Kevin Macdonald Directs 'State of Play'

Making the Movie: State of Play

Kevin Macdonald’s Oscar winning experience as a documentary filmmaker helped give the unmistakable stamp of authenticity to his Thriller State of Play.

Set in the hotbed of Washington D.C. where politics, big business and journalism collide with deadly results, Macdonald was determined to make the corridors of power and the bustling newsroom of a big city paper look and feel like the real deal.

Indeed, he wanted State of Play to remind an audience that at a time when many paid for newspapers are under threat from the growth of online rivals and free sheets, a decline in sales and the recession, good old fashioned news gathering – in this case in the formidable form of reporter Cal McAffrey played by Russell Crowe – will be lost at great cost.

“I come from a documentary background and I think my first impulse is always ‘what’s the reality here? What actually would this be like?’” he says.

“So I did a lot of research in Washington, I went to a lot of newspapers and was amazed by how dedicated the journalists were and how much integrity they had, but also by the environment and by the mess and the clutter. The journalists were surrounded by paper – there were books and cuttings everywhere.

“And I think that’s what also makes it feel like, in some ways, a dying world. And in some ways the film is an elegy to a dying profession, a dying world - the world of print journalism. And I wanted to capture that on film.”

First and foremost, though, State of Play is an ‘edge of your seat thriller,’ he says. “There is plenty of action in the movie but it is character based and hopefully it’s very, very tense and suspenseful.”

McAffrey’s professional world clashes with his personal life when he investigates the murder of a beautiful young intern who had been working for his friend, fast rising politician Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck). Collins is married to Anne (Robin Wright Penn) who is publicly humiliated when it emerges that he had been having an affair with the intern.

The veteran reporter is teamed up with a novice, Della Frye (Rachel McAdams), a young blogger who works for the online edition of the same paper, the fictitious Washington Globe, to investigate the murder.

Collins had been leading a Senate Committee overseeing billion dollar defence contracts and as McAffrey and Frye dig deeper they begin to suspect that the killing is part of an even bigger criminal cover up by private security firms.

“The political theme of the movie is about these companies who are privatising all aspects of the support services around the military,” says Macdonald. “In our film it’s happening inside of the US whereas in reality it’s happened outside, in places like Iraq. So a lot of the services the CIA or FBI did, things like phone tapping, are out sourced to private companies.

“And it seems to me that this is a fascinating time and a terrifying time because this privatisation is going on at a huge pace and what is happening is that a parallel military structure is building up.

“That structure is parallel to the government, to the army and it’s giving enormous power and enormous sway to these companies and that is the political issue that our politician, Stephen Collins, is really concerned about in our story.”

Macdonald admits that he had a ‘rollercoaster ride” to bring his film to the big screen. Originally, Brad Pitt was due to play the role of McAffrey but he pulled out just seven days before production was due to start, leaving the film in jeopardy.

“Brad didn’t like the final draft of the script we did as much as I did,” says Macdonald. “So we agreed to talk about the script and we delayed shooting by a week. It was just Brad and I discussing it and going through it scene by scene. I was trying to persuade him that the things I liked he should like and vice versa. And at the end of that he just said ‘I don’t think we want to make the same film....’

“It was a long drawn out process and to his credit he didn’t do what a lot of stars would do which is to get their agent to make a phone call. We sat down, we discussed it all and when he finally made his decision he phoned me up himself to tell me. So I feel no personal animosity to him but it was a very difficult situation because we had built huge sets and we had the rest of the cast ready and waiting to go.”

The director sent the script to Oscar winner Crowe and then made a mad dash to his home in Australia to see the actor in person and convince him that he was the man for the job.

“I’d never been to Australia before so it was the perfect 24 hour tour,” laughs Macdonald. “And I spent a day with Russell on his farm and we talked about it. And you know it’s funny with fate, but being a documentary maker I believe that things are not meant to happen or meant to happen and the best things in films are often the things that happen by accident and this is one of them.

“Russell is much better suited to the part as I’d envisaged it than Brad was. And right back when I first accepted the job Russell was on my wish list of actors I wanted for the film.”

Macdonald’s first feature documentary, One Day In September, won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. His second film, Touching The Void, won the BAFTA for Best British Film and is Britain’s highest grossing documentary. His drama, The Last King of Scotland, won BAFTAs for Best British Film and Best Adapted Screenplay and its star, Forest Whitaker, won an Oscar for his portrayal of Idi Amin.

