprimatur (it’s already aired) could diminish its chances as the Academy tries to move exclusively toward theatrical docs.

5 BROKEN CAMERAS

Over the course of five years, a quiet Palestinian farmer uses several cameras to record his peaceful protests against the aggression of the Israeli army.

THE GATEKEEPERS

This eye-opening doc about six former heads of Shin Bet, Israel’s Secret Service agency, and the men charged with the fight on terror has been a major contender since its debut at the Telluride Film Festival, despite being a series of talking-head segments. But what talk!

THE HOUSE I LIVE IN

Executive producer Brad Pitt got behind this one early, and it raises the question about the effectiveness of the war on drugs in the U.S. A strong contender to make the final five despite limited theatrical play.

HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE

Winner of the New York Film Critics Circle’s best first film, this film is a story of two groups who managed to turn things around for AIDS victims, offering hope, humanity, and street smarts in dealing with the deadly disease.

THE IMPOSTER

This absolutely riveting story revolves around a young Frenchman who knocks on the door of a Texas family and says he is their long-lost son, missing for three years. One of 2012’s higher profile entries, this one could gain traction, particularly if it gets some love from critics’ groups.

THE INVISIBLE WAR

A look into the rape of soldiers in the U.S. military, a situation that is rampant according to this compelling doc from Kirby Dick (This Film Is Not Yet Rated). This one has a lot of support with the Academy actors/activists branch.

MEA MAXIMA CULPA: SILENCE IN THE HOUSE OF GOD

The subject of pedophilia in the Catholic Church is given first-rate treatment by prolific Oscar-winning documentarian Alex Gibney (Taxi to the Dark Side). Gibney is always a contender when he is on his game, and he is definitely on it here.

SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN

Chronicles the fall and rise of a musician who never quite made the big leagues, but manages to make up for it 30 years later when he is suddenly “rediscovered” by a film crew.

THIS IS NOT A FILM

Jailed Iranian director Jafar Panahi shows a day in his life in prison as he tries to find freedom again. The Iranians, who won best foreign film last year for A Separation, refused to enter a film this year for political reasons. A nomination for this penetrating doc could make up for that loss.

THE WAITING ROOM

A look inside at what goes on in a typical American hospital. Paddy Chayefsky wasn’t far off in his fictional 1971 classic, The Hospital, but this one could be long shot as it doesn’t offer a whole lot of originality but is highly watchable anyway.

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Behind The Scenes On The Intouchables

Diane Haithman is an AwardsLine contributor. This article appeared in the Dec. 12 issue of AwardsLine.

On a Saturday morning in early December, Weinstein Co. chief operating officer David Glasser was facing a very busy day: A noon screening of his company’s critically acclaimed Silver Linings Playbook, followed by a 3 p.m. screening of Weinstein’s Christmas Day release Django Unchained, then an evening at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences’ fourth annual Governors Awards. Until the Feb. 24 Oscar ceremony, “Saturdays and Sundays are not my own,” the executive jokes.

François Cluzet, left, and Omar Sy in The Intouchables.
François Cluzet, left, and Omar Sy in The Intouchables.

But in between such big events involving big movies, it somehow seemed fitting that Glasser would carve out a little chunk of time to talk about a small but equally important film executive-produced by the Weinstein Co.: The Intouchables.

This $2 million French film, based on the true story about the bond between a wealthy quadriplegic (played by François Cluzet) and the fun-loving younger man from a housing project (Omar Sy) he hires to take care of him, has earned more than $400 million at the boxoffice worldwide and is the official French entry for the foreign-language film Oscar.

In fact, Harvey Weinstein and his team like The Intouchables so much that they are producing an English-language remake with a different cast in the United States. Glasser predicts the script will be completed within the next two or three months, and the film will be produced in 2013 for planned release in 2014.

Because The Intouchables (that’s French for “untouchables”) is being entered in the foreign-language category, it is not in the running to repeat the Weinstein Co.’s 2012 best picture win for another French film, The Artist. Still, the company seems to have high hopes: The Intouchables was among the first DVD screeners to be shipped out to Academy members in early October.

Glasser says the foreign-language category was more appropriate than a best picture entry for this film. “Look, with The Artist we were much more involved. This was their movie,” Glasser says, referring to writer/directors Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache and the producing team of Nicolas Duval-Adassovsky, Yann Zenou, and Laurent Zeitoun. “And it wasn’t like (the Weinstein Co.’s 2011 winner) The King’s Speech, where we had made it. When they put it in as France’s foreign-language film, we were fine with that. It felt like a natural fit for the movie.”

