Somewhere buried in the annals of my mind and other life in law, I recalled the chilling story of Cameron Todd Willingham, a man charged with triple homicide and convicted for the murder of his three young daughters on December 23, 1991 when he allegedly set his home on fire with his daughters left inside to die. Willingham was convicted by the Texas courts and sentenced to death. He was executed in 2004. But it’s what happened after his sentencing and incarceration that makes Willingham’s story so unforgettable and so powerful. Was an innocent man put to death?
In 2009, the article “Trial By Fire” by David Grann appeared in the New Yorker. For the layperson or anyone who had not followed the Willingham case over the prior almost 20 years, Grann’s article was an eye-opener into the injustices and corruption of the justice – and political – system, a woman named Elizabeth Gilbert, and the truth found in science. Picking up the mantle from Grann’s original work, screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher and director Ed Zwick now bring this story to the screen with TRIAL BY FIRE.
The chances that in the course of everyday life Todd Willingham and Elizabeth Gilbert would meet, let alone develop a deep and meaningful friendship, are slim to none. But miracles do happen and the case of Willingham, Elizabeth Gilbert was indeed an angel from heaven. Willingham, poor and uneducated, had a criminal history and an admitted violent temper. He also loved his three daughters with every fiber of his being, Elizabeth Gilbert was a divorced mother of two, a playwright, and had a social conscience. While Willingham was on death row, the stars aligned thanks to various social innocence and prisoner outreach projects, Elizabeth Gilbert began a correspondence with him. Curious to know more about him, she travelled from her home in Houston to the prison where he was incarcerated. One of the most unlikely friendships began to develop. The more Todd and Elizabeth corresponded and met, the more she came to know him. In her gut, Elizabeth Gilbert was certain that Todd Willingham did not murder his three babies. Inspired by Ponchai, a fellow death row inmate, Todd had been educating himself and doing his own legal research inside the prison, seeking an appeal on his conviction. The more Elizabeth learned about the case and the appellate process and the underlying trial, and the more she got to know Todd, the more she uncovered about the suppression of evidence, false statements from a jailhouse snitch, and basic legal malpractice by Willingham’s attorney at the time. Doggedly, Elizabeth pushed onward, going all the way to the governor’s office, seeking justice for Todd. And in so doing, she gave Todd something he had never had. Hope. Cameron Todd Willingham was on death row for 12 years. Elizabeth Gilbert still fights till this day on his behalf.
TRIAL BY FIRE would be nothing without the storytelling eye of director Ed Zwick, lensing by John Gulesarian, and perfect casting with Jack O’Connell as Todd Willingham, Chris Coy as Prison Officer Daniels, and Laura Dern as Elizabeth Gilbert. As Gilbert, Dern imbues the character with such intense emotional conviction and caring that one cannot turn away from the screen. Just one look reminds you what an emotional powerhouse Dern is.
Always a joy to speak with LAURA DERN, we had a chance to chat about TRIAL BY FIRE. I’ve heard Laura speak passionately about a project before, and equally as passionate about social issues, but hearing her voice this time, with its inflection, strength, conviction, and compassion, speaks volumes as to the importance of this film, this story, and the kind of injustices faced all around the country by individuals like Todd Willingham. It all speaks to her connection with Elizabeth Gilbert, whom she got to know over the course of this production. As Elizabeth Gilbert, LAURA DERN is the eyes, and the heart, of the audience.
It’s great to be talking to you, Laura, when we’re not at a Film Independent event!
Which we love too, but now we can actually have a conversation!
I know! I have to tell you, you have blown my mind. First I saw “JT Leroy” and a week later I saw TRIAL BY FIRE. WOW! You blew me away with both performances. As different as night and day. First, you’re going bat shit crazy in “JT Leroy” and then there’s the heart and soul you bring to TRIAL BY FIRE. Absolutely amazing.
