Street Kings Q&A!

What are the changes between the
version Keanu Reeves brought to you and the version we just saw?

David Ayer: Well the script has taken
quite a revolution. Obviously it was originally a James Ellroy script which
took place in 1996 around the time of the OJ [Simpson] verdicts. It sort of
focused on Tom Ludlow as a Mark Fuhrman-esk kind of
character. Over the evolution as it passed through various writers, the
version Keanu showed up attached to everyone agreed was a blueprint for the
film. This version there’s not a lot different. The
Biggs office confrontation scene was a new addition. The girlfriend was a
reporter and she became a nurse in this case. There were some adjustments,
but basically the form of the movie was there.

Did you see Keanu’s character as a
bad cop or someone who did bad things because that’s what he had to do in
order to get the job done?

The whole concept of good cop/ bad cop
really depends on how you see it. To Internal Affairs or a senior police
administrator, a bad cop is anyone who doesn’t follow the
regulations. To his brother officers, a hard charging possibly violent cop
who gets the job done no matter what is seen as a asset. It’s seen as a
positive. So it’s really sort of the management street cop divide in LAPD.
It really depends what side of that you’re on. Policing requires a certain
flexibility because you’re given obviously laws and books and regulations
that you have to follow, but you’re dealing with real people in real
situations so there’s always room for interpretation.

You’ve come back to criminals and
Los Angeles a number of times now. What keeps bringing you back to the
street level of crime theme?

It was exciting to do this particular
project. One thing you have to realize is that when you’re in a career in
Hollywood it’s not like you’re walking into Hometown Buffet and you pick
from a variety of projects laying out before you. When this project came
along, I really wanted to get back on set. I had a great experience
directing “Harsh Times” and a brutal distribution experience, but
that aside. Here comes Keanu Reeves with a script that’s pretty close
to camera ready in an arena I’m really familiar with. You’ve got to keep in
mind this is my first studio movie as a director so I’m not going to get
hired to do a romantic comedy [and] I’m not going to get hired to do a
summer tentpole. That’s just the reality of the business. So here’s a
wonderful opportunity in a city I know, in a world I know with characters I
know and it afforded me the opportunity as a director to not have to focus
on the world, but to focus on developing performance.

What about the city itself. You keep
coming back to LA instead of Chicago or New York.

Well I’m from Los Angeles so it’s where
I grew up. I grew up just south of downtown. I know these neighborhoods. My
wife is from here. I went to high school here. I know these streets. I know
LA east of La Brea. This part of town I’m kind of
uncomfortable in. Let’s say a director is from New York and decides to focus
on New York and sets that as his backdrop, [that’s] perfectly acceptable.
But when you do that in LA, there’s a little conceit
there. It’s like, “Hey what’s with LA?” It’s a city I know and
love.

Has James Ellroy seen the film?

Yes, Mr. Ellroy has seen the film and
he’s really happy with it. Obviously it diversed significantly from
his original vision. The basic plot is his which is a broken down detective
in a specialized unit discovers that his boss is the center of evil of the
universe which is a pretty standard James Ellroy plot.

How difficult was it getting a
former police chief to do a cameo considering the film is about rogue cops?

As far as getting Chief Gates in the
film, I have to credit that to Mary Vernieu who cast the movie up [and] who
is a brilliant casting person. She’s like,” Oh yes Bill Gates.” We
googled him and found out that he had a talent rep. We
contacted him and sent him the script. There was a long period of
silence then he showed up on set one day. I asked him, “Why did you
decide to do the film?” and he said he read the
script, thought about it and realized that at the core of the story was
redemption and he can understand that.

In the film, Keanu’s character
drinks a lot and he seems to have a lot of character flaws, we don’t really
see those flaws have a negative impact on someone else. Were there scenes of
repercussions that got cut out or what that a conscious decision to make him
more untouchable?

He takes a slug to the shoulder and
gets hit in the leg. He’s a high function alcoholic. Unfortunately real life
isn’t like the movies and people can’t get away with a severe problem of
drinking for years. It is a problem in law enforcement and it is a
problem with the police force. It’s a problem with a lot of professions.

Was there any thought to having his
character be a little more morally grey?

It’s an interesting character because
he kills people. He’s basically conducting extra judicial executions. He’s
out there dumping people and not giving them the opportunity to a
trial.

But in movie terms, these are
horrible people. It seems like a cinematic convention that in none of these
houses, no one has kids, wives, unarmed people. The guy in the john doesn’t
have a gun on him right then.

