June 2007 | blackfilm.com | features | A MIGHTY HEART: An Interview with Dan Futterman

A MIGHTY HEART: An Interview with Dan Futterman
Krista Vitola

June 18, 2007

What did you think of Daniel Pearl? Is he a hero? Is he a martyr?

Dan Futterman: I think people have turned him into a lot of things and I think, like you said, that he’s kind of this iconic figure for certain groups of people. I think that in certain, everyday ways, I don’t know if hero is the right word but I suppose in today’s world, his genuine interest that he had in learning about other cultures and immersing himself in other cultures, this bit of information that Marianne talked about and it may have been in the book as well, that this Jewish guy who grew up in Encino in Los Angeles and his favorite city in the world was Teheran and that says something about somebody, that joy and delight and the genuine interest that he brought to traveling and in learning about other cultures and writing about that showing that an American audience that could be closed off to that sort of thing. And I suppose that in a small and important way that is heroic.

At what point did you meet Marianne Pearl? Was it before? Was it After? Or did you meet her both times and how did that meeting change you?

Dan Futterman: We met in a kind of tentative way at a sort of lunch in Los Angeles; she was bringing Adam to see his grandparents so that was the first one. But then we had a number of email exchanges and then she also came down from Paris to (Marcee?) where we were going to shoot the wedding and she was there a couple of days before we did that.

And you did that with Angelina together as a team and you met her in L.A. for the first time?

Dan Futterman: No that was by myself. They had met before and I know that they are quite good friends. And they had met before and Brad had been with this project for years and he had personally approached Marianne to get the rights to the book and she trusted him to shepherd it through this process and he had been with it throughout the entire development of the script and then Angie came to it and I think it came quite quickly to feel connected to her and there kids play together. So they’re quite friendly, I met her by myself and then later on in France we were all together. Well then we had a couple of days in France.

And then did you meet after?

Dan Futterman: She was in Cannes when the film showed there so we were able to spend some time together there and I met Adam for the first time there. No that’s not true, I had met him in Marcee but very, very briefly he had been way too preoccupied playing with Maddox and the other kids and I properly met him in Cannes, so I got to spend a little bit of time with her there and her brother as well, Sacchi, who came down from Paris to be with her so.

Did you ever ask yourself during the shooting of the movie, if you were in the same situation, would you have had the same drive in your journalism? And do you think you have changed by the portrayal of this role in the film?

Dan Futterman: I think it’s impossible for one to know what ….you would like to think you would behave in a dignified, heroic way if that is the word for it but who knows. And I don’t pretend to be anything but an actor and writer but I think that I’m so aware of the fact that…being a father and that Danny never got a chance to meet his son and his son is growing up without the benefit of this genuinely good man whose his dad, and I think that, I don’t know if it’s changed me but certainly reinforces the gratitude that I have two, thankfully, healthy children and I am able to go home and open the door and pick them up and watch them grow up.

In the wedding scene they built it as a Buddhist wedding when actually it was a Jewish wedding with the wine and breaking of the glass and they stated this is what is meant in Buddhism in drinking the wine and the breaking of the glass…

Dan Futterman: I don’t think that that’s true. That may have been the result of Michael’s cutting style. I don’t think they mean that the breaking of the glass was supposed to be Buddhist symbol.

Well, they used elements of the Jewish wedding and didn’t state it as such.

Dan Futterman: Look, I broke a glass at my wedding. To some people it means the destruction of the temple to some people it means that there is always sadness in the world and moments of joy, it means a lot of different things to different people in Jewish ceremony and I’m not exactly certain what the sequence of lines is it may be because of the editing that it seems to say something about a Buddhist wedding but I don’t believe that was the intention.

In doing the shooting of that wedding scene, Marianne was watching when you were doing the scene, was she there?

Dan Futterman: (shakes his head)

No she was not, you kept a closed set at all times.

Dan Futterman: No, she made a choice not to be there. She came down, as I said, to Marcee, before we staring shooting that it was before Angelina had started shooting at all for the film, I had been in Pakistan before that. But she came down to sort of wish us well and to talk to us, to get together for a little bit and then she said good luck to you, feel good about this you are the right people to do it, and I’m going to leave you to your work. I think it also would have been painful to her to watch that being filmed that she didn’t want to hang around for and in being a writer her self and the creative person that she is I’m sure that she didn’t want anyone to feel a hold from anybody and be in that position.

You said you wanted to concentrate more on writing and less on acting, do you still feel the same way, is that what’s happening now you want to spend more on writing than acting?

Dan Futterman: I think I feel better suited to it I have to say to being sort of behind the scenes to being in front of the camera. I have been concentrating on my writing a little bit more but if something comes up that’s like this that I can care about like I do about this as an actor than I certainly would.

Tell me about your experience filming in Puna, Bombay, and Pakistan and going through what Daniel Peal had actually gone through.

Dan Futterman: I loved being in Bombay. It was a pretty thrilling place to walk around and explore. I spent a day walking down the Muslim market and exploring with Jillian and then walked around Malibar Hill. And the kids are just gorgeous and so cute and they are so excited because you have a digital camera and when you take a picture of them you can show it to them..(laughs) It was wonderful and we had a terrific time there. In being in Pakistan and because we were shooting this, on an interpersonal level it was wonderful, but because we were shooting such a sensitive subject there was some thought that…we couldn’t enjoy it as much.

A MIGHTY HEART opens on June 22, 2007

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