Writers and codirectors writer/directors Eric Toledano, center, and Olivier Nakache, right, on the set with François Cluzet
Writers and codirectors writer/directors Eric Toledano, center, and Olivier Nakache, right, on the set with François Cluzet

While the submission category is different, The Intouchables, like The Artist, was discovered by Harvey Weinstein in unfinished form. In the case of The Artist, Weinstein flew to France to see a rough cut of the film before it was presented at the Cannes Film Festival. In the case of The Intouchables, as codirector Toledano describes it, a Weinstein Co. representative was in the crowd of potential film distributors in Cannes who saw an eight-minute trailer for the unfinished film about six months before its release in France.

“(The Weinstein representative) asked us to show it to Harvey Weinstein, and we were so excited, obviously,” Toledano says. “When Harvey saw the trailer, he said, ‘I want to see the movie.’ The movie was not finished. One month later, (when) we had the first edit of two hours, he decided to come to London, where we showed him the movie. And he decided to buy it, which was wonderful for us.”

This process is typical for Weinstein, Glasser says. “A lot of times we buy something at script phase, or we’ll see a little footage and buy it,” he says. “We bought Iron Lady that way,” Glasser adds, referring to the film that netted Meryl Streep a best actress Oscar in 2012 for her portrayal of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

And what did the Weinstein Co. see that made them want to bet on The Intouchables? “We love French movies, as I guess you know—we bought four this year alone (including) Haute Cuisine, “ Glasser says. “In eight minutes you felt that kind of magical, warm, very honest relationship between these two guys.”

Adds Glasser, “I think in a marketplace of $100 million, big picture, big studio movies, we’re in that nice, perfect place for great cinema, great stories. They could be a $2 million movie or a $40 million movie. You bring something nice to the marketplace. And there’s a little less competition.”

The filmmakers were inspired by the documentary A la Vie, a la Mort, about the close relationship of Philippe Pozzo di Borgo, who became a quadriplegic after a paragliding accident, and his assistant Abdel, who hails from a housing project. In the movie, the Algerian-born Abdel is re-created as the Senegal-born Oriss to make the role appropriate for actor Sy, 34, who has played roles in other films for the two directors.

Cluzet met and studied the behavior of the real Philippe, but Sy did not meet the real Abdel until after the film was completed. Toledano says the real Philippe was willing to speak about his situation, but the real-life Abdel was less trusting. “He was so suspicious that we wanted to do a movie about his life,” Toledano says. “At first, he wanted to stay far away from everything. He expected to see the movie, but that’s all he wanted to do.”

Plus, Toledano adds, while he admires the real Abdel, he’s just not as funny as Omar Sy. “I don’t think the public could love him as they do Omar.”

Sy, who honed his performing chops as a comedian, also preferred not to meet Abdel, whom he finally encountered on the night of the film’s premiere. “It was important for me to keep space for me to create,” Sy says. He adds that, because he is a comedian and does impressions, it would have been all to too easy for him to fall into doing an impression of Abdel rather than creating his own character.

The opposite is true of Philippe, Toledano observes. “Philippe Borgo, he is a very smart guy, very highbrow. It was really important for the actor to make a meeting, because Philippe has a special look. When Omar came with us to the meeting, he said something very interesting: ‘He can catch you with his eyes.’ ” That was also Toledano and Nakache’s first direction to Cluzet: “He has nothing but his brain, nothing to express his feelings but his eyes. You have to act this movie with your eyes,” Toledano says.

The directors and Sy acknowledge there are currently several movies getting Oscar buzz that deal with characters with severe physical handicaps, including The Sessions and the French-Belgian film Rust and Bone, starring Marion Cotillard as an aquatic animal trainer who loses her legs in an accident. All three believe that there’s something in the global zeitgeist of bad news and a struggling economy that makes today’s audience want to cheer for the underdog.

Nevertheless, Toledano and Nakache believe the key to The Intouchables’ success is that it’s a comedy, more inspired by American buddy movies than tales of overcoming disability. “We made this movie because of the story between two men,” Nakache says. “For us it’s an amazing story, we never expected such a huge tsunami. The thing is, if this movie changes one person, inspires the life of one person, we have achieved our goal.”

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Past Oscar Winners Vie For Director Noms

Pete Hammond is Deadline’s awards columnist. This article appeared in the Dec. 12 issue of AwardsLine.

