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| Jessica Chastain stars in Miss Sloane. Courtesy VVS Films |
Cinemablographer recently sat down with Madden, who was on hand for the Toronto
premiere of Miss Sloane, to discuss
his taut new thriller, the nightmare of American politics, the magic of Jessica
Chastain, and the lobbying game of awards campaigning.
PM: Pat Mullen, Cinemablographer
JM: John Madden
PM: You first worked with Jessica Chastain on The Debt quite early in her film career.
JM: Yes, very early!
PM: Did you imagine she’d be one of Hollywood’s top stars within a few
years?
JM: I did, but I don’t want to claim any
special insight. [Laughs] When you see that kind of talent, you just know where
that’s going to end up. There’s an awful lot of guff talked up to the “magic”
of somebody, but she’s exactly the same person she is on camera as she is
off-camera. This is not to say she’s anything like the character she portrays
in this film, but there’s no division in the way she behaves. She comes across
the camera so vividly.
PM: That’s true. She certainly seems to have that genuine sense of
character.
JM: The strange things is that with the first film I worked on with
her, for various reasons with the studio being closed down and the film moving
from one place to another, it came out two years after we made it.
PM: Right.
JM: During that whole time this body of work suddenly appeared!
[Laughs] She made, subsequently—except for Tree
of Life had been made before she did our film—The Help, Take Shelter,
Coriolanus, Texas Killing Fields.
Incredible work.
PM: Many, if not all you films, feature a female lead who is
unconventional, messy or just something we don’t see often in films—like Gwyneth
Paltrow’s psychologically complex mathematician in Proof, or Judi Dench as an elderly romantic lead in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel movies or
Diane Lane as the heroine of Killshot.
What draws you to these characters? Or is just coincidental?
JM: It’s both a coincidence and not a coincidence. I don’t sit down and
say, ‘This one has a strong unconventional female lead,’ but it’s a legitimate
observation. As I look back at all of I’ve done, it seems to be true of most
films. I think I’m just an admirer of women and I think they have it all in a
way that male characters don’t. Male characters sometimes struggle along and
try to get their egos under control. It’s more interesting watching what women
do, especially now watching women move into their natural destiny.
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| Jessica Chastain in Miss Sloane. Courtesy VVS Films |
PM: It’s interesting. I actually saw the film before the election and
then had to re-write the review after Hillary lost, but the film—I don’t want to
say it changed, but I think it gains an extra resonance.
JM: I think it does. I’ve been in North America during the whole
playing out of that and the result. It was quite bizarre watching that because,
in simple terms, we went for this period of time to release the film this year
because, not that we expected any major change on gun legislation, but we
wondered if we might find ourselves out of sync with the political environment
because it promised to be a very big topic. Of course, there was no policy
debate whatsoever. It turned into a slinging match and a dismaying descent into
the gutter. Paradoxically, what came out of that election process was a focus
on the political process itself and the politics of gender in ways that we
couldn’t have imagined. Obviously the film reflects back different things, but
it’s smack on target.
PM: Especially with the end-note about how rotten the whole system is.
JM: Exactly. It is. One wondered if it seemed slightly overstated when
we were doing that It could not
possibly seem overstated now. It’s like “the swamp” has risen up around the
film!
[Laughter.]
PM: Yes, that’s true.
JM: The concern is that there’s so much consternation, constipation,
and frustration about politics and what it has become and what it means. It’s worth
saying, though, that this film is unexpected in that it’s a thriller and a
study of an unusual character and those elements make it a surprising ride with
the topical circumstances.
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| Jessica Chastain and Gugu Mbatha-Raw star in Miss Sloane. Courtesy VVS Films |
JM: Yes, where we have the inalienable right to bear truncheons! [Laughs.]
