By Ramona Zacharias.
John McNamara
It’s hard to believe that in 1950s, post-World War II America, one could be imprisoned for thought crimes. But that was exactly the society inhabited by screenwriter Dalton Trumbo. The man behind such films as Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo and The Brave One was one of the infamous Hollywood Ten, a group of filmmakers who were called on to testify by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in their investigation as to whether Communist propaganda was being spread via American movies. Trumbo and his colleagues refused to speak and further incriminate themselves and were subsequently imprisoned and blacklisted.
The screenwriter and his remarkable story are the subject of a new film courtesy of writer John McNamara (TV’s Aquarius) and director Jay Roach (Meet the Parents). With an all-star cast that includes Helen Mirren, Diane Lane, John Goodman and Louis CK, and is led by Bryan Cranston in the title role, Trumbo is a stylish look at Tinseltown’s Golden Age and the dark cloud that overshadowed it for many.
An experienced writer and showrunner in the world of television, Trumbo marks McNamara’s first feature film. In town for its presentation at the Toronto International Film Festival this past September, I chatted with him about the project and the politically charged script behind it.
Bryan Cranston as Dalton Trumbo and Diane Lane as Cleo Trumbo in Trumbo
I understand that you had a very interesting introduction to Dalton Trumbo’s story.
Yes! Well, I knew four men in the early 80s who were all blacklisted – one was Arthur Laurents, who was the author of The Way We Were, the “famous blacklist movie”. I met him through a play production I worked on in ’82. Then in ’84, when I was a student at NYU, I met Ring Lardner Jr, Waldo Salt and Ian McLellan Hunter (who is played by Alan Tudyk in the film). Hunter was the one who told me: “I was the front for Roman Holiday”.
He told me about this book called “Dalton Trumbo” by Bruce Cook and said I had to read it. I bought that book because of Ian. And I’m such a genius that I did nothing for thirty years – except reread it over and over again, thinking “this is a great story!” It wasn’t until my friend and fellow producer Kevin Kelly Brown said to me one day when we were talking about Trumbo: “that’s a movie”. And I said “What the f$%^ are you talking about? Kevin…calm yourself. It’s about Hollywood. It’s politics. It’s period – so it’s not going to be cheap. And the hero’s a F%&*ING COMMUNIST! Are you kidding me?” He said “No, you’re not seeing it – amazingly complex hero…incredible antagonist… huge stakes… happy ending”. I thought “Wow, Kevin’s so smart!”
That was seven years ago. It took about four years to really get the script in decent shape and another year with Michael London and Jay Roach to get it better. And then it was another year with (Trumbo’s) daughters, Niki and Mitzi, also weighing in. So we really had a shooting draft in 2014, which is when we got Bryan, Helen, Louis and the rest of the cast. We got this amazing cast and then the rewrites really continued through production. I did a lot of rewrites; but my favorite was for a movie within a movie sequence that we did. I got to write a John Wayne scene, for a John Wayne movie. That was super fun.
It struck me as a script that really was a lot of fun to write in general, just by nature of the time period.
Yes, it was. I’m a moderate-to-ignorant history buff, but I’m a huge movie buff and I do know a lot about Hollywood at that time. How it worked, who the players were, what it was like, what people ate, what they drank, the social mores… I knew all that going in and to learn more was just like candy.
What did it mean to you to have Dalton Trumbo’s daughters weigh in on your script? Did you have to alter your process at all?
It meant everything. As to my process, I went in saying “This is the script. That’s not really going to change structurally. But I believe that every line of dialogue and every detail can and should be challenged by you guys. I may disagree or I may agree… and in some cases, we’ll meet in the middle. But I want you to challenge everything.” And boy, did they do it! But in a good way. Niki and I are still very close.
Dalton Trumbo, by Bruce Cook
What other research did you have to do?
I sort of looked it at it like “OK, I have the book, which is great”. But I tried to read close to 20 other books about Trumbo or Trumbo in that period. And I tried to give each character the same amount of research weight – so I tried to read every book on Hedda Hopper, every book on John Wayne… I watched tons of films on all of them. I read all the books on Edward G. Robinson.
And then every actor came in with ideas, so that was great. David (James Elliott) had done a ton of research on John Wayne and had a lot of details. Michael Stuhlbarg is just a demon on research for Edward G. Robinson. So every day it was challenge and challenge and challenge – but it was good.
I owe a lot of thanks to the Margaret Herrick Library in Los Angeles because they have the best collection, not only of books on the period, but also papers. And more importantly, they have a completely thorough day-to-day microfiche record of all the newspapers. So I could read every newspaper article about Huac or Trumbo or the blacklist or The Brave One… in real time. Reading it in the newspaper as it was happening was fascinating. And very different than reading a book where the conclusion is foregone. What I sensed when reading the newspapers was how terrifying it was. No one knew what was going to happen, you know? No one knew this was going to have a happy ending. So I really tried to write the middle of the movie like “we don’t know how this is going to go”.
Speaking of the feel of the film, it does have a fair bit of humor with the drama, and it also has such a beautiful look to it. It all seems to soften just how grim the subject matter is – these events were devastating to Trumbo and his family. Tell me about working with Jay Roach and the rest of the production team to give it the look and feel it ultimately has.
The look of it is entirely Jay – in fact, I’m color blind. Even when I’m producing my own TV shows, I say “you guys figure that out, it’s going to look fine!” Jay hired the best people – costumer, set designer, cameraman, editor… it’s entirely due to Jay.