If you are getting a sense of déjà vu from this year’s director race, you aren’t far off. Several past Oscar winners in the category are back competing for another go at the gold. Even one of the frontrunner-newcomers, Argo’s Ben Affleck,is a past winner in the original screenplay category (Good Will Hunting),as is two-time directing nominee Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction, Inglourious Basterds) going for a third try with Django Unchained. Two of the best director winners in the past three years, Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker) and Tom Hooper (The

Director Tom Hooper, left, and Hugh Jackman on the set of Les Misérables.
Director Tom Hooper, left, and Hugh Jackman on the set of Les Misérables.

King’s Speech), are already back in the thick of the race trying for a matching Oscar for their followup film, a rare feat if either one can pull it off. Then there are the likes of Steven Spielberg, Ang Lee, Peter Jackson, Robert Zemeckis, and Sam Mendes—all past winners attempting to make room for another Oscar on their mantel. Some prominent past nominees are also back trying for a first win including Paul Thomas Anderson, David O. Russell, and Gus Van Sant. And could this be the year Christopher Nolan finally gets some love from his peers in the small Academy directing branch with his final Batman flick, The Dark Knight Rises? Here’s a rundown of the top contenders for best director.

BEN AFFLECK | ARGO

Early in his career, Affleck took home an Oscar with cowriter and star Matt Damon for Good Will Hunting in the original screenplay category. But after an up-and-down career as a leading man, he found new respect behind the camera with his first two directorial efforts—Gone Baby Gone and The Town—winning critical acclaim and comparisions to Clint Eastwood. With Argo, in which he also plays the lead role, he has cemented his reputation as a directing force and has been a frontrunner in the category since the film’s debut at the Telluride Film Festival. But can he keep up the momentum all the way to February?

Director Steven Spielberg, left, and producer Kathleen Kennedy on the set of Lincoln.
Director Steven Spielberg, left, and producer Kathleen Kennedy on the set of Lincoln.

STEVEN SPIELBERG | LINCOLN

A two-time winner (Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan) and six-time nominee in this category, Spielberg has an Oscar track record that seems almost modest considering his remarkable career. Many think he is still deserving of more. His long-gestating and critically acclaimed Lincoln, a film that almost didn’t happen and one he told me recently he felt “might not have been in the stars for me,” has come triumphantly to the screen and made him another formidable contender for the big prize.

TOM HOOPER | LES MISÉRABLES

Although he already had an Emmy win for Elizabeth I and another nomination for John Adams, British director Hooper was not well-known outside of England when it came to feature films. After a little success with The Damned United, he hit paydirt and won the director Oscar on his first nomination for The King’s Speech just two years ago. With numerous projects to choose from, he has now followed it up with the movie version of the smash musical Les Misérables and instantly stakes a claim for another nomination and possible second win in just two years. But will voters think it is too much, too fast?

Director Ang Lee tackled both 3D and digital effects for the first time in his career with Life of Pi.
Director Ang Lee tackled both 3D and digital effects for the first time in his career with Life of Pi.

ANG LEE | LIFE OF PI

A previous winner in this category for Brokeback Mountain (2005),Lee has another statuette for his foreign-language film winner Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The virtually unfilmable bestselling book Life of Pi took its toll on a number of directors who attempted to bring it to screen until Lee finally cracked a way to do it and moved the art and science of film one step forward with his dazzling visuals. Fellow directors seem to be awestruck by what he has accomplished, and that should assure him yet another nomination if the movie gods are smiling on him this season.

Director Kathryn Bigelow, right, and Jennifer Ehle on the set of Zero Dark Thirty.
Director Kathryn Bigelow, right, and Jennifer Ehle on the set of Zero Dark Thirty.

KATHRYN BIGELOW | ZERO DARK THIRTY

Just three years after becoming the first woman ever to win the best director Oscar for her Iraq war film, The Hurt Locker, Bigelow, an action-movie veteran, proved she still had the stuff to make provocative, controversial cinema with this film about the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Bigelow and writer Mark Boal started working on the film when bin Laden was still alive and eluding capture, reversing course and turning it into a look at how the world’s number-one fugitive was captured when the news broke. It’s a towering achievement, but considering it took 80 years for Bigelow to become the first woman to win the director Oscar, could it only take three for her to become the second?

