"Where Movie Critics Get A Taste Of Their Own Medicine"
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AN INTERVIEW WITH:
JEFF NATHANSON
by Peter Sobczynski

October 1, 2004

In 1985, the FBI, in an effort to incriminate gangster John Gotti, decided to have agents pose as film producers in the hopes that organized crime would try to muscle in on the production. To achieve this, they went so far as to acquire a screenplay and a director as well as a cast and crew, none of whom knew that the "film" they were supposedly making was actually a sting operation that was never going to be produced. A few years ago, an article in "Details" magazine chronicled this odd experience and, like many of those who read it, Jeff Nathanson thought that the story itself had the makings of a good movie. Unlike most others, he was already a screenwriter of note-having penned the two "Rush Hour" films, two Spielberg films ("Catch Me if You Can" and "The Terminal") and, okay, "Speed 2". Not only that, he also got the chance to direct the film, the new comedy "The Last Shot", as well.

On his first publicity jaunt, Nathanson sat down to discuss "The Last Shot", the differences between writing it and actually having to stage what he wrote and his own previous participation in one of the all-time Hollywood disasters.

THE INTERVIEW

Although you have been working as a screenwriter for a number of years, "The Last Shot" is your first film as a director. Was directing something that you had always wanted to do and screenwriting was the means to achieving that goal?

It just happened. I was not someone who was actively pursuing a directing career and I was really happy as a screenwriter. When I turned in this script to Disney, they called me and said that the only way to do it was on a low budget and the only way to do that would be with a first-time director and they thought it should be me. I said no, because I kept thinking about being on a set with 200 people and how much that terrified me. Then my wife quickly said that she would leave me if I didn’t call back and beg them to reconsider. That’s how it happened.

How big of an adjustment was that for you to make? When you are writing, for example, and you suddenly change your mind about something, all you have to do is hit the ‘delete’ key and you are done. As a director, if you want to change something, even the smallest alteration can potentially require a lot of work by a lot of people.

Screenwriting is a weird thing because you, the screenwriter, think that you are the most important part of the moviemaking process-you are handing in pages and you are convinced that you are the key to everything. When you become a director, you realize that the costume designer thinks she is the key to everything and the sound guy thinks he is the key to everything and the cinematographer IS the key to everything-you have so many departments and people that it is overwhelming. It is nothing like screenwriting, which is a very personal and individual experience. Directing is truly a shitstorm, but it is exciting to piece it together. Ultimately, I tried not to lose my screenwriting hat and to continue function in that way to focus on the story.

Presumably, you read the article on the actual case that the film is based on in "Details" when it was published several years ago. What was it about the story that inspired you to turn it into "The Last Shot"?

If you remember the article, it wasn’t especially funny but I thought that the whole thing was hilarious. I thought that the idea that the FBI thought they could nail mobsters by posing as film producers was so stupid and made no sense that it was very funny to me. Then with the knowledge that they were thinking of making three "movies" and becoming like a mini-studio by making things in Boston, New York and Philadelphia with taxpayer money-the insanity of it all was, as soon as I saw it, something ripe for a movie. After that, it was just a matter of figuring out what kind of movie it would be. I went and interviewed the two real guys that this happened to and I was inspired by how they had struggled to make it and how it reminded me of my own struggles. I took the two pieces and put them together-on the one hand, it is a very personal movie about my own struggles in Hollywood and on the other, it is about the insanity of the FBI.

All screenplays go through this process where you try to figure out what in the hell they are and how they will work. It doesn’t matter what your idea is-it still has to function as a two-hour movie that people will go to and relate to. In this case, I decided to tell the story of two guys who are the most opposite people and how they realize about halfway through the story that they have the exact same goals-they are two guys who are desperate to be special in any way. I think that is where we are at in the world today-everybody wants to be on television for ten minutes.

Previously, you wrote "Catch Me If You Can" and "The Terminal", both of which, like "The Last Shot", were inspired by actual events. The difference is that while "Catch Me If You Can" had more of a focus on the central character, the focus of "The Last Shot" is more on the situation. Do you have any preference between those two different approaches?

It is always great if you can start with a great character, so "Catch Me If You Can" always had that-even when the script wasn’t working and I didn’t know what to do, I knew I had this great character. Any screenplay is hard to do but I think of this one as a character piece as well-less of one than "Catch Me", but ultimately about these two guys and this journey they take. Hollywood doesn’t do too many movies that are based on character-most of them are based on concept-and I try to go the other way.

Another similarity between "The Last Shot" and "Catch Me" is that they both feature central characters who are essentially liars-both to other people and to themselves.

That is something that I am very interested in. I don’t view it as lying-I view it as people searching for their identities and who are confused about who they are. I think that makes for interesting drama and comedy-that is what a character piece is.

A lot of the humor of "The Last Shot" is darker and more abrasive than one might expect from a film with such a premise-especially one coming from Disney, where the impulse might have been to give it a lighter tone. How hard is it to get a film through there that opens with a couple of gangsters trying to chop off someone’s finger in the back of a porno theater?

