The Verge: Director Shawn Ku Breaks Through With Beautiful Boy

When did Beautiful Boy's story come about? Was it one of those development-hell things, or did it happen pretty quickly?

It happened pretty quickly. I was writing with a partner (Michael Armbruster) at the time. We had already written a script -- kind of romantic comedy, or a light family comedy. We were both a little frustrated with the Hollywood dance and wanted to write something small that we could just do. It was around the time of Virginia Tech, and right around then, a close friend was visiting me and died in my home. I was a very central figure in his parents' grief; I was the one who broke the news to them. These momentous things were happening in my life, and they sort of feel into this story. We had set out to write a story about a fractured relationship: Two people, who are in a long-term relationship and have taken each other for granted and sort of lost connection and that ability to be open. You don't really look at someone after a while. We wanted to write a love story about them coming together again. The idea to set this against the backdrop of a campus shooting just sort of materialized because of things of things happening in my life and around the world.

Those are two pretty intense themes to combine in one story. Did you ever think you might be biting off more than you could chew?

It definitely was a lot. It was an ambitious idea. But on one level, we were ready to tackle something big. The shootings just happen all the time, and it was hard not to think about them. It was hard not to, in a sense, put yourself in their shoes. I think everybody tends to ask that: Why would somebody go and shoot these people? It's our nature to want to understand that and what would push us to that place. Naturally, once we started thinking about the parents, too, it's hard not to say, "How would I react if my child became this thing?" I think as a parent it's a natural fear: That something you do will influence your child in a way you don't intend. Everybody's afraid they're messing up their kids; we joke about that. But it is a thing a good parent can't help but worry about.

How much research can you really do on characters like these? The parents of Columbine mastermind Eric Harris or Virginia Tech shooter Seung-hui Cho, for example, have never spoken publicly about their son.

To a certain extent that's true. We did as much research as we could, and a lot of our research wound up being about procedure and the aftermath and how are parents notified. But where I was surprised -- and I guess I shouldn't have been -- was how many of these parents are forced out of their lives to a certain extent. They just feel they can't face the people in their community even as they're mourning; they're just trying to find some anonymity in life. We wondered how difficult that must be: to be going through this tragedy but also not have a home, to not have a safety net to fall into. We wound up at a place where it was mostly just us putting ourselves in their shoes, which was ultimately a good thing. We wanted these people to be totally normal and relatable so that the average viewer would recognize themselves in the characters. I think it's been true most of the time; people relate to either the mother or the father, and it's not really sex-dependent. They relate to who those people are and how you are in your own life. There's some kind of connection in terms of how you deal with relationships and hardship and whatnot.

Was that your pitch to Maria Bello and Michael Sheen? How did you draw them in?

You know, it's a nerve-wracking thing. I remember going to meet Maria the first time, and thinking, "How am I going to convince her to do my movie?" As far as I knew, she had just read the script and wanted to meet me. She, in a sense, is trusting her career in my hands. My movie will forever be a mark on her career, good or bad. So how do I convince her that I'm trustworthy? I don't know how I did it. A lot of it had to do with the script. I went to meet her, and she said, "It's great to meet you; how are we going to make this movie? When are we going to start?" So I hope there's a level of myself in the script that communicated to her.

But for me, while I definitely have my opinions, and I feel like a fairly confident person, I'm definitely open to collaboration. And I think they just trusted me in some way. The same with Michael; I didn't even meet him, actually. He was busy doing press for the second Twlight movie, I believe. He was in London and we had this late, late, late night call. We spoke for nearly an hour, and it was just about philosophy, really. We were waxing philosophical about relationships and why they fall apart, raising kids and your fears as a parent, shootings and why they happen... It was just a great level of connection. I open myself up to people; in directing, I like to use anecdotes from my life. I guess I feel -- hopefully by example -- that there is no guarded place. My life and my thought process and who I am is open to you, and I hope that's reciprocated.

That's interesting about the phone call, in particular: Sheen doesn't come from a place where these shootings actually occur. Was dealing with the philosophy of this as a broader social epidemic different with Sheen than it was with Bello?

It really wasn't. Their processes as actors are very different, but just in terms of how we talked about the subject matter, they both took it very personally. Michael's a very deep guy. He thinks a lot. When he's exploring a character, he's digging very, very deep into himself and into the character. Maria operates in a similar way, but also in a different way. A lot of times, she's done a lot of the thinking and discussing beforehand, and then she almost turns her mind off [on set] and works via instinct and reaction. Oddly enough -- and obviously not having known them before -- they're both perfectly suited for their characters. Kate is a kind of person who keeps herself busy as a mother should: All these these things need to be done, so they're done. Bill is someone who is very still and very thoughtful and sometime gets in his own way mentally. I think maybe just by dumb luck, they were very suited to these roles. And then of course they take it to the next step because they are these amazing actors. They take the characters way beyond anything I could have ever thought of.

So what's next?

We're hoping to do something lighter next. [Laughs] We've written a couple of different things, and I've been exploring projects but haven't committed to anything yet. So let me know if you have a film, and I'll do it!

[Top photo: WireImage]

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