Double Oscar winner and multi Oscar nominee, Paul Haggis has brought us huge hit films such as ‘Million Dollar Baby’, ‘Crash’ and ‘Casino Royale’. As part of IFTN Master Series, he spoke with us about his latest film ‘The Next Three Days’, his move into film from TV and pitting Liam Neeson against Russell Crowe!
Paul Haggis was the first screenwriter to write two Oscar winning films back-to-back. The multi award winning filmmaker wrote ‘Million Dollar Baby’ in 2004 and followed it with 2005 hit, ‘Crash’, which he also directed. The former saw him win an Academy award for his screenplay whilst the latter brought him two additional statuettes from the Oscars - one for Best Picture and another for Best Original Screenplay.
Beginning his career in TV script writing, Paul started with shows such as ‘Scooby Doo’ and ‘Diff’rent Strokes’ and, over a period of two decades built up a CV featuring script, directing and producing credits for series such as ‘thirtysomething’, ‘The Tracey Ullman Show’ and (somewhat incorrectly) for ‘Walker Texas Ranger’: “I had a ten day contract with that show,” he explains. “I re-wrote the pilot and then never saw it again but it ran for ten years - and my name was on the damn thing for all that time!”
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Paul also created a show entitled ‘Family Law’, a project from which he was fired following creative differences with one of the cast lead actress. (“It wasn’t like a fistfight, just an argument,” Paul assures us) CBS backed the actress and Paul found himself out-ed from his own show. Following this he wrote ‘Million Dollar Baby’ and took a TV series he had been working on and adapted that to what became the critically acclaimed movie ‘Crash’. “Yes, I wrote both scripts,” he tells us. “And then no-one wanted them. I took them round to various studios and, after four years of trying I got a little bit of money to do ‘Crash’ and then Clint Eastwood said he wanted to direct ‘Million Dollar Baby’. But it did look hopeless for a long time.”
In 2006, Clint Eastwood directed two more of Haggis' screenplays, namely ‘Flags of our Fathers’ and ‘Letters from Two Jima’, the latter earning him his third screenplay Oscar nomination. He admires one thing in particular in Clint Eastwood’s approach: “He has surrounded himself with a team that he works with all the time,” we are told. “I’d always like to work with the same people too, I’m just not always able to. The only person who I have worked with on every single TV and movie project I’ve done is my production designer, Larry Bennett. He is really my rock and he has crawled so far into my brain that he always knows exactly what I want.”
One of the reason’s for Paul desire to hold on to the same team for each of his projects is an extreme dislike of prep work. (“I just get antsy and want to get things started!”) but his attitude changed somewhat with ‘The Next Three Days’ where he took the unusual step of scouting locations for the film before writing the screenplay. “It was a fabulous way to do it,” he says. “I needed to know the geography I was dealing with before I wrote a word. I needed a city where an escape was possible but where a natural solution wasn’t at hand. And Pittsburgh has the world’s biggest jail, and no-one has ever escaped from it so I thought ‘Yeah, that’ll be tough.’ And I knew we had to use Pittsburgh!”
In ‘The Next Three Days’, life seems perfect for John Brennan, played by Russell Crowe (A Beautiful Mind) until his wife, Lara, who is played by Elizabeth Banks (30 Rock) is arrested for a murder she says she didn't commit. Three years into her sentence Lara attempts suicide and, with the rejection of their final appeal John decides there is only one possible, bearable solution: to break his wife out of prison and to go on the run. The film is adapted from a French film called ‘Pour Elle’ by Fred Cavayé.
The film boasts a strong support cast with appearances from Irish-American actress Olivia Wilde (Tron: Legacy), Brian Dennehy (First Blood) and IFTA winner Liam Neeson (Kinsey) who paid a flying visit to the set: “He’s a friend of mine so I called him and asked him to do a scene in the movie as a favour,” Paul tells us. “He was shooting another movie on the other side of the country so he flew in for the day and flew out again that evening. To have an actor of that stature was brilliant for such a pivotal scene. We needed someone to sit opposite Russell Crowe and have an air of authority – that’s hard. Who can tell Russell Crowe what to do? Liam Neeson!”
One of the bigger challenges in the film, from the point of view of the writer, is keeping a balance between a long lead up to the escape attempt and the high octane action sequences at the end of the film, something which Paul was constantly aware of. “As Miles Davis once said, ‘It’s hard to play slow,” he reflects. “Audiences today truly want to see something jump out of the closet in the first three pages but I love the films in the 70s that took their time and made you care about the character.”
A quick look over Paul’s other film projects such as ‘Crash’, ‘Casino Royale’ and indeed ‘The Next Three Days’ belies a common trait – a love of the anti-hero. “Yes, I love the anti-hero character,” Paul admits. “I like the characters who have a long way to go and who, if they do something good, have to do it at a terrible price. Essentially when it comes to writing any project my goal is to examine the human condition. I love a mix of genres too - can weep at an episode of ‘The Simpsons’ and often do. And I think that’s so interesting!”
‘The Next Three Days’ is the first feature from Hwy61, the production company Paul
formed with his friend and producing partner Michael Nozik. He is currently developing a film called ‘Third Person’, a dark examination of three love stories which will be set in New York, London and Naples. “I’ll have to try and do it as a passion project again,” he tells us. “Meaning, it’ll have quite a tight budget. Something which Michael (Nozik) is pulling his hair out right now trying to work out how we’ll do it!”
Lionsgate’s ’The Next Three Days’ is currently on general Irish theatrical release. For film times please see local press.
