Neil LaBute: Turning to Love

Q: How did you figure out that Eckhart and Paltrow might have chemistry?

A: Aaron was always trying to figure out how to do that and, boy, there's just no recipe for that. It either clicks on-screen or not. You can put two of the most beautiful people together on-screen and it's like Stonehenge. Two rocks. I knew what Gwyneth and Aaron had separately and so it made sense in my head. That's what I went with, an intellectual and visceral response I could feel working. He could shoot all day on a scene and still not walk away happy because he thinks he's got one more in him.

Q: Did their difference in working methods become a problem?

A: You're shooting a scene with two people like them and, on the first two, three takes, one of them gives you everything you could ever imagine and the other one is just still feeling their way. How do you keep them both focused and interested? That's what my job is. You have to be open to somebody else's process. If somebody stands on their head and hums or they turn it on like a light switch, it's none of my business. Whatever magic you stir up, the alchemy is fine as long as you meet the goal.

Q: I found the story of the Victorian lovers, played by Jennifer Ehle and Jeremy Northam, one of the most compelling things in the film. That's probably not entirely fair to Paltrow and Eckhart, I know, because Ehle and Northam don't have to propel the story forward. A: That's right. All Jennifer and Jeremy have to do is fall in love and have tragic things happen to them. Even though there's a certain amount of tragedy, I like the idea of how messy these Victorians allowed their lives to be. Jennifer, with that amazing face, her cape and hood is, quite unavoidably a don't-fight-it homage to The French Lieutenant's Woman. She is a force to reckon with--as good an actress as I know. Her only fault is that she doesn't work enough, by personal choice. Jeremy is so warm and just carries the weight with such dignity, there's no moral judgment made when his character, who's married, falls in love with Jennifer's character. He conveys so beautifully his character's sense of knowing he's doing something wrong by society's standards, yet he can't do anything to help himself.

Q: When you read the Byatt novel, did you see it first as a romance?

A: Yes, and I thought it was odd how few people were willing to talk about it as an unabashedly romantic novel. They kept saying, "It's romance, but it's quite lively. It's a road picture," which I thought was shocking. I also thought it might be a shocking movie for me to make. Once I started working on it, though, there were many times when I thought, "Damn, I should have remained an admirer of the book."

Q: Just as in the book, it's fascinating how oddly chilly and self-involved the contemporary characters seem by comparison.

A: They're modern-day characters with the ability to have anything they want in a very permissive society and are kind of shocked by the Victorians. Because they've tasted things too soon or had too much freedom, they're very hesitant to reach out to somebody else. The weight was pretty great on the present-day characters to both uncover the mystery, let alone to find enough time to look at each other and fall in love.

Q: Since Possession is based on a best-selling novel, did you have fans e-mailing you suggestions about how to make the film?

A: Very early on, I started getting notes from fans of the book asking, "Why are you shooting in this location when, in the book, it takes place in so-and-so?" And, "Why is this person's hair this color when in the book...?" I thought, This is unwinnable. This will be my Vietnam. But I just loved A.S. Byatt's novel. It's one of the few books in recent memory in which both pistons--intellectual and emotional--are firing.

Q: Did you do much research for Possession?

A: A certain amount of fear generated the research. Not only was I going to be doing "period" but I'd also be going "in country" to do it. I was also surrounding myself with English-trained actors and an actress who, though Gwyneth Paltrow has done it a number of times, is doing a dialect. I was a babe in the woods when it came to period Victorian detail. The movie wasn't supposed to be a documentary of that time but we had to deal with questions like, How did people sit at a table in those times? Should everyone be wearing a hat, when that was what the research supported?

Q: What movies did you call for help?

A: The entire canon of Merchant-Ivory, of course The French Lieutenant's Woman, and what Ang Lee did with Sense and Sensibility became a real template. He just seems to march into any genre and period and, no matter what characters are wearing, no matter what their mode of transportation, it's all about relationships.

Q: When did you get most tense on the set?

A: The most damning thing is to wait hours and hours for weather or for lighting, but then feel under pressure when shooting. The travel, going to all those locations, was difficult. We were just ahead of the floods, just ahead of the cremation of all those animals because of mad cow disease. I don't have real peaks and valleys in my personality. I tend to be pretty even-tempered and like people who are the same way. I get my most testy when I feel the crew getting restless after six or seven takes, like, "So when do we get the million-dollar performance?" It's like, "We've been shooting for 15 minutes. You took three hours to light. So, until we come up to the time that you spent, I wouldn't get worried. Go have a cup of coffee." My focus, no matter how long it takes, is to get that thing, that magic an actor does.

Q: Was it all worth it?

A: I'm quite happy. I was worried about getting the period right, about telling the two stories, but I liked those challenges. I don't just want the process to be pleasant, I want the product to be something people will think is worth investing two hours of their Jives in. It's been a real pleasure seeing it with preview audiences. It gets more laughs than people expected but you aren't shortchanged in the romantic aspects, either.

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