For part 1 of this feature, Augusten’s interview of Ryan Murphy, see previous post.
RYAN:
Okay, be honest. When you first met me and I refused to let you get up from the table until you gave me the rights, did you think I was crazy? Or just
astutely passionate?
AUGUSTEN:
Okay, I’ll tell you something. At the end of our looooooooooong lunch, I had changed my mind. Originally, I wasn’t going to option Running with Scissors to anybody and now I was going to option it to somebody I didn’t know, who’d never directed a movie and had created one TV series which I hadn’t seen. But I knew I was making the right decision. I could feel the correctness of this decision in my teeth. But as we were getting ready to leave you said, “Well, I’m going to start working on the screenplay as soon as I can. I just have to get this other little thing out of the way first. I’m doing a show about cosmetic surgery and I’m determined to take the Golden Globe away from that Sopranos.” And at that moment, I had a chilling sensation. It was like I knew, I knew you would either do exactly this; you were one of those people who really could generate your own reality. Or, you were just plain crazy.
RYAN:
I told you at our first meeting I would keep you heavily involved, and I did…from casting, to the script, to the buttons on the coats. Were you
surprised? Did you enjoy the process?
AUGUSTEN:
To be honest, I was a little surprised. It’s not that I thought you were lying when you said you’d keep me involved, but I know that the creative process is all-consuming and I knew that despite your best intentions, it was likely that ultimately, you would be carried away by your vision for the picture. But I have to say, I was profoundly moved by the experience of working with you. You said to me, “I understand this is more than just your book; it’s your life.” And you treated the project with such enormous care and so much respect for my feelings. I definitely had the feeling that if at any point I was unhappy about something - from an accent lamp on a table to a member of the cast - you would have made a change. You checked in with me constantly to see how I felt about your various decisions, to see if I felt I could still call this movie “my life story.” I think what helped make the process so turbulence-free is that you related so powerfully to the book, you understood it. In a way, you had a very similar childhood. And then I think our sensibilities were very similar. So there was never a conflict of any kind and that’s really amazing. I think I’m very lucky to have this as my first film experience. It’s definitely spoiled me, but it’s also educated me. I know how good it can be, and I know that in the future, I will want to feel that again. I am somebody who makes decisions based largely on instinct - and this experience has affirmed that. I have to say, it was really wonderful to watch you work. You are utterly decisive, you know precisely what you want and you never, never waver. You have enormous confidence and the talent to back it up. So I was able to really relax and not worry about how the film would turn out.
RYAN:
Tell me your thoughts about Joe Cross’ performance. How close did he nail you, and what was your favorite scene of his in the movie?
AUGUSTEN:
Joe is going to be a huge star and casting him was a brilliant move. You just want to put your arm around him and protect him. You want to be his friend. You want him to be okay. He brings such enormous humanity and heart to the picture. It’s a huge role and this is really his first movie, certainly the first time he’s carrying a movie. And there he is, in virtually every scene, face-to-face with one of the most respected and famous actresses in the world and he does it. He turns in a fully-realized, nuanced performance and I think he strikes all the right notes. I am so impressed by Joe. And he will always owe everything to me, for the rest of his life.
RYAN:
Tell me your thoughts about Annette Bening. I know you feel so passionate, as I do, that this is the performance of her career. Tell me why you think that? Also, about Annette, when you saw the movie did you feel sympathy for your mother?
AUGUSTEN:
When you called and told me that Annette Bening said, “Yes,” I was so excited. But at the time, I had no idea how lucky I really was that she said yes. Because the success - or failure - of Running with Scissors as movie is entirely on her shoulders. In a way, it was incredibly brave for her to accept this role. And I have to say, I kind of think it’s sickening to talk of enormous celebrities at the top of their field being “brave” for accepting any film role, but in this case, I have to say that she was brave because, in the wrong hands, that role could have been a joke. Melodramatic, over-the-top and just a mess. You hadn’t done a movie, is the fact. And yes, you certainly said all the right things, but I’ve met lots of people who say all the right things and then do all the wrong ones. So that’s what could have happened. And people would not soon forget Annette Bening in a horrific role in a dreadful movie. So there’s that, she was brave to accept the role. But then, her performance. You know, so often in Hollywood, mental illness is played with great histrionics. Think Streisand in Nuts. But anybody who knows somebody with mentall illness will tell you: it’s all in the eyes. You look into the eyes of somebody who is mentally ill, psychotic, whatever, and they aren’t the person you know. That is what Annette was able to do. Her performance is devastatingly realistic and also accurate in ways that the general population will never, never know. When I saw the movie, I was absolutely stunned by the power of her performance. I knew she would be good, okay? But I had no idea that she would give what is, without question, the finest performance of her career - a career comprised of nothing BUT excellent performances. What I think is so amazing is that you have enormous empathy for the character. And that’s Annette. Annette makes you not only care about this woman, but care about this woman despite the mistakes she makes, as a mother. I consider her performance to be a gift to me, personally. And I love her for it.
