INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR IRA SACHS AND CHRIS COOPER OF MARRIED LIFE

INT: Married Life seems to exist somewhere between hard bitten noir, screwball comedy and kitchen sink melodrama. Was that mix intentional?

IS: That’s a big one. I think that this film shouldn’t be taken literally. It can be but I think we signal early on in the early with the animated opening credit sequence that what’s going to follow, you can enjoy, engage and invest in, but it plays out in a level that’s movie-like. That came from me watching all these Joan Crawford movies like Sudden Fear, Harriet Craig, Bette Davis work or noir in general. They’re kind of like life but not life. I particularly remembered a scene in Sudden Fear between Jack Palance and Crawford in their bedroom that had that quality. For me the film speaks to the idea that all relationships are subject to the process of rupture and repair and the fact that as a couple you are still always separate. If you can accept that there is more of an opportunity of being closer to the people you have an intimate life with. To me Married Life is one way to give people a filmic version of certain things that are part of their own life that allow them to accept certain kinds of disappointments or pains or distances they might experience so they don’t have to beat themselves up for it.

INT: People aren’t prone to accept these kinds of things these days.

IS: I don’t know, these issues seem to be Shakespearean, how do people connect and how do they not.

INT: In many ways this movie is very different than your last two movies. While those two films were basically character driven this one is driven just as much by story. I’m wondering what you see as the tie-in between this film and your other two?

IS: Well I think in a way all stories are character driven, if they’re well told. When I was making Forty Shades of Blue, which was technically a character driven story, I was reading a lot of Patricia Highsmith. Because you’re always trying to figure out what is the mystery in the moment that you’re conveying to the audience. What is not known in the scene is what makes it interesting. I think Patricia Highsmith, particularly in her non-Crime stories always presents the question, “Something’s not right here.” I think whether you’re talking about Antonioni or Bourne that’s the question of movies.

The other thing that I think connects the films is that in a way they form a trilogy about the nature of betrayal and deceit within relationships. I think the consequences of those betrayals and deceits are what interest me. Married Life is as much about consequences as my other films. I think I had a changing notion of relationships at the time. If I had a darker idea of what relationships were at in the beginning, then this film, Married Life, has a lightness that hopefully comes from maturity. I think that if you look at Altman or Renoir or any of these filmmakers there’s something they thought at the beginning that maybe they let go of a little bit.

INT: A question for you Mr. Cooper. In Married Life you play a somewhat conservative and repressed individual as you’ve done famously in such films as American Beauty and Breach. What fascinates you about such characters and what qualities do you look for to communicate their humanity?

CC: I wish it was that intriguing. The fact is these scripts come when they come, in a linear fashion. And it’s whatever comes first that strikes my interest. In some respects, I assume it’s my age bracket, I see a lot of actors who I’m contemporaries of and competitors with, going out for the same roles and the same roles come our way. A lot of them are military men, FBI, CIA, etc. So from all these scripts, these are the pieces I read and find most intriguing and challenging. It’s as simple as that.

IS: I think Chris is being modest. I’d also say that what he brings as an actor is he makes text and subtext equal. He brings so much to silence it becomes part of the texture of his performance. It’s what makes his characters so complex and I think interesting.

CC: And then if I’m going to add onto and hopefully answer your question, those choices. if I’m going to spend that much time on a role, then whether it be a five month shoot or a six week shoot then I’m going to get that script as early as I can. In the case of Married Life I think I had it at least a year and half before the shoot because I was the first person attached. Periodically I was reading it, thinking it through and then when we got the green light I still had several months to work on it. When that happens, when I’m committed, I’m working everyday on that piece. I don’t feel comfortable not doing it. It’s just a joy, it’s the pleasure I get from this. It’s a security blanket while I’m filming, I have a head and emotional life I’ve created for this character. On the same hand I don’t mind saying I’m picky. I’m not going to waste my time that’s not a challenge for me.

IS: I kept hearing Chris Cooper turns everything down, Chris Cooper turns everything down. It was a very nice thing he didn’t turn this down.

INT: If we look at this on the surface it’s about a guy who has a long term relationship with his wife, is having an affair and thinking about killing his wife. But we really like him. There’s gotta be some trick as an actor for pulling that off.

