Ten years ago two young actors melted the hearts of millions with a tale of doomed love against a spectacular ocean liner disaster. In 2008, the two actors are back together again with yet another tale of ill-fated romance.
Everyone involved with the production has stated how different Revolutionary Road, which opens Christmas Day, is the complete opposite of Titanic. In a way this is true, it’s an intimate portrait of social mores impeding on the dreams of young lovers in the 50s as opposed to a CGI shipwreck that quite literally rips them apart. But it seems these two are destined never to live happily ever after.
What is evidenced from the very beginning is how both Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet have matured both as people and as actors. No longer snot-nosed brats throwing around their good looks and nobility, they have finally forged through the Hollywood vice and having become something quite rare these days: good actors.
Although Revolutionary Road will decidedly not pull in 600 million in it’s theatrical run, I think people will be pleasantly surprised at how touching and well crafted this film really is. I was pleasantly surprised myself.
I got a chance to sit in on the press conference.
Q: For Leo and Kate, this is obviously a movie about a troubled marriage. Would you say it’s because of a failure to communicate? And for Kate, we’ve got this end-of-year bounty with this and “The Reader,” and you seem to be competing against yourself in the awards races, for best actress or supporting actress. How do you feel about that?
Kate Winslet: I’ll answer the last part of your question first. I feel very proud of both of these films, and proud to be a part of them, and quite honestly, I don’t know how categorizing of actors even happens. I really truly don’t. It certainly has nothing to do with me, it’s incredible to be talked about in that way, and I can only hope that I can live up the expectation. I hope the work speaks for itself, and it’s my job to make myself available to support both these films equally. