INT: Departed 2/2

Part 2 of 2
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here to read part 1

It really doesn’t
get much better than this!! Subsequent
to my invitation and immediate acceptance to attend THE press
conference of the year (as well as the fun red carpet, see that
video HERE), I
was ecstatic (and a little delirious) with the anticipation of
meeting the genius director of such mega hit films as TAXI DRIVER,
GOODFELLAS, MEAN STREETS, CASINO and many, many more.
Based on the successful 2002 Hong Kong crime thriller
INFERNAL AFFAIRS, Scorsese’s upcoming film THE
DEPARTED is an adaptation of that script.
No stranger to the gangster genre, Scorsese performs his
magic once again behind the scenes but this time illuminating and
entertaining the story of the Irish mob domination and infiltration
in south Boston from the early 1970’s on.

With a film this
big and Scorsese’s name attached to it, you can bet the caliber of
players will be pretty extraordinary…and THAT it is! Some of
Hollywood’s ultimate megastars, Jack Nicholson, Leonardo DiCaprio,
Matt Damon, Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen and Alec Baldwin joined
forces to create yet another Marty classic. The best part of it all?
I had the pleasure of meeting two more hotties that I added
to my ever-growing list!

Matt Damon is
refreshingly witty and charismatic with a megawatt smile. Having
gained fame and acclaim for his film GOOD WILL HUNTING (co-written
with best male friend Ben Affleck), he puts on another outstanding
performance as bad cop Colin in this film!

Leonardo DiCaprio
on the other hand is absolutely adorable! Ok, so I squirmed a little
at the prospect of meeting him, but I he didn’t let me down!
Much taller than I anticipated, DiCaprio has an irresistible
boyish charm. He is also
incredibly talented and takes on the challenging role of Billy, a
good cop assigned undercover in the Irish underworld.

Although
disappointingly but not surprisingly absent at the press conference,
Jack Nicholson deserves great recognition as well for captivating
audiences once again with his entertaining performance as mob boss
Frank Costello.

Check out what
Martin Scorsese, Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Vera Farmiga (the
envy of many girls) and screenwriter Bill Monahan had to say when I
had the great pleasure of sitting down with them recently to discuss
their experiences and adventures in making this film.

Are
the actors here familiar with the Hong Kong film or the names Tony
Leung and Andrew Lau?

LD:
Yeah I mean we all watched it and we all enjoyed the film but
we had to separate ourselves from it to a certain extent.
Certainly the construct and the skeleton of the story is
pretty much, well, it’s a very similar version but it’s dealing
with an entirely different underworld.
It’s dealing with Irish-Americans in Boston and we watched
it very early on but we also had to forget a lot of those elements
because we knew that we had to invent an entirely different film.

MD:
Yeah, I just echo what Leo said.
I loved the Hong Kong film.
I thought it was fantastic and I loved those Hong Kong actors
but it’s such a different culture.
Boston is different even from any city here in America so
it’s very specific. The
structure was used form the Hong Kong version but the world that
Bill built around it was a very specific Boston.

VF:
For me, I didn’t see the film and I only say if after my
work was complete. I
hear that it’s a compilation of three female characters, which
would have been altogether confusing for me and I think Madolyn was
going to be used in an entirely different way in this script to
really illustrate the differences and the similarities of these two
characters. So I just
read from the script.

Could
Matt and Leo talk about working opposite Jack Nicholson in this
film?

MD:
We have a lot of Jack Stories.
The first day I worked with him, he had been working with Leo
for about a week and so I had the week off and I came back and
it’s Sunday night and I’m looking over the script and I get a
phone call. Hi Matt?
Marty. Hi Marty,
the director. I love
that he always says it’s Marty the director.
I said yeah, I know who you are.
He said, well a funny thing had happened.
Jack had some ideas for you scene tomorrow.
We are shooting a scene in a movie theatre and he goes, ok
I’ll just get to it.

Jack’s going to
wear a dildo and so it thought, ok I’ll see you at seven?
So we went in the next day and rehearsed it you know. And
Jack’s idea was like ok, I’m going to come in, I’m going to
sit there in an overcoat, and then I’m going to pull out the big
dildo and we’re going to laugh.
I thought, ok that’s a good really good way to get into the
scene, you know. Jack
really brought this incredible new element to the character.
Kind of obscene. No
really, but I mean in a way that felt authentic.
It felt like these guys would sublimate sex into violence and
violence into sex and it really is how a lot of things did occur. I
don’t know how much research he did or how much he just intuited or
what his process was exactly, but I found him really committed to
making the thing as believable and pushing the envelope as much as
he could. He really did.

I
mean, I’m sure there’s a lot of stuff that I’m sure didn’t make the
final version because as he said, I want to keep giving too much in
all of these scenes and then let Marty figure out, the level that’s
right for his film and that was just really impressive just to see
how much he was thinking about it, how much work he was putting it
into it, and how obscene he was willing to be in order to be again
believable. I said to Martin as this was happening, I’d shot for
about a month, but I’d spent months in all the police stuff and Vera
and I hadn’t worked together yet except for one quick scene when we
first meet.

