John Dahl

My cinematographer on that, Marc Reshovsky, is really good. A little slow, but very talented. He’s actually done a lot of music videos and commercials.

I didn’t see it.

Yeah, I’ve heard it’s really good.

Unfortunately, I don’t have much of an excuse but I do have four kids.

It’s hard to get to the theater as much as I’d like to.

Yes Rounders was one of the things that I was attracted to because the main characters were like brothers. Then I did Joy Ride; I liked the fact that there was these two brothers as the main characters. Also I had met Steve Zahn when I was casting Rounders and I thought he was really interesting then I had heard that he was interested in Joy Ride. So it was a way for me to work with him and to try that similar relationship between these two people, but instead of being just good friends they were brothers.

Road movies a fun genre.

No Miramax came to me. They were the ones who wanted to make the film. So it was kind of unique in that respect.

Right. Actually Harvey had met my Dad so maybe that had something to do with their decision. But I liked the script. There was kind of a competing project at the time because Ghost Soldiers [the book The Great Raid is partially based on] had actually been optioned. Universal had Ghost Soldiers and was developing that and I think Miramax was in kind of a footrace with them to get their movie made first.

Then ABC was going to make it as a miniseries and then the producer pointed out to Miramax, “Doesn’t Disney own Miramax and ABC? So why are you guys going to make a movie that competes with the feature film?” Ultimately, Miramax optioned the whole project.

I remember when I was 21; my Dad took me out for lunch and said, “When I was 21, I was in a foxhole in the Philippines.” I realized my father had seen a lot of ugly combat. My brother-in-law, who is a Vietnam veteran, realized that my father had been written up to receive a Bronze Star but never bothered to get it. So he wrote a letter to a congressman and they awarded him his Bronze Star. I always wondered why I never heard these things but over the course of the last 15 years or so, he’s been starting to tell a few more stories about the war.

There’s a great part of my Dad’s story. They used to have this buddy system in the army so if you were from Montana they’d find another guy from Montana and you’d be in the service together. My Dad joined with these two other guys and they went through boot camp and everything and at the end of boot camp they realized my Dad needed eyeglasses. So they sent his two friends off to Europe and his friend was in the Battle of the Bulge for like one day and got captured and spent the rest of the war in a German camp. My Dad went through boot camp again and they put him into a unit with a bunch of guys from South Carolina and the one guy from Montana was a Native American. Some of the South Carolina men liked the Native American and some of them had like very derogatory names for the guy, but he was my Dad’s friend. They ended up in a foxhole one night in the Philippines and they were being bombed all around and my Dad woke up the next morning and his friend had been hit with a piece of shrapnel and died. In a strange way I was given this unique opportunity to tell the story about the Philippines and the war.

Well growing up with a father that was a World War II veteran and being immersed in it made this seem like a great opportunity to explore an area and be given the license to expand upon it. I guess I felt privileged to be able to help tell these guys’ stories.

Probably. I’m from Montana and I admire those kinds of guys. I like tough guy movies. But I’m a wimpy guy that went to art school so how tough can I be? What kind of tough guy truly goes into filmmaking?

Is he a tough guy?

I never joined a frat.

New York is lousy with them.

No, there’s a lot of tough guys in New York. Go to Brooklyn.

You have to get people to cooperate with you though. It takes a lot of cooperation to get a movie made so it requires a group effort. I don’t think yelling and screaming at people really inspires much confidence.

The thing is even if you’re scared to death you have to make it seem like you know what you’re doing. Actors can be pretty tough. If they smell any sort of insecurity, you’re dead. So you have to walk onto the set and at least look like you know what you’re doing. It’s very important.

I never heard it put that way, but that’s an excellent one. The important thing is to make everybody feel like it’s their idea. Whatever they’re doing, it’s their idea.

That’s the main thing. The actor has to know what the part is and then feel as though they’re voice is being heard, they’re being respected and that they’re contributing their part of the process. Creative people don’t really like to be told what to do. They like to come up with solutions to problems.

I hope so but I guess I’m not really aware of what I’m doing. I think it can be a danger to read your own press. I know what I like and I don’t like so I try not to lose sight of that.

Not really. That was sort of my science fiction doppelganger movie. I like mad scientist movies and I probably intended it to be funnier than it was. Ray Liotta is a very serious guy and whatever subtlety that was in the humor was lost on Ray. Which is ok, I can’t really blame Ray, but I imagined it as funnier. Steve Zahn would be right for that movie, but I think that also someone like Nicolas Cage is great because he’s got like a sense of humor about himself that I think comes across in film.

Casting. When I did Rounders, I knew Matt Damon was going to play the part of Mike McDermott but at that point there wasn’t much film on him. I saw one scene from Good Will Hunting. Casting is important. I like the cast of Rounders, Joy Ride and now The Great Raid.

I’m actually working on one with FX but I don’t know if it will ever happen. It’s called El Centro and I’m working on it with Donal Logue. El Centro is a town right next to the California/Mexico border. Donal grew up in El Centro and he plays a local sheriff in this border town right across from Mexicali. It’s kind of a Southern California noir.

Both.

No we’re still writing the script. With television they’ll develop tons of pilots, and then they’ll shoot the pilots, so it’s kind of a long way off.

Yes and that’s the great thing about FX. There’s plenty of room for sex and violence. Some of the stuff they do on The Shield is shocking and Nip/Tuck that’s a great show.

I’m like you. See, I’m a real tough guy. A little blood and I’m nauseous.

Do you remember All That Jazz where they have that open heart surgery? I almost passed out during that. I think women can tolerate that more than men.

Stuff they don’t know what to do with.

I think that Miramax has been kind of conflicted and not really known where to put this film. The movie certainly could be more exciting. I just couldn’t see a way for me to sort of detach myself from the historical events. It’s unusual in that I felt obligated to the history of the event.

Yeah. At one point I even took out the whole Connie Nielsen story and looked at the movie that way. It didn’t work because it wasn’t really designed like that. It needed that part of the story. Otherwise you didn’t have some of those beats that you needed in other parts. It was very complicated to do. I have a lot of respect for people that successfully make movies that have three different stories in it. It was really hard to do.

I think the movie was designed to sort of be action movie because it’s 12 guys on a rescue mission. It probably doesn’t fit into an Oscar film and it doesn’t fit into an action film. So it ends up being this kind of weird hybrid and I think that’s where it’s kind of a harder sell for them.

I had a deal with them, but this movie took so long to make that my deal’s lapsed so I don’t have to make one.

Sure, you never say never.

No, I’ve got this one script that’s about a bank heist that goes wrong. These guys rob a bank and then end up in Mexico. Also I’ve got a Vietnam movie I’d like to make, but that’s going to probably be a pretty tough sell. I’m still developing that script.

I get a lot of Joy Ride type stuff.

Exactly. If I found a good one I’d do it but I just haven’t found one that I like. Actually I’d love to do a comedy; I just think that people don’t think of me as doing a comedy.

More people talk to me now about Rounders because poker has become such a big deal.

When we were making it I thought people would be really upset with the way that Linda’s character was portrayed in the movie. Linda loved playing the part and didn’t really care. I think we were both surprised at how well people responded to the movie and liked her character. I remember when I finished reading the script, I thought “You know what; I’d like to see the car driving away down Broadway, and just get broadsided by a garbage truck and have her die a miserable death.”

I was surprised at how many women responded to her as a positive female role model. I thought women would be offended. In fact, I know this one producer who said, “I just want to thank you for making a movie that the name Bridget cool.”

by Daniel Robert Epstein

SG Username: AndersWolleck