The Ides Of March
It is the first directorial outing for Clooney since Leatherheads back in 2008 as he tackles a contemporary project for the first time.
I caught up with him and his co-stars Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Evan Rachel Wood at the London Film Festival to talk about the new movie.
- Beau Willimon’s play Farragut North was the basis for The Ides of March so I was wondering what it was about that play that spoke to you and what was it that made you think it had cinematic potential?
George Clooney: We just read the play it self, it was brought to Warner Bros, Grant and I, Grant Heslov who is my writing and producing partner, had been working on a morality tale more along the lines of Wall Street and we thought that there was a way to tie the two together.
I liked the idea of the questions that the play was raising - my character isn’t in the play at all - so we just felt that it would be a fun role to talk about morality and ask questions.
- Evan & Philip I gather that you were asked to watch a few documentaries as a bit of background what were they and how did you find them?
Philip Seymour Hoffman: I had actually seen them all so I didn’t have to do any research (laughs). No I had just seen them all as friends had suggested them to me through the years.
George: Didn’t you work on one too?
Philip: I worked on a documentary myself call The Last Party back in 2000 and I think I watched a couple while I was doing that, Journey’s With George was made while I was making that, so I had seen them - Primary is a great one.
George: It’s funny how little has changed, Primary is set in 1960, and it’s funny how very little has changed over the years.
- George how much is the film inspired by your father’s current experience running for office?
There are certainly elements from it, there is a scene in the car between Jennifer Ehle and myself and that scene was directly a result of conversations that I had with my father about running for congress.
There are hand that you have to shake that you wouldn’t normally shake, it’s unfortunate but that is the way that it is, you cannot finance your own campaign unless you are independently wealthy - which my father is not; even a small congressional district in Kentucky with cost you a couple of million dollars to run.
And so you end up having to not make deals but turn up at those parties and shake hands with people that you normally wouldn’t find as attractive to do that with - so there were plenty of scenes about that.
- George all your films have treated your films like adults so I am wondering how frustrating it can be when you are putting a political message across but people in our industry are more obsessed with who is on your arm on the red carpet?
I understand both worlds as I grew up around it all and I understand it. I am interested in making movies that ask questions and don’t particularly provide answers and because I grew up in that era of filmmaking which took place when there were a tremendous number of things going on in the country - in the sixties and seventies you had the Civil Rights Movement, the Anti-War Movement, the Women’s Rights Movement and drug culture; and they were later reflected in film.
I think that there are a lot of things going on in the world right now and they are starting to be reflected in film - and I like films like that. On the other side of it I know what those questions are and when and where they come and I can deal with that too - but I would rather talk about the films.
- How closely do you think that the themes of this movie such as compromise and morality reflect the modern political world?
George: I don’t know but I do know that there are deals made all the time for cabinet posts - I know that for sure - we also know that scandal is not uncommon, this was written before the John Edwards scandal and before the Anthony Weaver scandal; we were just in France and people somehow thought this had something to do with DSK (Dominique Strauss Kahn).
I think that it reflects things that are pretty timeless - they are not necessarily restricted to government they are sort of restricted to power and hubris.
- George you have been quoted as saying that this movie could have been made three years ago but there was such a feeling of hope and optimism because of Obama’s election - the film is out now so has something changed?
Oh I think that the hope part of the hope message has been tamped down a bit - but it will bounce back again and I feel fairly optimistic on how our country works.
It’s a fairly cynical look at politics and it wasn’t a very cynical time in our country and it took about a year of working on the health care bill, then that was all took, and then our country took a nose-dive in terms of politeness - we go back and forth so we will get it back again.
- The films that you have previously directed have been period pieces so what was it like for you directing a more contemporary piece?
Well it was easier because I don’t have to worry about an aeroplane flying through the scene or something modern coming into the scene - it made prepping the shoot a lot easier to do.
I am going to try and do more of those because the period pieces are a pain in the butt to do.
- What I enjoyed most about the movie is that there are no heroes in it what you have tried to do, it seems, is you have peeled away the exterior of Morris to reveal the shit inside. It’s all about compromise and I buy into that very deeply and I wondered for all of you as actors was that part of the attraction for you in showing that politics really doesn’t have any heroes left anymore?
Evan Rachel Wood: In this film what I got that not only isn’t there any heroes but there are also no villains either because no one was better than the other - that is what attracted me to it.
There is a lack of honesty and integrity and it just seems that some people are out to win and that becomes the most important thing - and the dream just slowly begins to die; that sounds so cynical.
But I think that there are people out there with amazing ideas and intentions and as long as we keep those ideas alive hopefully that will be enough.
Phillip Seymour Hoffman: That is pretty dark. I don’t think that there are heroes anywhere I don’t think that they exist - people do amazing things with their lives and amazing things for humanity but you don’t know what they are like at home or what they are like on their own.
That is the of the pleasures about being an actor every time you play a part you get the chance to de-mystify what it means to be a human being and I think that that is a beautiful thing.
And I agree that all the parts in this film are neither hero nor villain - I see compromise and I see no compromise; my character causes a lot of trouble because he has no interest in compromising. A lot of different things go on in this film that was very attractive to me.