CC: If there’s a trick to it, or a conscious choice for me, I’m not going to give the viewer a break. I’m not going to anticipate, or show them my hand. I want to challenge them. I will not, as an actor, simply play up the bad choices or the evil quality of what this man is choosing to do, I want to make him as human as he probably would be in realm life. That’s what we see in the news everyday, “Well I never would have expected someone like him to do something like that.”

INT: I was talking with my wife because we’re celebrating our 11th anniversary this year and we’ve tried to kill each other several times. Actually I was astonished at how truthful and insightful the movie is about disillusionment in marriage while remaining so hopeful. What compels you to make such a small intimate not especially commercial film?

CC: Well for one thing, from the actors pov, I knew we had three strong talents attached. In film today there is so much of what I call casual acting. There’s not a scene in this film that is casual. Everybody invested deeply. And the characters are invested, they go after what they want passionately. At the same time nobody in this story wants to hurt anybody else. Everybody was aware that as actors, characters, we needed to approach the story as real and yet with a light touch.

INT: Well you said that there was whimsy but to me, there still wasn’t a false note. Everything in the story really could have occurred. They keep repeating that line for laughs, the one about conscience, and even though you feel free to laugh at it you find out later it’s the point of the whole story.

CC: Yeah, yeah.

IS: Two times tragedy, three times a joke, isn’t that what they say?

EVERYONE: LAUGHS

IS: I think that, for me, as a filmmaker, and an artist, that what’s very important is being able to make things and be aware that you are both in your time and also that there is a history. For me the idea that this story would be considered new just says that audiences aren’t watching a lot of films. Film is only a hundred years old. This isn’t something that goes back to the cavemen. I’m being influenced by Preminger, Hitchcock and Lubitsch as much as I am Spielberg or anyone else of my time. What you try to do as an artist, and this is a scary term to use, is to be both of your time and not of your time. I read Henry James, I read Edith Wharton, I go to Paul Thomas Anderson films. These are all part of my life and I’m just trying to be honorable to it directly.

INT: One thing that struck me about the movie was both the tone of it as a whole and too your performance. It would have been really easy to do it as a really dark cynical black comedy. But what struck me was how sincere the film really is. When your character talks about how he wants to kill his wife so she’s not suffering. I mean you could have played that for a sick black joke but it actually comes off as very realistic and sincere. I wish you could talk about adapting the screenplay in terms of achieving that tone because I think it really makes the film.

IS: I think a lot of it has to do with a general aesthetic approach to my work, and to directing. It also involves casting people that are honest in what they show onscreen and offer a level of authenticity and detail that’s going to embellish the story. I think also that I have great sympathy for people who do terrible things which is partially a good thing in my life, as a director it’s really helpful. But in my personal life it can get you trouble because you can end up forgiving people for some really bad shit. But it’s just a way of life on some level. What was interesting about this film is that more than any others, and all films are like this, was we wrote a film, directed a film, edited a film. Finding the tone meant listening to each of those three films. In the last stage one of the things I think we realized with an audience was that the basic premise of the story is funny. So we accepted that. The second thing we realized is that collectively when the audience watches this everytime there is a twist and turn the audience isn’t going to scream. They’re going to laugh. Married Life wasn’t a screamy movie. So I think I did go back to movies like Hitchcock’s Shadow of A Doubt because they are sinister, and funny.

INT: I’m also reminded of the Preston Sturges film Unfaithfully Yours. I really think that Married Life is for people who love films.

IS: I think it is but it’s not a movie that people need to know anything about films to enjoy. There are lot of quotes that I have in my own head but it’s not of interest to me that people can know where they’re from. You know, “There’s the scene from Potemkin.” It’s not like that. I think you can borrow as a filmmaker.

INT: Chris what do you think makes a good marriage. You’ve been married since 83. Obviously some of the stuff in this film has got to hit home?

CC: My thing. Marianne and I had a talk about it. We have a kind of unique relationship because we’re not nine to fivers. When I’m away from home I’m gone. If I strung all the years together of time away spent making films it could add up to several. But when I’m home we’re in each others face 24/7. She’s an actor writer. What I know is that, when I’m home, we give each other space. I think in 23 years we know what buttons not to push. Not that we don’t confront issues but Married Life is a marriage that went flat and what I’ve learned is it’s a day to day heroic struggle to keep a relationship going, you make it interesting, you inquire about that other persons interests and dislikes. My observation of men in relationships is that they are more likely to let it go flat. And men are the ones who are lost as to why it went flat.

