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New York, NY, USA - Having exploited his training as a theatrical director, 56 year old Britisher John Madden has transformed his experience into making the Old Bard-inspired feature "Shakespeare in Love" into ultimate success -- multiple Oscar wins. Now he has taken David Auburn's Tony-winning drama "Proof" and transformed it into a passionate film of the same name -- with a powerful quartet of actors, Anthony Hopkins, Gwenyth Paltrow, Hope Davis and Jake Gyllenhaal, driving it.
G21: When did you make the transition from theater to film?
JM: I can't really put a date on it. It was about 1986. I became a director while I was living in this country. I was directing radio plays originally and then became a stage director toward the end of the '70s. I had a good, productive career as a stage director in New York and other places. By that time, we had a family and moved back to the UK. I saw myself in the uncomfortable position of having a professional life in one country and my domestic life in another and couldn't tolerate that any longer. So, I decided to go back and make movies which is what I had wanted to do.
G21: Have you always wanted to be a filmmaker?
JM: I dreamed about it. I had grown up with movies and I had been as excited about the medium as everybody was in those days. I basically went back to learn the ropes. I made a film for British television in 1984 and I had a ball doing that.
G21: Are you surprised about how successful you've become?
JM: Yes. I am gratified and surprised. It didn't happen overnight. I've been working for a long time, so I slowly developed a reputation for myself and I make no apologies for that. I think it's great to know who you are because a lot of this work has to do with experience and maturity.
G21: Do feel like a traditional British di rector?
JM: The British come from a very literary position because, even setting aside the movie, British television represented the British independent film industry so there was an incredibly high standard of work being done without commercial pressure. There's the focus on character and the literary sensibility, which is part of what I have grown up knowing -- and what I have an affinity for.
G21: Do you feel more comfortable working with the same people, like Gwyneth Paltrow?
JM: Yes, you do build up a trust for people you've worked with before. But I am still open to working with new people all the time. There's actually not an enormous number of people I've worked with repeatedly. Besides Gwyneth, there's Judi Dench, David Morissey, and Collin Firth.
Sometimes I am a bit slow to be able to see an actor in a role if I already know them from another. This comes from theater, where we routinely celebrate the ability for an actor to transform themselves into something else and for an actor to play a huge variety of roles onstage. In film, there's a tendency to cast actors the same way again and again because people don't want to see them transforming.
G21: When you converted "Proof" the play into a film, how did you open it up more cinematically?
JM: My way of working on something is to burrow into its center and understand how its doing what its doing. I place enormous importance on the script. I think it's important to go as far as you can to solve problems at the script stage. I positively relish the task of re-imagining something in another form.
The first play I directed, called "Wings", was originally a radio play. I then was asked to do something that only would happen in America: I got the opportunity to re-imagine it as a stage play. Later, I re-imagined it again as a television piece. It had been through every conceivable version. I found in each case that it was really stimulating to re-imagine it in different forms. It was as if found a mathematical way of transferring the language into another form. I relished that opportunity with "Proof."
When I thought I began to understand how the material was working -- how to tell the story -- because I understood how the inner machinations were working. I increased the subjective sense of Gwyneth Paltrow's character's sense of self. That idea became a way of liberating the piece into cinema. I found a way to tell the story that expresses and involved the audience in the ambiguities that she finds impossible to resolve.
G21: When you first approached the play, did you have any ambivalence about how to incorporate the mathematics into the play?
JM: The world of mathematics is an off-screen/off-stage presence that throws an analogous light on the human interactions that is occurring around it. On the other hand, it was a world that I was quite pleased and intrigued to investigate. I love all those conundrums. I insured myself with a mathematics advisor that I could rely [upon].
The play and the movie gives you an unexpected glimpse into what that world is actually like -- it's full of emotions like competitiveness, passion, drugs, and outrageous parties that we would never associate with such a dry subject. The point is that math is a metaphor as well as a concrete reality, but I was more concerned with emphasizing it as a metaphor.
G21: Do you find yourself approaching American actors differently than British actors?
JM: Not at all. An intelligent actor responds to intelligent material no matter what their nationality is. I don't make any distinctions there.
I was nationality-blind when I was casting for "Proof."
I just thought that Anthony Hopkins was terrific casting for the role because I think the qualities he has as an actor -- just like Gwyneth Paltrow and Hope Davis. There are certain actors that are more visceral actors, which is usually found more in British actors. Those actors have an affinity with the less articulate kind of role.
There's a certain strain of American movies call for that kind of talent. In the case of "Proof", you are dealing with relatively articulate people so it calls for a different kind of actor.
G21: How did you end up with directing the film, "Truth or Dare" -- which most people think is the Madonna film?
JM: "Truth or Dare" is a thriller that I directed and Harvey Weinstein from Miramax flirted with buying it. He did buy "Mrs.Brown" and then we made "Shakespeare in Love."
After I made "Shakespeare in Love," I went around the studios meeting people. There's a certain studio that I won't mention that told me that there's a script they want me to look at. It's a remake of a film, "Truth or Dare." I tried telling them that I already knew it, but they kept on telling me that it was not the Madonna film and that I don't know it. I told them I did know it because I directed it! They couldn't believe it! That's a script that has two different versions that had been going around Hollywood for a while, but hasn't made it to remake status yet.
G21: How different is your next film,"Killshot," from "Proof?"
JM: It's a genre that I haven't been in contact with for years. This also has a literary source that is a terrific story -- a cat and mouse story -- but it is also a fantastically rich character piece as well as poignant and tragic.
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