Talk about it, right? How kind of you, thank you so much. It’s funny, I feel a level of deep detachment with TRIAL BY FIRE only because my focus in many of my interviews that we’ve been doing, our focus is to continue the conversation for The Innocence Project, and to get Todd Willingham’s memory exonerated, and to try to abolish capital punishment. So you forget about the work part of things. So it’s lovely to hear your compliment and I really appreciate it.
You turn the tide for the audience in TRIAL BY FIRE. Ed [Zwick] does such a great job with the structure of the film to build up it up so that we are all convinced that [Todd’s] guilty. It’s not until we see this man through Elizabeth’s eyes, and through these beautiful letters, that we realize this is not only a person, but this is a person who was wrongly accused and convicted. That’s thanks to you and your performance. You become our eyes in this film, and our heart.
That’s so kind and beautiful. I have to give all the credit to Liz Gilbert and to David Grann for capturing the story in the New Yorker that inspired everything. What I love is that Liz didn’t try to be pious and a hero here. She shared her regularity with me, to say, “Look, I was a regular person in my own life dealing with my own stuff and my own loneliness and my own writerly, as a playwright, sense and finding my way, raising kids as a single parent, and I had the opportunity to write an inmate, and I knew what he’d done and it was this heinous act, but he’s a human being and he deserves to have human contact and I’m going to write a letter.” Coming at it from that place, and then to talk me through her doubts, her suspicion, her clarity that he was guilty, into doubt, and into ultimately believing he was innocent, was a long journey. Despite the fact that she was connecting with the man, she didn’t necessarily connect it to innocence. She only connected it to innocence once it was very clear, and she confronted Johnny Webb, and then he wrote his recanting letter. And she learned more about the fire science when she reached out to Dr. Hurst. It was a real journey, and I love that what Ed wanted to capture while he, as you said, so intricately built the story for any layman to understand the margin of error in a case like this, and how unjust our “justice system” is, and can be; but also, he wanted a parallel narrative, which is about one person’s simple act of kindness.
The whole film boils down to being a metaphor about life and how you choose to live it; be you Elizabeth, be you Todd. Be you Stacey, be you the guard, Daniels.
I think [Daniels], that’s one of my favorite characters. Chris [Coy] is such a wonderful actor. Because we feel that, right? In all of us, we feel the part of us that comes from judgment and comes from the horror of what someone’s done; from a news blurb. You know what I mean? We see it, and we go, “Oh my God, what a monster1” We are really, especially at this moment in our history, I think more than ever, we’re really trying to reconcile that both things can be true. You’ll know very well who I’m talking about, but “He’s so brilliant. He’s such an amazing filmmaker, musician, comedian. How can he have done these things? People can be all things. He was such a good father. How could he have done this heinous act?” People are complicated, and they’re dark, and they’re light, and they live amongst us, and they’re even inside of us. To come at life with compassion is going to make the gray a really integrated place to live, because the black and white has not been serving us, particularly in politics.
I’m curious, Laura, because a very powerful part of this film, is the voiceover. The bulk of it is done in voiceover, the reading of the letters. And I know that Elizabeth turned over the letters, her letters and Todd’s letters for the film. Were those the actual letters that you were reading?
They were. They’re all their real letters, and there are so many more, and very generously offered. I was very moved that Liz gave both myself and Jack [O’Connell] the letters to share, so we read all their letters.
How did you get through it without crying?
Oh, I never did! They’re personal. They’re intimate. They’re filled with longing, they’re filled with transparency about their flaws, about who they are, and on the subtlest of levels – not to make it commonplace what I’m about to say because this is a story of true life and death stakes – so there’s an urgency to the letters that are unparalleled. And there’s an unconditional love to the story that’s unparalleled. Just in a simple way, to listen to my children, a 14 and a 17-year-old talk about the value of deeply getting to know someone through letters and that that is a lost art of communication, they’re used to connecting with friends on Snapchat, and for people to correspond and take the time to get to know each other, that’s something deep. So, I’m going to share with you here and now, I am looking to be a mail-order bride. [laughing] No, I’m kidding. I’m single, and if there’s anyone out west who would like to find a pioneer wife, he should start writing me soon. [laughing]
Because that’s all it’s going to take are some deeply heartfelt letters!