INT: I was struck by the scene at the beginning of the film where they are sitting on the sofa and she says sex is what drives the marriage and he wants love and romance. It’s kind of funny that the whole thing is set in the forties.

IS: One of the things that’s interesting to me is that scene is in the book, which was written in 1951. And it was like, “Oh, people in the forties talked about these things.” There was a freshness in that. And the truth at the end of the day is that I think Pats character wants love just as much as anyone else. She discovers that on some level people who are compulsive about sex are really just looking for love.

CC: If we look historically at the late forties things were cookin’. We have this idea that things we’re pretty dead and bland. But in 1949 the Kinsey Report was coming out.

INT: Do you think the film suggests that they are both wandering because they believe they can’t get everything they want or need out of the marriage?

IS: I think what they come around to is an acceptance that you can’t have everything. But what I think I learned from this story on some level is that even though every relationship has secrets and you can never tell what’s going on in the mind of the person you sleep with, the more transparency the better. The more transparent you are the more likely you are being honest.

INT: How do you think Harry feels about losing Kay?

CC: Harry thanks his lucky star about everything that happened. That his best friend stole, Kay, that he didn’t succeed in murdering his wife, he got his comeuppance when he realizes his wife has a boyfriend. At that point in the film when he catches the boyfriend running across the yard that was like tit for tat—a big comeuppance. A huge turning point. He’s thanking his lucky stars from realizing she’s not dead and telling her I love you. Finding a way to do that truthfully.

IS: I think that’s a bit of genius acting that bit.

INT: You mentioned that Peirce Brosnan’s part would have been perfect for Cary Grant if Married Life had been made in the forties. Did you have any other golden age actors or actresses in mind when you were making the film?

IS: I thought about it without trying to imitate those things. I do think that Chris has a certain quality you could associate with John Garfield or Edward G. Robinson. He’s vulnerable, easy to identify with and he has drive. When we cast Rachel there was some discussion of the age difference and the dynamic that would create. But I realized that Kim Novak was 25 when she made Vertigo and Grace Kelly was 25 when she made Rear Window, against Stewart who was in his late forties early fifties. At that point in time there were no teenagers. 25 was a grown woman. The right clothes, words, posture, made it easy to sell Rachel as a grown woman.

INT: It is a period film but what I like about it is that unlike a lot of period films it doesn’t fetishize the period in terms of obsessing over the set decoration and costuming. Could you both talk about that, about working on a period film as an actor and as a filmmaker?

IS: Everytime you make a film you build sets, you costume people, you create a world, and I think what we tried to do was do that authentically, but not preciously. Once we did it we didn’t talk about 1949 we just made the movie, told the story between these people because 1949—that’s the time of our parents, our grandparents. I always go back to Shakespeare. If you look at the time of Shakespeare nothing has really changed. Once you believe that there is no thing called the past, so there’s no such thing as a period film. There’s only life and how well you embrace it. I think what the period gives the film is a certain grammar and certain larger than life quality. Plus we had four movie stars so we had the movie stars, the color, the costuming, it’s not really like our life but it represents our life.

INT: The film simmers with it’s own undercurrent of sexuality but it’s really not a film about sex. There’s nothing explicit in it. If you had remade this film in a current period would you have the felt the necessity to be explicit?

IS: I think that very few films are about sex. Most films tend to be about intimacy. There are films that are about sex that I think are fantastic but what happens in a bed between people is literally a whole other story. This story is more of a fable and that’s not a level that fable often go to. I also find sex really hard to direct. I find that when I write sex it’s usually one of the first things that gets cut when I make the movie.

CC: After you’ve done fifteen years of theater and you’ve worked with some of the greatest trainers they teach you how to have a private moment in public. You’re trained for that. You have thirty people hanging around the set, but there’s also a security in working with a director who realizes the sensitivity of that. I don’t know where that comes from but Ira and Rachel and I rehearsed this for about five to seven minutes and that was quite enough so let’s shoot the thing. Added to that, I hope it comes through in the story, it isn’t like hot lustful kind of sex, initially it’s two wounded people comforting each other, and initially the relationship is kind of paternal but becomes romantic.