It is a topic that is fascinating to us overseas. Until recently, police
weren’t allowed to carry weapons. It’s only in the post-terrorist world, and
even then, it’s only the “terrorist police”—so people at airports, guarding
political figures, and so forth. The idea that guns can be freely bought by
anybody in giant numbers—and we’re talking about semi-automatic weapons—at the
local Wal-Mart is so shocking and incompressible when you stand away from it. I
would accept and agree that most people outside it don’t understand the
constitutional significance of that right, but the fact that there is never any
legislative response to these horrible situations. It’s hard to imagine
something worse than Sandy Hook—first graders being mown down by a maniac with
a semi-automatic weapon. You think, “How is that right?” “How is there no appropriate
government response?” There’s a simple reason for that and the film makes it
pretty clear what that is. It’s to do with grotesque misapplication of special
interests and the falsification of the narrative.
PM: It’s always so interesting and troubling to see the difference in
coverage for shootings and gun-violence between here and the States.
JM: Yes.
PM: I like the way Miss Sloane
plays with the idea of the gunslinger with the way Miss Sloane uses her
Blackberry like a revolver and slings it in her holster. Was that something you
and Jessica worked out together?
JM: Yes. First of all, that tool is absolutely essential in that world.
It’s one of the places where the Blackberry obstinately exists. [Laughs.] Texts, email, and so for are the natural
media in Washington. However, it takes on a completely iconic significance
where in another world it might be a gun. In our case it also had to do with
multitasking. She’s working across multiple platforms at the same time,
responding to emails while barking orders at her crew. That aspect to her
character is very interesting.
PM: Yes, and that aspect of the film is one of its strengths. Liz
Sloane isn’t an instantly likable character—
JM: Far from it—
PM: But I found that I always respected her for how good she was at her
job. A lot like Meryl Streep in The Devil
Wears Prada.
JM: I think any young person would want to be on her team because she’s
an astonishing leader. There is a narrative that’s going on in which it’s hard
to perceive any signs of humanity in her because she’s refined herself as a
political machine who intends to win and who doesn’t give much thought to the
collateral damage she might create along the way. The film is ultimately the
reclamation of humanity and of principle and moral direction because she is to
some extent disintegrating throughout the course of the film.
PM: And we always hear about the power and influence that lobbyists
have, but we rarely hear about what they do. What sort of access to this world
did you have in pre-production?
JM: It’s true. I was in the same boat. I didn’t know much about this
other than the job description. I don’t think many people do. One knows that
it’s about advocacy and that’s interesting in the legal framework where we set
up our democratic institutions where one side argues for something and the
other side argues against it, and then we reach a conclusion. Unfortunately, in
Washington politics, lobbyists often represent special vested interests and
argue their positions, sometimes with unorthodox methods, to achieve their
goals. The corrupting influence is money. Too much of it, which has invaded the
political process so much that most politicians in the USA, it seems, are about
keeping themselves in office, but what they’re there to do, which is to respond
to laws for social needs, isn’t done. This is why people are frustrated.
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| Jessica Chastain in Miss Sloane. Courtesy VVS Films. |
JM: I think the main campaign for a film is to open as many avenues
into the film to develop an appetite for the film. That’s my main job—telling
that film’s story. Afterwards, when people start handicapping who’s in the race
and who isn’t, that’s a completely different ballgame that I’ve been in and
it’s mind-boggling. But we aren’t quite yet at that point. I take quite
seriously the idea of making the story seem enticing to people. It’s tricky
with this one because it’s a movie you don’t actually want to say too much
about the film.
PM: I can see how that would be difficult.
JM: Surprise is one of its main modes of communication and the MO of
the main character. But, clearly, Jessica’s performance is an outstanding
aspect to the film. She is the movie in the sense, although there’s an amazing
ensemble we should note. To be honest with you, the reason the movie is coming
out now is not so much for awards but to ensure that the conversation doesn’t
become stale. All you want to be at this point is in a conversation. If
something’s being talked about, then more people want to see it.
Miss Sloane opens in theatres on Friday, Dec. 9 from VVS Films.
