Gary Ross: The Final Stretch
Q: Do a lot of Hollywood people own horses?
A: I'm aware of a few. Burt Bacharach is a big horse owner. Gary Barber, who's a partner in Spyglass Entertainment, has a stable of about 40 horses. Jerry Moss, of A&M Records, is one of the biggest horse owners in California. Wayne Gretzky has gotten into it. You can see the benefits, what huge fun the sport can be.
Q: Is there a renewed interest in racing?
A: I've noticed an uptick in interest because of the book, and hopefully the movie will continue that. When Laura described the races in her book, you felt how enthralling and dangerous and athletic both the horses and jockeys were, and that inspired me to want to reveal it that way. We get the camera in places where it has never been, for a thrill ride of a horse race. We put you in the race, let you feel what it feels like, down to the interaction between jockeys. That was dangerous and required minute choreography. You're dealing with horses that could only do three takes in a day and then have to rest for two days. If you don't get the shot, you don't get another chance. We had to choreograph every single event.
Q: This is only your second film. Where did you learn to be so precise?
A: There was no other way to do it. Faced with daunting obstacles, you come up with resourceful solutions. I've got a guy on a techno crane out there, swinging a 30-foot crane arm when you're moving horses at 40 miles an hour. He has to know where the camera is going to be. It was like a war game. Chris McCarron, one of the greatest jockeys who ever lived, was a consultant on the film. I planned out each race and Chris would take that playbook and rehearse the jockeys. He was like a choreographer in a musical.
Q: Did you use stuntmen?
A: I only used professional jockeys because no stuntman could ride well enough for what we had to do in the film.
Q: One, Gary Stevens, has an important role in the film, doesn't he?
A: Like Chris, Gary is one of the greatest jockeys in the world--he just won the Santa Anita Derby and beat our horse to do it--but he could be a movie star. The star of our movie beat me! I'm so pissed off.
Q: Did you feel it was a privilege to work with Tobey again?
A: His work ethic is incredible. He would stay and do off-camera lines for a day player. There are actors who won't do that for their costars, much less a day player. But he was there because he thinks that is the respect you show for another actor.
Q: Your father--who cowrote Creature From the Black Lagoon, which the two of you are now remaking--was blacklisted. What was that like?
A: It wasn't as bad for him as it was for a lot of people. He was about to be subpoenaed, and it was recalled at the last minute. He was lucky, but still he went without work for a long time.
Q: Was your family ostracized?
A: No, because my dad could still write radio stuff. The thing about being a writer is that when you're out of work, it's not that weird. They sheltered me from it and the thing I'm most impressed with about my parents is they instilled in me a great sense of appreciation of the country, patriotism and democracy. A lot of belief in a country they could have turned on, easily, and didn't. That became an emotional connection for me because of what they went through and where I came from. That is why I wrote Dave and the satire of big business in Big and the obvious politics in Pleasantville. And it's why I wanted to write about the Depression in Seabiscuit.
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Michael Fleming
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