Director David O. Russell, center, with stars Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence on the set of Silver Linings Playbook,
Director David O. Russell, center, with stars Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence on the set of Silver Linings Playbook,

DAVID O. RUSSELL | SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK

A director who always seems more comfortable working in the indie world, David O. Russell encountered some tough times in recent years before finding The Fighter and scoring a knockout punch that landed him in this category for the first time in 2010. Now, just two years later, he is in a strong position to go for the win with this quirky, touching comedy-drama that was the sensation of the Toronto Film Festival and winner of the audience award over Argo. But against epic competition, can Russell be driving the little engine that could or is the Oscar just not in his own playbook this time around?

ROBERT ZEMECKIS | FLIGHT

After 12 years of trying to convince the industry that motion-capture animation was the future, Zemeckis, a past winner for Forrest Gump (1994), returned to his roots and delivers a winning human drama about a pilot battling his own demons even as he accomplished a heroic act in crash-landing a plane and saving most of the passengers. Deferring his own salary and bringing this ambitious adult drama in for just $30 million, Zemeckis could find himself back in the race.

MICHAEL HANEKE | AMOUR

Although Haneke is likely to be a frontrunner in the foreign-language race for his Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or winner, the film itself is eliciting such powerful response that he could also find himself with nominations for his original screenplay and directing. Certainly nominations for directors of foreign-language films are not unprecedented, and Haneke could be the latest if the film’s subject matter about the problems of an aging couple isn’t just too hard for voters to watch.

J.A. BAYONA | THE IMPOSSIBLE

In only his second film, this Spanish director skillfully navigates the big-scale effects of re-creating the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami along with the powerful human drama of a family separated by tragedy and trying to survive in almost unthinkable circumstances. It’s an impressive balancing act, marking the arrival of a major new talent. But will this smaller release get swamped by higher-profile titles?

PAUL THOMAS ANDERSON | THE MASTER

Although opinion on the film is wildly mixed, with filmgoers in and out of the industry either loving it or hating it, this is a category where the ambitious film, shot in 65mm at a time when no one is using the classic format, could impress Anderson’s colleagues for sheer audacity and filmmaking skill alone. And with only a single previous nomination in this category (2007’s There Will Be Blood) Anderson seems underappreciated.

QUENTIN TARANTINO | DJANGO UNCHAINED

Tarantino is a directorial maverick who always seems to deliver the goods, but will the ultraviolent western throwback just be too much of a good thing at nearly three hours? Early word is he knocks it out of the park again.

PETER JACKSON | THE HOBBIT

The Academy honored Jackson for his triumphant Lord of the Rings trilogy with Return of the King in 2003, so it’s unlikely they will go there again so soon, and especially for what is the first of another three films.

CHRISTOPHER NOLAN | THE DARK KNIGHT RISES

The Aurora tragedy seemed to unfairly taint this film’s awards chances from the beginning, and the directors’ branch has never embraced the great Nolan, so should we expect them to start now?

WES ANDERSON | MOONRISE KINGDOM

This Cannes Film Festival opener became Anderson’s second biggest hit and an indie breakout, but Oscar recognition seems more likely for Anderson in original screenplay.

SAM MENDES | SKYFALL

This Oscar winner (American Beauty)is the most important director ever to take on the 50-year-old James Bond franchise, and the critics and audiences loved it. It’s the most successful and acclaimed Bond film of all and long overdue for a win, but Oscar voters just don’t seem to get it, do they?

JOE WRIGHT | ANNA KARENINA

Using a bold theatrical framing device, Wright took a big chance in making this Leo Tolstoy classic seem fresh again, but opinion on whether he succeeded was divided and likely will hurt his chances to gain his first director nomination.

BENH ZEITLIN | BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD

The darling of the Sundance Film Festival, this daringly original indie sensation has plenty of admirers, but competition is just as fierce as those beasts.

GUS VAN SANT | THE PROMISED LAND

Directors love Van Sant, who has been nominated twice before (Good Will Hunting, Milk), but his film is the last to be released in 2012 and might not be seen widely enough to break through.

DUSTIN HOFFMAN | QUARTET

Can a two-time Oscar-winning actor break through as a director with a behind-the-camera debut at the young age of 75? The film is right up Oscar’s alley, but unlikely to be a contender here even though Hoffman did a terrific job.

SACHA GERVASI | HITCHCOCK

The great Hitchcock himself had trouble in this category and never won despite five nominations—including a final one for Psycho, the subject of this film within a film—so wouldn’t it be ironic if Gervasi were able to pull off a win? Despite Gervasi doing a fine job in his narrative directorial debut, don’t count on it.

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Q&A: Samantha Barks On Les Misérables

Cari Lynn is an AwardsLine contributor. This article appeared in the Dec. 5 issue of AwardsLine.

