By: debbie lynn elias
Rod Lurie has long been one of my Top Ten picks as a writer and director. Be it THE LAST CASTLE, THE CONTENDER, RESURRECTING THE CHAMP or his latest nail biter, NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH, his writing is always intelligent, decisive, thought provoking, timely and topical, with a story that embraces integrity, ethics, morals and social conscience. His direction is always with military crispness, sharp and clean. His casting choices are impeccable and his characters well crafted, multi-textural, fractured human beings that have a fire about them that draws one as a viewer ever deeper into the story and the film. With “The Last Castle”, I was beyond impressed as Lurie drove me to tears with the passion and conviction of the story. With “Resurrecting the Champ” he again brought a compelling human drama to the scene with a meticulously executed essence and vibrancy. With NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH, Lurie attains even greater heights, championing justice and the high price of integrity, conviction and principle.
Always a joy to see, to talk with, e-mail or IM with, I had a chance to ask Rod a few questions about NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH.
RL: Hi Debbie! How=2 0are you? Good to see you again. Who are you writing for today?
MSD: Culver City Observer and 132 publications around the world.
RL: Impressive. 132. Yours is the ass I need to kiss the most!
MSD: So, where does this one come from? Very very First Amendment, very timely, very topical. You really get to the meat of the whole First Amendment issue here.
RL: Well, you know, I did this tv series called “Commander in Chief” and I had this idea that a reporter writes a book about Geena Davis’ character and there’s all sorts of classified information there so they send him to jail for not revealing his sources and the twist was going to be that Geena was going to pardon him because even though it was bad stuff written about her, in this country we don’t throw out journalists into jail. We shouldn’t. And then I was unceremoniously fired from the show and Steven Bochco came in to save it – to save the #1 show – and he took a blow torch to every idea that I had. Just about every idea that I had. I don’t necessarily blame him, but that was one of those [ideas]. In fact, now that I come to think of it, I have 10 or 15 story lines so I have 10 or 15 movies now thanks to Steven, that maybe I can put together. So, I really love this concept. I was a journalist. I20think it’s an unbelievably noble profession when done properly and that it is noble to go to jail to protect a source. It’s very principled. And then, Judy Miller went to jail and I sort of thought that – this movie is by no means about her, anyone who sees it knows it’s not about Judith Miller – but it’s about a woman in a similar circumstance and I just started wondering what would happen if the reporter had kids and the CIA agent had kids. I did this movie called The Contender in 2000 and I just asked, “What if Clarence Thomas was a woman?” You start thinking of the “what ifs” and you end up coming up with an intriguing storyline maybe.
MSD: You pulled Floyd Abrams in to play the judge. One of the seminal First Amendment attorneys in the country. Did you pick his brain at all?
RL: Oh yeah! He was the technical advisor on the film. Sometimes he would stop in the middle of a shoot and say, “This is wrong” and I would say, “You’re playing it. Play it right then!” He is a friend of my father’s. He’s married to an Israeli woman. My father and myself were Israeli and everyone in that community knows one another and I knew Floyd. I remember I went to meet him. Just to talk to him and ask basic questions. We were watching a Giants game together in his apartment and I said, “You know, I think you should play the jud ge.” I like what Sidney Lumet does by putting real people into movies. Real characters into movies. People who actually do those jobs. I think it worked out.
MSD: What made you go with Noah Wylie? This is totally unlike anything we’ve ever seen out of him. He’s amazing.
RL: That’s the most wonderful thing to do as a director; take actors elementally outside of anything they’ve ever done before. The reason why Noah did this so quickly was, I produced a movie in 2000 that went straight to DVD or went to cable called “Scenes of a Crime” with Jeff Bridges and Noah plays a street gangster in it. He is completely believable. Noah is a guy that I would work with over and over and over again. He’s very easy and he’s a great guy.