Interview with Kevin Macdonald

Q: Have you got any plans for the DVD, like a different cut?

A: So far I’ve suggested that one of the scenes that had to be cut from the original version of the film might be in there. One of them is a wonderful scene, which I have to say I was devastated to have to cut. Sometimes you have to kill your darlings in the editing and there was a scene where Robin Wright Penn and Ben Affleck give a press conference which we filmed in the Library of Congress which was the hardest location to secure in Washington – it cost a fortune and we had to negotiate endlessly. What happens is that it’s a scene where Robin Wright Penn really gives a very moving performance as the wife of a politician who has had an affair and then she has to stand up in front of the press and say ‘I forgive him and I know it’s a cliché for the wife of a politician to have to stand here and say this…’ It’s a really beautifully written scene, maybe the most beautifully written scene in the film, but it had to come out because the story had to move on.

Q: Any others?

A: That’s one of the scenes and another is with Russell and Rachel McAdams walking along a street with a marching band behind them. I was fascinated by that. One of the themes in this film is about the privatised military and during our research we found out that in the recent past there used to be these majorettes groups who, instead of throwing batons, threw guns and I thought that was a wonderful metaphor. So there were these teenage girls with cowboy hats tossing wooden guns into the air, which now belong to my six and four year old sons and they love them (laughs). So there will be those two scenes and of course we’ll have the director’s commentary on it.

Q: How important was authenticity to your film? The newsroom in particular seems very real…

A: Well it was very important to me. I come from a documentary background and I think my first impulse is always ‘what’s the reality here? What actually would this be like?’ So I did a lot of research in Washington, I went to a lot of newspapers and was amazed by how dedicated the journalists were and how much integrity they had but also by the environment and by the mess and the clutter, and the fact that the journalists were surrounded by paper – books and cuttings. And I think that’s what also makes it feel like, in some ways, a dying world. And in some ways the film is an elegy to a dying profession, a dying world - the world of print journalism and I wanted to capture that on film. And likewise with Washington in general, I wanted to show an aspect of Washington that is not just the picture postcard views; it’s percolated through the underbelly of Washington. Because as you probably know Washington is actually a very divided city racially and it has its own problems – it has the highest murder rate in the US. It’s a very different place to go to, to live in, than the one you see on The West Wing or the one we see in most thrillers. So I guess my documentary background led me to try and see the city afresh and try and see it for what it was.

Q: How did you get involved with the project?

A: I was actually contacted originally by Brad Pitt who at that time was starring in the film and they were looking for a director of the movie.  I had an association with his company and somebody suggested my name in association with this, so I met Brad, I spoke to Universal about it and that was how I got involved. So it was bizarre that I ended making the film even though the actor ended up not doing the film, which was quite strange, as he invited me to the party, as it were.

Q: The film is inspired by the BBC series that had been widely praised. Was that a hard act to follow?

A: I’d seen the TV series on which this is based and really enjoyed it and of course initially that makes you a bit sceptical and a bit worried about doing something because if you admire the original source material so much, it’s kind of hard to imagine how you could make something better or make it your own. So that’s been the challenge really, to make something that’s worked as a six hour TV series, and to transpose it to America and also to make it into a movie and make it my own, so we’ve ended up making it really quite different from the original series. There will be people who liked the original series will see this and think they know what this is, but actually it’s very different and the characters are very different. The broad outline of the story is the same but all the events between the beginning and the end are very different.

Q: You also had to contend with Brad Pitt leaving the film just before you were due to start shooting. What was that like?

A: Right from the very beginning we had different views on what the film was going to be and I assumed because of the way that he kept going and was involved with the film until a week before we started shooting that was just the way that he was and that he would disagree with you about things and that you would argue about it. And I think that is the way he is, I think he gets himself involved with things and then gets cold feet and argues a bit and it’s sort of backwards and forwards, it’s the way he gets himself to be ready to be in the film. I think that’s what happens, from what I understand, on a lot of his projects. I didn’t think he was not going to do the movie until a week before we were ready to start shooting.

Q: So what happened, did you get a call and it was like ‘hi it’s Brad; I’m not going to do it..’