Girl, it might be all that it takes! [laughing]
I’m right there with you, Laura. C’mon! I’m right there with you. [laughing] But one of the great things, and I’m sure as you were actually holding these letters and reading them, I would have to imagine the handwriting probably spoke to you and helped inform you as well. The handwriting itself.
That’s a beautiful question. Nobody’s asked that, and you’re right, actually. I was very touched. You feel both their education levels and their literacy levels her depth of empathy, but you also feel his deep interest about knowing about her life in ways that no one had ever asked her. The thing that really broke my heart, it’s gonna make me cry just saying this to you, because no one has asked about this, and now it’s coming back to me, I read them in order and Oh my God! To see his growth, even his literacy, his writing growth, his emotional growth, his willingness to share everything with her. From a first letter, sharing a poem he wrote that he feels is crude, or poor writing with some misspells or things like that, to within a matter of a year, a man writing with such humanity and longing about having just read a man’s search for meaning, and reading poetry that she had sent, and it’s cracking something open, and him talking about his heart, and him writing about his girls and what he loved, because it was one of their birthdays that day. You can’t take it, you can’t take it. You realize how unjust the system is that we have of incarceration; of locking people away without giving them the opportunity to grow and develop and be their full potential. Because reading those letters taught me a lot. It was really beautiful.
Then you compound the actual factual science on top of it all, and it infuriates and it breaks your heart.
Totally.
I would be remiss not to ask you, how was it working with the lovely little Miss Jade Pettyjohn who plays your daughter in TRIAL BY FIRE?
Do you know Jade? Jade Pettyjohn is one of the great people ever. She’s such a beautiful person, actor, musician, songwriter. She’s so lovely. She brings her heart to something with such depth. I love her so much. When my daughter was 13 years old, turned 13, she gave her Jack Kerouac. How can you not love that girl? She’s just incredible. She’s going to do so many great things in her life. I’m excited to witness it.
Absolutely. I loved her in “Bird Flu.” Of course, that was at LA Film Festival, the world premiere. I know she looks forward to these mother-daughter experiences that she’s having in films, and the one scene with the two of you sitting there in the window seat in the living room. Very, very powerful.
That’s so awesome. She was beautiful and really brought her whole heart to it. Her mother is quite extraordinary, too. Lovely. Just really giving her daughter room to be the artist she is. And she’s off painting; she’s an amazing artist and doing her own thing. It’s a really healthy dynamic that I’m impressed by.
Laura, what did you personally, because this is such a special project, what did you personally take away from playing Elizabeth in TRIAL BY FIRE?
That there is no day in your life where you can’t take 10 minutes. 10 minutes to consider another person. 10 minutes to turn all the noise off and just be with your kids. 10 minutes to write a letter to someone who’s incarcerated. 10 minutes to really look at what’s happening to children who’ve entered this country legally as their parents seek safety and asylum in our country and are imprisoned unlawfully. We all have 10 minutes. So I took the gift of Liz with me, and she’s with me all the time. I really feel lucky as a mother who complains a lot about being exhausted. I feel like I say “I’m exhausted” way more times a day than I should. So, knowing Liz, like my other hero this year, which is Marmee in “Little Women” which I have the privilege of playing, these are the women who really keep me going, keep me humble and remind me to be of service.
I am so glad that you took this role, Laura, because you really will open up a lot of eyes and hearts.
That’s so lovely to hear. Thank you so much. Thank you for spreading the word, because these are not easy movies to see, but we really need, especially Americans, to see this movie.
www.trialbyfirethefilm.com
#TrialByFireFilm
by debbie elias, exclusive interview 05/14/2019