He does later. I do have to create a
reality and I do have to be conscious of those things. Let’s say the
shootout in the beginning, there were little kids running around aside
from the victims in the cage. Then how much would we
like him if he was exposing innocent people to danger. I’m already walking a
fine line with this character and that’s why Keanu was so crucial to making
this film work is he is a very likable person. He’s a good guy. This is
really casting his type. To have him expose innocence to danger would sort
of dispel the illusion of him as a sort of justice or whatever righteousness
he may have by attacking the bad guys.

How willing is the LAPD willing to
work with you on your projects in this post Rampart era?

Well first of all, you’ve got to
realize that everyone loves a good cop movie especially cops and there is
the official department one which is you’re supposed to approach public
affairs and get whatever resources and affairs you need. Everything we need
is basically off the shelf. We did use the actual LAPD Emerald Society Honor
Guard in the funeral sequence. I had some really high caliber technical
advisers who are former LAPD officers and I was able to get a lot of sort of
inside support you could say unofficially to get things
right like mug shoots and paperwork and sort of the mundane of police work.
The individual officers love this stuff. They have a great time. on set and
they like to see the professionalism of a film crew. I
think everyone is sort of able to separate out that this is a movie and it’s
a work of fiction.

So how intense was this for you for
your first studio film that you direct? I think I heard you say
forty-three days for the shoot. There had to have been some mishaps
that went on. Can you talk about that and some of the things, not the
things that fell apart, but there had to be a lot of intensity for you with
this kind of film and the caliber of the cast that you had?

Well no matter how much you play, you
can’t play for every circumstance. We had some incredibly long days
and time really became the enemy. And you know, my previous film was a
twenty-one day shoot and somehow we managed to do it all. So to me,
the longer schedule seemed luxurious, I’m like, ‘I can do that.’
Well, I didn’t know what I was in for, I had a lot of stunts, fighting, squib
work, all sorts of stuff which really slows you down. There was
some ridiculously long days. The funeral we did, we shot that location
out, the funeral and two walk and talk scenes, one ended up in the movie one
didn’t. And then the company moved to downtown LA and shot two more
interior scenes. And that was about a twenty hour day… our second
longest day. You just sort of have to power through under those
circumstances and you have to be flexible. There are certain
situations where, at three a.m. I’m told, ‘hey, you get a helicopter the
next day.’, I had no idea. So the next thing I know, ten hours later
I’m in a helicopter shooting over downtown LA. But, I mean, how did
I feel? I was terrified. I was absolutely terrified. But
then you show up on set and everyone’s looking at you for guidance.
You’re the leader, you have the vision, you can’t show it. And
once you get sort of into the stream of the decision making and the work,
the butterflies go away. You know, is it fear or anticipation?
It’s just how you interpret the feeling.

You have a lot of experience as a
writer, and now working as a director. Were there a lot of times when
working with the script where you thought, ‘Oh, I would’ve wrote that
differently. I wish I could have changed that.’?

Well when I came on board, Jamie Moss
had been attached and he was working with Keanu Reeves. And I was able
to work with him to really sort of, get the script into shape. And
then when it came time to fine-tuning the dialogue for the individual
actors, I just kind of went for it. There were days I’d show up on
set, I’d write, shoot, go to lunch, write, rap, write a little more, get the
pages over to the studio to get approval for tomorrows shoot. So it
was double duty and it was pretty intense.

Did you specifically intend to have
it all be in the really seedy parts of Los Angeles that you never see on a
travel brochure, or was that just a byproduct of the script itself?

It’s interesting, I think I sort of
moved the script more into these seedy neighborhoods. These are the
areas I grew up in and so I sort of see it with a different eye. These
are areas that I’m comfortable in. And if you notice, the look of
the film is not a desaturated, bleached out look. It’s a very
rich, thick, saturated negative, very high contrast, but very detail colored
saturation. So when I think of these neighborhoods, that’s what I
think, I think of bright clothes, I think of families, I think of little
kids, I think of the brightly painted store fronts, and the green palm
trees. And that’s the LA I wanted to reflect in this film. The
skies are very blue and the palms are very green. But it’s been one
end of the actual neighborhoods, one of these practical neighborhoods that
has absolutely no problems. We were utterly welcome. We were an
open set. You know, we’re down shooting on Vernon for a week, and at
night, and had no problems once so ever. You know, people are walking
through, little kids are playing with the equipment. You know, people
treat you the way you treat them.

After “Law and Order” and “The
Wire”, the audience probably thinks they know how police investigations
work. How much attention do you pay to the realism of the procedural
aspects versus the action and the thrills and stuff like that? How do
you balance that?

Well it is sort of a dance. What
you have to realize in this case is, these guys are conducting an impromptu,
sort of, off-the-books investigation. They’re solving a crime they
are not supposed to be solving. But a lot of the specific detail is
absolutely accurate. You know, the little ballistics envelopes, we got
those from the coroners office. So it was shot in the coroners office
for that morgue scene. We did detailed, photographic studies of
robbery/homicide in LAPD. We got from somewhere, copies of their
actual documents and copied them and used those in the film. And plus,
with our consultants and advisors, we went to great lengths to sort of,
portray the reality of policing and the mechanics of it as accurately as
possible. Because my whole thing is, I don’t want a cop watching
this movie rolling his eyes.

What was your favorites scene and
why?

I’d have to say probably the funeral scene.
You know there was something, we had three hundred and fifty extras that
day, and it had a scale to it that I hadn’t dealt with as a director before.
But there was something about having Chief Gates there, and the flag, the
coffin, the bagpipes. In my mind, it cements a gravity for police
work. It really gave me an empathy and a sympathy for the dangers they
undertake. And it also really helped the actors. After that day
the actors were really more, I think, conscious about the world that they
were inhabiting.

How was Hugh Laurie cast in the
film? It seemed to be an unusual casting choice?

Absolutely. We wanted, you know,
Biggs is the classic sort of secret policeman. He’s sort of the
bureaucrat who works in the shadows and pulls the strings. And Hugh
has, you know, first of all, I’m like, ‘you gotta shave’’
[Laughing]. But Huge brings a, by his nature and his familiarity as
““House”, brings a certain levity to the film, you know. And so
with Keanu, we get it with Cedric [The Entertainer], we get it with Terry
Crews, you cast people who bring that. They can bring that, I don’t
want to say fun, but they help sort of lighten up the palette a little bit.
It was really interesting working with Hugh because obviously he has a thick
British accent, and he likened acting with an accent, an American accent to
playing tennis with a fish [Laughing]. He has to focus more than the
other actors on the stage. But Hugh is a very gracious guy. He
gave us a lot of time and worked with our consultants, asked a lot of good
questions and did a lot of rehearsal. A lot of rehearsal went in here,
it may not seem like it, it might seem like it’s ad-libbed or sort of on
the cuff, but it’s all scripted and all very detailed and executed.

Before the film, Mr. Reeves said to
you, that you said some things that people couldn’t believe you said.
What were they along the lines of?

That I’d said some things?

Yeah, when you went to talk to the
studio about directing the film and apparently during the course of
directing.

Well, there is a lot of language, there
are a lot of “F-bombs”, these are things that make studios
uncomfortable.

Well once you have the R, are they
still uncomfortable?

Absolutely. You know, you don’t
want to go overboard with it, so they’re always conscious of these issues.

It seems like you could possibly bring
some of these characters back. Has there been any talk, anyone coming
at you like the studio and mentioned a sequel?

Well it’s… you’re not the first
person to bring that up. I’ve heard it from the studio side. I
think a prequel is actually pretty interesting. Which is, what got
these people into this situation. It may sound corny but, 99.9% of
people get into law enforcement because they want to help people. And
so you take that, bright eyed-bushy tailed rookie, and how does he become
the Tom Ludlow.

What was the most difficult
scene to shoot for you?

The Fremont and Cooks shootout. That
was a stage and you know, we had the fish tank, we had the shark rotting
[Laughing], we had squibs going off everywhere. Multiple cameras,
multiple angles and you know, it was storyboarded and pointed out, yet once
you’re going, once the train is moving… as a director, you’re holding
this giant jigsaw puzzle in your head. And just the meticulousness.
It took about a week to shoot all that. The shootout is just drudgery,
as you’re going through it. And I’m seeing the dailies, I look on
the monitor and I’m seeing playback. It’s like I knew I had
something special there. I was able to capture a tension and I knew it would
cut together well. But getting it in the can was tough. We’re
shooting in the wide open, which means there’s no depth of focus, so if an
actor misses his mark, or anything like that. So its trusting the
camera operator, focus puller, actor, F/X guy and everybody has to basically
hit their mark and make it work all at the same time, otherwise you blow the
shot.

That shark was genius. Was that your
idea or was it in the script?

No, it was a set design idea.
You know, these guys, they’re substance abusers [Laughing] and they owe
money, and they’re probably impulse buyers [Laughing].

What would you most like us to ask
you about this film? [Laughing]

I don’t know if I could top these
questions [Laughing]. You know, about Keanu…… I think the gem in
all of this, and the surprise in all of this is really his performance and I
hope you guys can recognize that. That he really, as an actor, went
into some courageous places. You know, he could have easily played it
safe. He made some really strong choices and we haven’t seen
him as a guy like this before.

Let me know what you think. Send
questions and/or comments to [email protected].