A: More or less (laughs). Well, actually it was much more complicated than that. He didn’t like the final draft of the script we did as much as I did. So we agreed to talk about the script and we delayed shooting by a week and it was just Brad and I discussing the script and going through it scene by scene. And we had to persuade him that things that I liked he should like and vice versa and at the end of the that he said ‘I just don’t feel that we want to make the same film’ it was a long drawn out process and to his credit it’s not as though he did what I think a lot of stars would do, which is to get their agent to make a phone call. We sat down, we discussed it all and when he finally made a decision he phoned me up himself, so I feel no personal animosity to him but it was a very difficult situation because we had built huge sets and we had the rest of the cast ready and waiting to go. I was in LA at the time ready to go, absolutely. We had built the newsroom, which is at the heart of the film, already. So when that happened, the studio and the rest of the actors still wanted to make the film, they loved the script and they all stuck with it so I had to find another star.   We spoke to Russell and fortunately he wanted to do it.

Q: And you obviously feel that it’s worked out for the best?

A: I really do.  I have no regrets at all, which is an amazing thing. I usually have lots of regrets about everything but I have no regrets at all. I think it worked out strangely, bizarrely for the best. Whether it will be as commercial a movie, I don’t know, but artistically, I couldn’t be happier.

Q: The series was six hours of television. How did you approach turning your story into two hours of film?

A: It is a wonderful series but it’s wonderful because it’s has a lot of great character parts and you become very engaged in the individual character’s stories but there is no central figure and in a funny way there is no central theme to the series, and with television that is often the case.  You don’t need to have a theme which takes you through or a character journey which takes you through, but in the movie you do. And for me the hard thing in this was finding what is that central theme of the story and what is the central journey for the Russell Crowe character, Cal, that I think is where all the difference from the source material came from, just because of the different natures of the television format versus the film format. In some ways the story is about someone who is stuck in the past, who is closed off to new experiences, who works in an industry that is in decline but doesn’t want to recognise that it’s in decline.

Q: The film makes that point quite strongly, that newspapers are under a real threat now…

A: Yes, you are a journalist, so you know about how newspapers are threatened so much economically and in terms of their content by the Internet etc, and so Russell works at a newspaper that is either going to have to change and become more populist or dumb down or it’s going to fold and disappear. And he kind of represents that in who he is, will he change? And that new, Internet side of the world is represented by Rachel McAdams and her character in the film, who is a young blogger on the newspaper, and he has this kind of antipathetic relationship with her - there’s a lot of friction between the two of them at the outset of the story. He grows to understand her and she grows to understand him a bit and by the end of the movie you feel that he has opened himself again and part of that theme carries through, that theme about a closed person who opens up, carries through into the romantic theme of the film because Cal is someone who is partly closed off to new experience because he has been in love with the same woman since he was at college, played by Robin Wright Penn, and she has chosen to marry the politician. And because of this Russell’s character hasn’t been able to fully grow up, never had a satisfying relationship with a woman in his life. In the story he manages to set aside the past, finally put a full stop on the relationship he had with this woman played by Robin. So that’s the arc of the movie, the arc of the character, which is something that doesn’t exist at all in the series.

Q: How was working with Russell, are you always on the same page?

A: No we were not always on the same page at all. I’m of the opinion that I’m working with some of the best crew and cast that you could work with anywhere in the world on this film and they all know a lot more than I do in their own areas. My job is to get the best work out of them and also to be the person that preserves the purity of the story and the simplicity of the story. Because each individual department or actor gets involved and sees it only from their point of view and you’ve got to be the person to see it all. But you know, having had a big rollercoaster ride in pre production it was nice to just get on with the film and it was fun. It really was.

Q: Did you watch other movies to get a flavour for what you wanted on State of Play?

A: No, I think that’s what I trust myself on, the storytelling and how to make this story edge of your seat stuff and to throw in the other entertaining elements you need, a bit of comedy. I’ve watched a lot of different movies in relation to this but I don’t think that there is one particular film that has all the elements that we have. I don’t want to make just another genre film, what’s the point of making another kind of Washington set political thriller that doesn’t take a few risks and challenge the audience? There are risks in making a film like this because it is quite a serious film, an adult film in some ways, and whether or not a mainstream audience will embrace that I don’t know, but I hope they will.

Published 17th Sep 2009

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