If Samantha Barks is a name that’s new, that’s because Les Misérables is the first film for this Isle of Man native, who plays Éponine, the unlikely martyr who sings of unrequited love in one of the most well-known songs, “On My Own.” Barks, 22, got her start at 17 years old, on the U.K. reality show, I’d Do Anything, where singers auditioned for a revival of the musical Oliver!. Fortuitously, one of the judges was Cameron Mackintosh, the original producer of Les Mis, who’d go on to coproduce the film.

AWARDSLINE: You’re the only member of the starring cast to have also played your role on stage. How did this all come about for you?

SAMANTHA BARKS: After I’d Do Anything, I was lucky to get some fantastic (stage) jobs, the first one being Sally Bowles in Cabaret. A few years later, I got a call that Cameron would like to see me for Éponine. As a musical-theater girl, who’d sing a one-woman show of Les Mis in front of my mirror, just to get to audition was exciting! And then, on my opening night of Les Mis (in the West End), Cameron announced that he’d selected me to sing as Éponine at the 25th anniversary at The 02. After (a year in Les Mis), I ended up playing Nancy in Oliver!, which is where it all began, and it was there that Cameron announced on stage, during curtain call, that I would be playing Éponine in the film. I’d been auditioning for about 15 weeks on the buildup to that, but it was the most unique way in the world you could find out you’ve got a role.

AWARDSLINE: Fifteen weeks seems like a long audition….

BARKS: It was a very exciting process actually, to be able to work with Tom Hooper. At first, it was trying out different ways of doing the songs, because I knew the role from a theatrical sense, but it was to see if I could translate it into the film world. I learned a lot just from those auditions. Then I started going in with Eddie Redmayne (who plays Marius) and Amanda Seyfried (who plays Cosette), and that was mind-blowing, wondering what they were going to be like, because I’d never really met people like that. But they were so nervous, that’s what struck me. Amanda was nervous, and I was like, “But you’re a big movie star.” But this was a world that was new to all of us—none of us have ever sang live on film. We were all there to support each other.

AWARDSLINE: What was the most challenging part of taking this role from stage to film?

BARKS: The biggest challenge was that it’s never been done like this before, so there was no right way to do it. We sang with these earpieces in—so when the audience is hearing this orchestrated version of “On My Own,” all I heard is a little, tinny piano in one ear. The piano is on set and following you, but you’re setting the tempos, and you had to picture how to create this. It was scary—but also a great leveler. You’ve got Russell Crowe and Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway, and they’ve done so many films, but no one’s ever done this. And I’ve done many a theater show, but I’ve never done this. We all had something to learn off each other. But we sang each song through with each take, which is rare in film because it’s usually 10 seconds here, 10 seconds there, but what was nice is that you were really able to build in the way that you would be able to on stage. It had such an organic feeling of theater, and that’s why I think people are reacting to it the way they’ve reacted to it on stage, because what you’re getting is a throughline that is true and real.

AWARDSLINE: Did you do any special vocal training for the film?

BARKS: I’m used to singing the material day in, day out, but the difference in bringing it on to screen is that your intimate moments can be so much more intimate. You can talk in a whisper, whereas a stage whisper still has to be so exaggerated. The quieter you go, the more vocal control it takes, but it then allows you to have those payoffs, those bigger moments, it allows you to go on that journey. On stage, even when you’re dying, you’ve got to project, everyone’s got to hear your words crystal clear. But on film, you’re watching a young girl dying in the arms of the man she loves, and you’re right there with them.

AWARDSLINE: You sing more than one song in the rain. How do you maintain your voice live?

BARKS: I think we did about 15 takes of “On My Own.” There was a rain machine with freezing cold rain over my head. When you do a musical, eight shows a week for a year, you have to maintain a stamina and be so disciplined. It’s like being an athlete. Your voice is a muscle, so you have to make sure your diet is good—you can’t have anything that will make you, well, phlegmy. So no dairy before you sing, nothing spicy. You drink so much water, you steam. You’ve really got to look after yourself. We did vocal warmups all day long. Being in a (stage) show, you have to be warm for about three hours a day, but for this, you’d have to be warm and have your vocal pickup at five in the morning, even though you were still singing at 10 the last night. All day, every day, you have to be in your most perfect vocal condition, because that take of “On My Own” might be the one that is shown in cinemas all around the world. Yes, you’re in soaking rain and you’re crying and your nose is drippy and you’ve got so much to contend with—that was the big challenge. Hugh Jackman had waves crashing over him! It’s because of that that you can watch it, and it makes you even more proud because you know what you had to put yourself through to get this. All the things we did for our characters all seem worth it now.