And
I said, if he’s introducing this sexual element into this, then it’s
fair game in the script and we have to reference it from Colin’s
standpoint. So what would the effect be on Colin from this figure
whose this loomed over in his entire life and who knows what’s
happened between them. So
we got into all these conversations and then with Vera, we started
rehearsing this stuff and basically what it came down to, what I
said to Marty was that okay we’re in this macho world, and
everyone’s beating each other up. And everyone’s knocking each other
over the head with glasses and pushing each other through walls and
Jack’s, his sexual dynamo, I want to lose every fight I’m in and I
don’t want my dick to work. I want to take an aggressive run in the
other direction.

MS:
Because you can see it
in the final touches as Jack’s leaving the mark on Matt’s shoulder
and you can see it on the expression in his face. He sort of recoils
from him. That’s interesting so we started following that up.

MD: Then
that scene with Alec Baldwin where he says, we’re at the golf
course, he says, “a woman sees a ring on a guy’s finger and she
knows he’s got a certain amount of money and his cock works”, and
so we just thought the line, “you know, my cock works”, and he
looks at me and he goes, “all the time”, and then Alec goes,
that’s good. So we just started to talk about that and it really did
seem to thematically fit with what Jack was doing and it became and
it just kind of deepened the whole thing. Yeah, it was the obscene
phone call too. I mean, Bill always had that. Bill had him
threatening me while she was watching me, but the language that Jack
and Jack really said, “look if we’re gonna do this, let’s really
do this. “And the way he talks to me about her while she’s right
there, it’s really obscene…… and real, and again that’s with
Martin that’s the root of all of it. That authenticity.

LD:
Well, as far as Jack was concerned, we kind of expected the
unexpected. You know. We knew that if he was going to come, to have
Jack Nicholson join up with Martin Scorsese and play a gangster is
something that I think a lot of movie fans have been waiting for.
For me, there were a number of different scenes where I had no idea
what was going to happen. One scene in particular, the prop guy sort
of, we did the scene one way, and I remember Jack speaking to Marty
because he said he didn’t feel that he was intimidating enough.

It
was one of the table scenes, yeah, it was one of the most memorable
moments of my life as far as being an actor is concerned. I remember
coming into the scene one way and then I came in the next day and
the prop guy told me, be careful he’s got a fire extinguisher, a
gun, some matches, and a bottle of whiskey.
Ok. So, you know, some things are in the film that he did
that day and some things aren’t. But for me, as an actor, it wasn’t
necessarily, I’m afraid, you know, we’re all professional actors and
we’re all playing roles, but for me playing this character of this
guy that has to relay to the audience this constant 24 hour panic
attack that I’m going through for my life, surrounded by people that
would literally blow my head off if I gave them any indication of
who I was, coupled with the fact that I’m sitting across the table
from a homicidal maniac that will maybe light me on fire.

But
it gives you I don’t want to say as an actor a sense of fear, but as
a character a whole new dynamic. And it completely altered and
shifted the scene in a completely different direction and I think we
all knew that if he came on board that he would have to sort of grab
the reigns with this character and let him be freeform and we all
were completely sort of ready for that every day that we walked up
on the set. You know, he had a short run, he filmed his scenes and
then he left, but those were some of the most intense moments of the
film for me certainly. And
as a human being, as a person, they were some memories that I will
never forget.

DiCaprio,
what is it about Scorsese as a director and a person that attracts
you to his films?

LD: Well, I’m a fan
of his work, number one. I remember, well, truth is I suppose for me
anyway that it all started wanting to work with him doing This Boy’s
Life with Robert DeNiro and getting sort of familiar with Robert
DeNiro’s work and obviously that means Martin Scorsese’s work as
well. So I became a fan of his work at a very early age. If you
asked me who I wanted to work with starting out in the business, it
would have been this guy right here, and I got fortunate enough to
work with him on Gangs of New York in 2000.

And I think just from there, we, I don’t have an exciting
term for it other than we have a good time working together and we
have similar tastes as far as the films we like. He certainly has
broadened my spectrum as far as films that are out there in the
history of cinema and the importance of cinema. And it really
brought me to different levels as an actor. I look at him as a
mentor.

Marty,
Vera has a unique position in this cast of men. What drew you to
her? And then I want all of you to talk about that dynamic.

MS: Ellen Lewis, our casting director, mentioned
Vera to me and then I saw a clip of a film she did called Down to
the Bone, and I said I can’t tell anything from a clip because often
these clips are sent to you, it looks like the images from the guys
around 1968-1969 when they landed on the moon. The reception was
better there. Somehow I said, I can’t see their faces and I said I
really should see the whole film and I took it.
It looked like an interesting film so I had a very good
experience watching that film. And then I heard about the process of
how they worked on that film or that series of films that they’re
working on up there in upstate New York and it really reminded me of
the early days of Estelle Getty’s working in New York, 1958, 1959,
1960, making independent working, rewriting, revising, whatever,
with actors, with the people, with the real people behind it.