INT: How has your experience in theater influenced your work in film. Was it a difficult transition at first? John Sayles was the first break you got in film right?

CC: Yeah John was the first. I didn’t know. I had taken a film techniques class with a terrific coach and he taught how to work small, intimately with another actor and the idea of getting the attention off of yourself and focusing on the other actor. And the whole idea of great concentration and at the same time great relaxation. That may sound contradictory but you take any sports analogy or any basketball, football.if you’re defending your goal and your concentrated on your opponent, but you’re also relaxed enough to go anywhere that opponent takes you. That was a process but making the transition was not so hard. The demands of one as opposed to the other are totally different.

INT: Could you talk a little bit about your experience making Adaptation? Did you know you’d be opposite Meryl Streep when you took the role? Did you know it was going to be as big as it was?

CC: Working with Meryl was one of the high points. Beyond a doubt it was terribly, initially, very intimidating on first meeting her but I’ve never had so much fun. She’s a great lady you know she just a mom, a great girl. Meryl and I talked about the way we work which is very similar and there are points and choices where you trust your intuition in working with another actor, and there are points where you work on a character and then throw everything away and just work with this person.

INT: In retrospect how do you feel now about winning an Oscar?

CC: Well, you’d have to get another.I’m the worst person to ask because I really don’t know if winning an Oscar changed my life or my career.

IS: I think it’s valuable in terms of the system. Having an Oscar is value.

INT: What’s next for you two?

CC: Unless something really, really good comes along I hope to be doing my wifes script. It’s a piece we’ve been trying to get off the ground for several years, it’s very close to us. I think we’ll get it done.

IS: I’m working on a film called The Goodbye People based on the work of Gavin lambert a British screenwriter who lived in LA in the sixties. He wrote wonderful books about sex, drugs, cults, and movie stars.

INT: Chris one role I wanted to ask you about was the one you did in Breach. I thought it was one of the best performances I saw last year. But for some reason The movie came out it got dumped in the middle of January. Not a lot of people got to see it. What’s your perspective on doing a film like that and seeing it ignored by the studio.

CC: I’ve got my theory about it. I think Universal put all their money in The Good Shepherd. I think the time of year we came out is generally known in the business as ‘the graveyard’. I think that speaks for itself. It made its money back and more.

INT: What’s it like at this point in your life? It takes years to get a project off the ground. Are you able to pick up and move as easily now to whatever is next?

CC: There’s many worse things that can happen.

IS: Especially in that story because many, many people saw Breach, it was praised by critics, made a profit. In any situation you have to learn that you only have so much control whether its of your movie or your wife or in my case of my boyfriend. You got to see accepting that as part of the process of always being able to move forward with your life. If you get wrapped up in those situations, and some people do, where they don’t have control, then you go crazy.

CC: The only thing that was really important to me was that this was the first studio film where they considered me the lead so it was important to me that it succeed.  I read the trade papers and it’s made its money back and everybody is happy. Maybe it was unfortunate that something better might have come of it but I have no regrets.

INT: Pierce Brosnan, talk about an actor who’s made great lemonade out of hard times in his life and career. How did he become attached?

IS: I had seen Matador but I had never seen James Bond. I was very taken with the humor in his performance in Matador and it was a really rich role for him in terms of humor. He’s a great physical comedian as well as an actor. He brings a lot of emotionality and vulnerability in his performance. Which was important for a lot of reasons but especially because of his voiceover.

INT: He reminds me more of Cary Grant than George Clooney ever did? I think a reason a lot of aspiring actors admire your work is because when they see you they don’t see Chris Cooper they see the character you play. Has there ever been a particular role that you’ve immersed yourself in that was hard to say goodbye to?

CC: Well.no. During production do I take my character home withg me? Not in the sense that I walk around the house in the character of Robert Hanson because my wife would kick me out of the house—unfortunately she wasn’t around for the bulk of the shoot. But I can’t imagine the character not being on my mind all the time because I’ve got to be on set the next day and the next day and the next day and I don’t particularly want to take a breather when I’m being paid for this little period of time to play this character, I want to go there. I think that’s what we want to do as actors. Now when it’s done, when it’s in the can I ‘m glad to walk away, I don’t usually want to spend any more time with that character.