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Q&A: Ewan McGregor on The Impossible

This article appeared in the Dec. 5 issue of AwardsLine.

Ewan McGregor has played a lot of different kinds of roles since he first rose to prominence in 1996’s Trainspotting, but there’s one that has eluded his grasp: parenthood. In the December release The Impossible, the real-life father of four plays a man whose family is torn apart by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. He struggles to keep his two young sons safe amidst the chaos while searching feverishly for his wife, played by Naomi Watts, and eldest son, played by Tom Holland. Though it’s the third film he’s appeared in this year after Haywire and Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, McGregor doesn’t take much time off. He recently spoke with AwardsLine from the set of August: Osage County, which is currently shooting in Bartlesville, OK.

AWARDSLINE: How did you first hear about The Impossible?

EWAN MCGREGOR: I heard about it through my agent, and I knew about J.A. Bayona and his film The Orphanage, although I don’t think I’d seen it until I’d read the script for The Impossible. I knew Naomi was attached—I’ve worked with Naomi before—and, yes, after reading the script I was left with no doubt. I didn’t know at the time that it was a true story, but there was something very honest and true about the writing. Another one of the main draws for me was that it was the first time in my career that I explored parenthood, although I’ve been a dad for a long time. I must’ve had some kids in films before, but not many, and I’ve never made a film that’s really about that relationship between you and your kids.

AWARDSLINE: How did the script read to you? There’s not a lot of dialogue, so I’m wondering what it was like going through the script the first time.

MCGREGOR: It had a very strong structure. It could have been written in a much more chaotic way—we fly back and forth and back and forth between all of the family’s experiences. I thought it even played against the chaos. (The structure) also started building up the tension about if they were going to find each other. I didn’t feel like it was spare of dialogue. Really good writers don’t feel the need to explain everything with lots of dialogue, I find.

AWARDSLINE:  Were you able to spend any time with Maria Belon’s husband, your character in the film, before you started shooting?

MCGREGOR: I spoke to him on the telephone while I was shooting Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, a few days before I was due in Thailand, so I didn’t get a chance to meet him (before shooting). It’s a funny thing—the real family is Spanish, and because we weren’t playing them as Spanish, I felt like I was sort of free to create him. The whole family came out to visit the set, and when I met him, I thought, Oh, I’m not too far away. It was the writing I guess. The path through the film for me is that he really holds it together, he doesn’t allow himself to collapse until the bus station scene where he does allow himself the luxury to fall apart for a minute.

AWARDSLINE: Did you do any other research for the role?

MCGREGOR: We worked from an amazing documentary Channel 4 in Britain made called Tsunami: Caught on Camera, which was made using all the footage from (tourists’) cameras intercut with interviews with six or seven people who were there. It’s brutal and it’s devastating, and I watched it only twice, no, three times. I tried to go back to it, and I couldn’t. The art department had a great deal of research—photographs of hospitals and coastline shots, hotels, and then of the temples where the bodies were taken. There just reached a point once we started filming that—I mean, we’re spending all day trying to re-create this tragic event, and then we’re surrounded by a Thai crew, most of whom were affected by it and lost people there. All the hotels that we were staying in had been hit by the tsunami, so you’d be in bed at night thinking, Well, who was in this room and did they survive? I would concentrate on getting it right at work, but I couldn’t plunge myself into the horror of it because you can’t sustain that.

AWARDSLINE: You spend most of your time on screen with Oaklee Pendergast and Samuel Joslin, the young actors who play your sons in the film. How were they to work with?

MCGREGOR: They were just absolutely brilliant little guys, and I was always very careful with them. They had a child minder who was also a drama teacher for them, so he would prepare them for the scenes they were going to play, but I’m always very wary of how children are dealt with on movie sets. I said right up front that I wouldn’t involve them in anything that would actually frighten them or play any games with them just to get a desired effect on camera. So we worked quite hard with them. In some of the scenes where we had to huddle and cry—that doesn’t just happen on its own accord. We worked on that, I remember, for about a week or maybe more before we started shooting. And then when we did shoot, they were told quite clearly that when we were was on set, I was their dad. They knew I was their pretend dad, but still whenever I’d arrive on set, they’d run up and go, “Dad! Dad!” I’d send pictures back home to my kids: “Here’s my other family, my secret family in Thailand.” (Laughs.)