And I thought this was interesting for a person
to pursue and then you got to put yourself on tape. Right? You put
yourself on tape during the earlier scenes with Colin and I liked
that and the next thing we do is we come in and meet and then, I
think you read with Leo and I was sold. I like Vera’s attitude. I
wanted someone to come in and enrich the part with Bill, with the
actors, whatever, and again that’s part of the process. It comes
just as Matt announcing stuff, just giving you an idea of how you
get from there to there, that was just one day.

But it’s just one day. So each day on a good day
there were five or six of those things happening. And so this also,
you know, the worlds that I depict in these films that Bill wrote,
it’s male-driven, the action is male-driven, so usually the female
characters are the dangers and I don’t know if it’s not, but I feel
ok. So I’ve taken it down the line to the very, very last minute of
working on this film so that I could get it right within the
circumstances and everything we tried for the past year.
The female characters always seem to be adjuncts in a way to
the main plotlines and developing the characters in the picture with
Bill and the actors. We
wanted someone like Vera who was able to come in and tell them what
to do or Bill or any of you guys.

MD:
Well
yeah, I think Marty’s right about a male-driven film and where the
female lead is often doing things that, you know, it’s like when
you’re a young character actor and you have to do things that make
no sense so that the lead of the film can look better.
But if you hire a great actor or a great actress to take a
role, they can make everything work and in our rehearsing it, it
really made sense.

I
mean our relationship got a lot deeper and it made a lot more sense
thematically because now you’ve got a guy who’s got sexual issues
with this woman who, of course, she’s a shrink, of course he’s gonna
go to her and of course he’s gonna be with her because if he’s got
issues in his neighborhood. I
mean everyone’s going to know about it and so he seeks her out and
she of course would stay with him and tough it out because of what
she does. Her first instinct is to try to help him, I mean, granted,
a lot of these scenes would then happen off camera, but our
relationship works and makes sense.

Then
it makes sense why she would be susceptible to Billy’s attentions
because she is unfulfilled in certain ways. And so now the film is
going in all these new directions, so we felt like we caught a lucky
break when Jack introduced this element because it really gave us a
lot to play with and a lot to work on and it was real.

VF:
It truly was a collaborative process. I entered into this being
prepared to meet megawatts of talent and you expect there to be a
certain chasm between you and there wasn’t. These guys were so
nurturing and encouraging and inventive. We spent a lot of time the
four of us, Bill, Marty, Matt and I, and the process working with
Marty is he really brings you to bring your own tumults and your own
idiosyncrasies and it’s a real work shopping and there was a point
where we decided well, do we want to make her more unbalanced in the
film or do we want her as duplicitous as the rest of them?

And
I had met with a woman by the name of Debra Glasner who is a police
psychiatrist of the LAPD, who happens to be a woman, and she’s a cop
psychologist and I gave her the script and she looked at and goes,
oh, dear, no, she’s doing everything wrong. No way would she sleep
with a client. And that’s the moment that my character became really
interesting to me. And we started it from there. Talking about
whether this is a woman who is good at her job. But it was a true
collaboration, I mean we had a lot to do with improvising and
discarding and bringing things back.

Matt
and Leo, how did you come to appear in this film? Did you discuss
the similarities and differences of your roles? How did Brad Pitt
get involved?

MD:
Brad, Leo, and I were in a bathhouse together. I think the moment
these things are born, it’s an important, and I have to say what
happened. No, Brad came to me because his company had access and I
first heard about it through Brad. And it’s like the dream of all
dreams. “Hey, did you hear that Martin Scorsese is directing a
movie about Boston?” For me, that was it. Really? So and then I
got a copy of the script and loved it and when I came back to New
York, I met with Marty. But I think I had already agreed to do it.
Most of these things are contingent on a meeting, on both sides,
well we should meet and discuss the films. I wasn’t even trying to
be cool about it, “I’m in, so if he needs to meet with me, I’ll go
meet him wherever he wants.” So it was a really easy yes for me.

LD:
Well, no, I never had an initial conversation with Brad and I had
received the script and it was really, you know, Bill Monahan’s work
here, this tightly-woven, highly complex ensemble piece, this
gangster thriller, it’s very, very rare I must say in this business
where a script lands on your lap ready to go. And this was one of
those rare occurrences. There was a certain amount of work,
character development, taking things out, changing dialogue, but to
have the construct of the story there and really complex characters
there, duplicitous characters, information, disinformation, plot
twists, you know, all leading to a satisfying ending is something
that you hardly ever get to in this business. So I know I got the
script around when Marty got the script and we just talked to each
other and it was one of those things that we really didn’t need to
discuss. He really wanted to do it. I really wanted to do it. And
for a lack of a better term, the rest is history.

THE
DEPARTED opens on Friday, October 6th…