The tone… I guess you’d almost describe it like a rollercoaster. It’s really funny and then it’s really scary and then it’s really unbelievable and then it’s really devastating and then it’s really funny… that really reflects Trumbo’s personality. It’s almost as if the entire movie is through his lenses of perception, where you never know from moment to moment if he’s going to be funny, angry, beneficent, petty, selfish, selfless… that really is him. So the whole movie, in a way, starts with his DNA.
Helen Mirren as Hedda Hopper and Bryan Cranston as Dalton Trumbo in Trumbo
To have had the job of presenting this complicated character as a father, a screenwriter, a political activist… was that a screenwriter’s nightmare or dream?
Dream. But it could feel like a nightmare. His letters are so perfectly crafted. Even when he would speak on camera for an interview, he was so measured and his words were… calibrated. So to replicate that…
There are lots of lines in the movie that are his and lots of lines that are mine. The only goal was to have the audience not be able to tell the difference. So hopefully no one would sit there and say “That’s John, that’s John, that’s Dalton, that’s John”! That just took a lot of work. And there are times when I look at it and say “Man, I would have loved one more rewrite of that scene”. But luckily Bryan and Jay were also very good partners at either saying “I think in this scene, Trumbo’s own words are too dense and verbose” or “in this scene, your words are a little too thin and common”. So it was always a matter of juggling the two, and there were a lot of scenes where it was like “me… me… me and Trumbo… me… Trumbo… Trumbo”. There were tons of scenes like that – and hopefully you don’t see the stitching. You would if you saw the scripts!
As you mentioned, one of the reasons for your initial resistance to the project had to do with its politics.
God yes. And the fact that there are no superheroes, villains, capes, guns or naked bodies. Well, except Bryan’s.
Would it be fair to say it’s more about history than politics?
Yes – and that’s equally unattractive to most financiers! “Oh, history! Here’s a hundred million dollars! James Bond? F$%^ that guy. We want to do a movie about history! And we’re going to open you against Spectre on November 6.”
Daniel Craig as James Bond in Spectre
OK, back to politics! Are there politics in writing a movie about politics?
Well, I have to say that I went from saying to Kevin Brown that day in 2008 “No, no, no, no” to “Yes”. And once I said yes, I figured: “This is a movie about politics. And history. And Hollywood. And Washington. If people don’t want to make that movie, then I’ll find someone else who does.” So there were a lot of no’s. And a lot of “could you change it to…” or “Why do you want to do this movie? Why not do something else?” For a long time it was just me and Kevin, before Michael London. We were stubborn – we wanted to make this movie. And all we did was keep showing it to people until we found Kevin, Jay, Bryan and so forth.
How involved were you in the casting process?
Really involved – I was a producer, so I was at Ground Zero. We had been turned down by a couple of big stars, which sort of surprised us. I was in the meeting where someone said “Breaking Bad is finishing, what about Bryan Cranston?” The funny thing was that at the time we had a studio – which is not the studio that did the movie and it shall remain nameless – and we had a list of actors, one of whom was Bryan. We got him and thought “man, this was easy… we’re done”. The studio said “Actually, no. He’s not a big enough star.” Are you kidding me? Do you watch television? And they said “he’s not a big enough star overseas yet – and we’re going to say to you that it’s either us or Bryan”.
So we said “Bryan. Bye.” And for 24 hours we had no money. We had Bryan Cranston and no money. But thank god the next day we met Shivani Rawat and ShivHans and Bleecker Street… and they loved it. They were all in from that day, and in large part because of Bryan. From then on, there was no one else. It was us, Shivani and her group, and Bryan. Then we got Helen within a week, John Goodman within a couple of weeks, Diane… once it was going, it was going fast. And I was pretty involved in a lot of the casting.
John Goodman as Frank King in Trumbo
How inspiring is Dalton Trumbo’s story to a screenwriter?
I can’t imagine a more inspiring story – he went to jail for screenplays! Who in my generation has the balls to do that? I don’t know if I’d go to jail for freedom of speech. But he did! And I’m glad we live in the world that he dreamed of. A world of freedom and a world where we can say what we want.
Also, on the right side of history he was a really good writer. Roman Holiday – great. Thirty Seconds over Tokyo – great. Spartacus – great. Lonely are the Brave – great. Papillon – great. That’s five classics. Most people get to do one, if they’re lucky.
I know that you’ve done a lot of television and that this is your first feature film. What did you enjoy about the experience and what did you find challenging?
Everything was challenging. Everything we talked about – there was not a single thing where I felt “I got this”. It was all “Maybe they should get another writer… I don’t know, what’s Tom Stoppard doing this week, he can come in and punch it up.”
But you know what I really, really liked about the process? In TV, I’m a showrunner and I’m in charge. I liked not being in charge. I liked working for Jay Roach. And I said from day one: “I work for you”. It’s funny, because he would come in when I was working on Aquarius – and there were times that I would have these Frank King-like tirades on whatever was happening in production that day. “Goddamn, what the hell, get that mother$%^er in here… Jay, what do you need?” He’d say “Are you in a good mood?” and I’d say “I’m in a good mood now because I’m working for you!” So I liked serving the story and not having to worry about everything else. That was all taken care of by Jay and Bryan and Michael London. That was great. I love being part of a team, especially when there are such good leaders at the top.