The Touchstone label does a lot of films that are R-rated and that aren’t your standard stuff. They embraced this script and this particular vision. They weren’t over my shoulder in the editing room or rewriting scenes. They certainly have enough films like "Finding Nemo" that with a film with this low of a budget and with this cast, they didn’t feel the need to try to make it a mainstream comedy. I think they knew that it was something else and they wanted to try something different.

Interestingly, your cast is filled with a number of actors who have directed films themselves-Alec Baldwin, Matthew Broderick, Tim Blake Nelson, Tony Shaloub, Buck Henry. What was it like working with a cast like that on your debut film?

I really went after the best actors I could find-that way, if I didn’t know what the hell I was doing, I would have these actors who might know what they were doing. It just turned out that they were all really funny people as well, so I had great actors who were also great comedians. I got incredibly lucky that, down the line, pretty much my first choice for each of these roles said yes. They all responded well to the script and they really responded to the fact that Matthew Broderick had signed on initially to do the film because he has such a great reputation.

To what degree do the various Hollywood characters that we see in the film mirror people that you may have known in your own experiences out there?

Matthew’s character was closest to who I am and what I related to. Toni Collette’s character is a combination of several actresses I have met along the way and the FBI agents are combinations of several studio heads I have also met along the way. I took little bits but I wasn’t trying to attack Hollywood or do a cynical movie about the place because it has been done-things like "The Player" and "Sunset Boulevard" and any number of others have captured that part in a great way. Nobody in the movie is really in Hollywood-they are all wannabes and that was what interested me.

Considering that most of the drama in the climax of the film revolves around the Broderick character trying to get the very first shot done, not knowing that it will be his last, what was it like for you on your first day on-set trying to get your own first shot?

It was very surreal and scary. You walk out there and you are truly are alone in commanding a ship that you can’t believe that someone has allowed you to command. You are just in shock. From the moment it started, I was wondering if I would even be able to say the word "Action!" because I was so nervous. Once it got started and I said it a few times, I fell into a very quick rhythm and managed to focus everything on the content and characters in such a way that it became comfortable. It was like one long rewrite to me.

Did you seek advice from any of the directors that you had previously worked with as a writer?

Everybody, and I am still seeking advice about how to do press. Since I haven’t done any of this, I called everybody I know and said that I am doing interviews for the first time-and today is the first time I’ve done them-and asked all kinds of questions about what would be going on. You don’t want to walk into something and get blindsided. I’d never done rehearsals before and so I called up people and asked, "What’s a rehearsal and what the hell do I do?"

Now that the film is finished, how close did you come as a director to achieving what you had envisioned as a writer?

I’ve been around enough screenplays to know that the transition from script to screen is not an exact science but this is pretty close. It is close to the kind of film I wanted to make-it is certainly close to the tone and the performances are endearing. I am excited about the finished product and happy with it. I feel like, as a first directing effort, I did as well as I could do.

Knowing now what a director has to do first-hand, do you think that will change or affect how you approach things as a writer?

It probably will. I’m always trying to get better and improve. Now that I have been a director and know how hard it is-as a writer, you’ll write a scene that says "EXT: The roof of the Empire State Building. Day" and you aren’t thinking about getting a crew up there and lighting it and closing the building for a scene that could be done in a parking lot. I’ll never do that again because I know now that anything you write has repercussions and you have to be able to afford to shoot what you write.

How did you get into screenwriting in the first place?

I’ve always been writing. I was a journalist in high school and college. Very early on in college, I saw they were offering a screenwriting class and when I took it, I was bitten by the bug. I started writing scripts at an early age and gave up on any other future. I went to the AFI for a year in their screenwriting program and struggled for five years trying to get someone to hire me. Finally, I wrote a spec script for a comedy and someone at Imagine Entertainment saw it and hired me to write a movie that never got made, but hiring me got me into the Writer’s Guild. That led to another job and ultimately, I got a chance to write dialogue for "Twister", where I wrote a lot of "Watch out!" dialogue. That led to the same director hiring me to do a rewrite of "Speed 2", which was a huge disaster. Finally, I did the "Rush Hour" movies and those were successful and that was when I decided to get out of the buddy-cop movies. It has been a 14-year slow progression.

Since you brought up "Speed 2", that had to be a difficult thing for any writer to tackle. On the one hand, it was a sequel and so the temptation would obviously be to simply continue the first story. However, the premise of the first film was so completely self-contained that there really was no place to go with it, especially when the lead actor made it clear that he wasn’t going to do it at all.

There are a lot of Hollywood movies that are ill-conceived, but I don’t think you could ever match making a movie called "Speed 2" and setting it on a cruise ship that goes 8 knots and then doing it without Keanu Reeves, who has had a better career with action movies over the years than Sandy Bullock. At the time, that director had so much clout and power that he could tell the story he wanted to tell and got them to make it without Keanu. I was just thrilled to be a part of it-part of a huge movie. What did I know?

-- PETER SOBCZYNSKI

Copyright © 2004 Peter Sobczynski
All rights reserved.
Used with permission
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