RYAN:
Has the movie helped heal you at all? I ask this because I showed the film recently to my estranged parents, and it really did mend some old wounds, in that we got to discuss my painful childhood.
AUGUSTEN:
I had to hold back from sobbing uncontrollably after seeing the movie because I felt, now there is a visual record of my childhood. Even though it’s a movie and millions of people will see it and make it their own, it will always be my movie. It’s very, very personal for me. I feel like, my childhood wasn’t wasted. Actually, this is how I felt after I wrote the book. At least I was able to get something positive out of that experience. That’s how I felt. And I felt it again with the movie.
RYAN:
How much do we both worship Jill Clayburgh?! She was the person you were MOST excited to meet. Now, you two are so close, emailing all the time and excluding me! Seriously, how thrilling do you think her performance is? I think it’s such a cool comeback to her 70s glory. Do you agree?
AUGUSTEN:
Jill Clayburgh’s performance is THE comeback story of the decade as far as I’m concerned. She was the Julia Roberts of her day. And then she left to be a normal person and raise her kids and shop for groceries. She did a few things here and there, but nothing that displayed her genius. And now, finally, is the role that she deserves. She is shockingly good, in many ways the heart of the movie. And getting to know her, becoming friends with her, has been the best thing to come out of this entire life-to-film experience. Jill is an extremely smart, creative, funny, warm, compassionate person of enormous substance. And she’s one of the finest actors that we have. And now, everybody is gong to see that for themselves.
RYAN:
Tell me what you think of THE SCRIPT. The book is so brilliant and so hard to adapt. You and I both worked so hard on distilling the book, keeping the
essence, but in some weird way maybe making it slightly more hopeful than the book. Discuss.
AUGUSTEN:
I couldn’t have adapted Running with Scissors, I couldn’t have written the screenplay. I just didn’t have the perspective. It’s my life - how can I know what should be emphasized, cut? I really needed to let somebody else do that, but somebody who understood the book as though he wrote it himself. And that’s really what happened. When I read the screenplay I could tell the movie was going to be brilliant. That’s when I felt the first wave of, I hate to say, relief. But confirmation, really, that I’d made the right decision giving it to you. The screenplay is brilliant because it covers so much material visually. And so cleverly. Let’s be honest here, that is not an easy book to adapt. But the adaptation feels effortless, if that makes sense. And I know it wasn’t - I know you worked like hell on it. You called me on the phone every day or every other day, all through the process. You just didn’t sleep at all, because you were also working on your show at the same time. It’s like Jill, finishing Running and then doing four Broadway plays, back-to-back.
RYAN:
Talk about two actors: Brian Cox as Finch, and Joe Fiennes as Bookman, both are such sweethearts. But I remember right before we started filming, the cast and I had a party for you and you were TERRIFIED of
meeting Brian, because with his dyed hair and beard he looked so much like Finch! And as for Fiennes, he believes that Bookman is still alive and will surface after the film. What are your thoughts on this?
AUGUSTEN:
Brian Cox looks so much like Finch that when I saw him, I grabbed Dennis’s arm. Dennis has seen photographs so he said, “Oh my God.” It was absolutely incredible. And then there’s the voice. And the mannerisms. It’s just absolutely incredible to me, like a channeling. Brian Cox is better than anybody will know. Joe Fiennes is perfect for Bookman because he has such an electric intensity. He just burns when he’s on screen. And even though he was supposed to look creepy, I think he looks incredibly sexy in the film. I think he’s going to start a facial hair trend. He’s so talented and unique and we are so, so, so lucky that he said yes to this most dangerous role.
RYAN:
I feel for some reason we are creative soulmates, and I tell everyone this. Do you agree? If you say no, I will become a dentist.
AUGUSTEN:
I absolutely agree. Working with you was a wonderful - and fun - experience and I would do it again in a heartbeat. We have so much in common, from ambition to taste; from our cultural references and sensibilities to our emotional “issues.” There’s something very similar between us, we are alike in certain very core ways.
RYAN:
Lastly…what was your physical reaction when you saw the finished film. I remember we were both crying a bit…me, mainly because you liked it so much. It must have been like reliving that horrible trauma.
AUGUSTEN:
I had to stop myself from breaking down. I really didn’t want to break down because I felt it could be misunderstood. But when I got back to the hotel, I wrote a friend and tried to describe the movie and I couldn’t think of another picture to which I could compare it. It was somebody else who made me see, it’s like the book. It’s funny one minute, heartbreaking the next, shocking the next. I felt profound relief. And I felt incredible joy that my adolescence was memorialized forever. I also felt so proud of Joe Cross. Proud, I know it’s odd. But he’s playing me. And I happen to be me. And I think he not only does me justice, but he’s an enormous improvement over the original, in so many ways. I also felt this strange excitement because not only did it not suck? But it was, I felt, going to blow people away. I won’t curse the future by saying what else I felt, but I will say that I felt in my core very sure of something else.
Read part I of this interview below.