George: Yeah I agree with that I think that the question that the film was trying to raise was it worth it? And is what we do to elect our officials, and it is a question that we are all faced with at one time or another, if it betters yourself and harms someone else is it worth it?
And sometimes the answer is yes - if negative advertising for the President saying rotten things and bending the truth but the right guy gets in office and those elections have consequences, including people’s lives, then it’s worth it I suppose.
So the question is always at what point is that moral scale where it’s actually worth doing - that was something that we liked doing in the film.
- Really enjoyed the lack of melodrama in the film and you guys seemed really comfortable with the characters that you were playing. Do you prefer these meaty and realistic roles?
Evan: I actually more comfortably doing roles such as vampires because it is nothing like me it’s supernatural. I think it’s when you have to get close to yourself and close to real emotion and pain that it is more difficult. So it’s much more fun with fangs.
Phillip: I enjoy playing a part that could have been anybody and there was something about this part that could have been anybody - he could have walked around in sweats and still been a guy and you don’t get to play parts like that too often; where it could have been anyone.
It’s just the behaviour and the actions that make up the character and there is something about that - I did get to leave myself alone in a way that I don’t usually get to be. I liked that very much about the part and I don’t often get to play parts like that.
George: The funniest thing is playing a candidate is tricky because you would think actors have this gigantic ego, and they do, but the ego it takes to take these shots with your chin up in the air - politicians have a tremendous amount of ego to be able to do that.
It’s very hard when the product you are selling to the entire country is yourself and you are just selling the hell out of it all the time ‘I am better than everybody else in the room’ it takes... listen we have it and we need somebody good at it but ego was something that was really tricky to embrace as a politician because you are sitting there thinking ‘wow these guys really are saying I am the best’.
- George what do you think about British politics?
I know very little about British politics but I do like watching the House of Commons because it is fun ‘Order’ it’s such a different way of doing things we don’t do that. I can’t figure out what happens each time I watch it or who won but I enjoy watching it.
I find politics in almost each country that I go to to be incredibly different and incredibly similar - so I will stay out of any comments on British government.
Read the second part of the interview here
The Ides of March is released 28th October.
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw
It is the first directorial outing for Clooney since Leatherheads back in 2008 as he tackles a contemporary project for the first time.
I caught up with him and his co-stars Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Evan Rachel Wood at the London Film Festival to talk about the new movie.
- Beau Willimon’s play Farragut North was the basis for The Ides of March so I was wondering what it was about that play that spoke to you and what was it that made you think it had cinematic potential?
George Clooney: We just read the play it self, it was brought to Warner Bros, Grant and I, Grant Heslov who is my writing and producing partner, had been working on a morality tale more along the lines of Wall Street and we thought that there was a way to tie the two together.
I liked the idea of the questions that the play was raising - my character isn’t in the play at all - so we just felt that it would be a fun role to talk about morality and ask questions.
- Evan & Philip I gather that you were asked to watch a few documentaries as a bit of background what were they and how did you find them?
Philip Seymour Hoffman: I had actually seen them all so I didn’t have to do any research (laughs). No I had just seen them all as friends had suggested them to me through the years.
George: Didn’t you work on one too?
Philip: I worked on a documentary myself call The Last Party back in 2000 and I think I watched a couple while I was doing that, Journey’s With George was made while I was making that, so I had seen them - Primary is a great one.
George: It’s funny how little has changed, Primary is set in 1960, and it’s funny how very little has changed over the years.
- George how much is the film inspired by your father’s current experience running for office?
There are certainly elements from it, there is a scene in the car between Jennifer Ehle and myself and that scene was directly a result of conversations that I had with my father about running for congress.
There are hand that you have to shake that you wouldn’t normally shake, it’s unfortunate but that is the way that it is, you cannot finance your own campaign unless you are independently wealthy - which my father is not; even a small congressional district in Kentucky with cost you a couple of million dollars to run.
And so you end up having to not make deals but turn up at those parties and shake hands with people that you normally wouldn’t find as attractive to do that with - so there were plenty of scenes about that.
- George all your films have treated your films like adults so I am wondering how frustrating it can be when you are putting a political message across but people in our industry are more obsessed with who is on your arm on the red carpet?
I understand both worlds as I grew up around it all and I understand it. I am interested in making movies that ask questions and don’t particularly provide answers and because I grew up in that era of filmmaking which took place when there were a tremendous number of things going on in the country - in the sixties and seventies you had the Civil Rights Movement, the Anti-War Movement, the Women’s Rights Movement and drug culture; and they were later reflected in film.
I think that there are a lot of things going on in the world right now and they are starting to be reflected in film - and I like films like that. On the other side of it I know what those questions are and when and where they come and I can deal with that too - but I would rather talk about the films.
- How closely do you think that the themes of this movie such as compromise and morality reflect the modern political world?
George: I don’t know but I do know that there are deals made all the time for cabinet posts - I know that for sure - we also know that scandal is not uncommon, this was written before the John Edwards scandal and before the Anthony Weaver scandal; we were just in France and people somehow thought this had something to do with DSK (Dominique Strauss Kahn).
I think that it reflects things that are pretty timeless - they are not necessarily restricted to government they are sort of restricted to power and hubris.
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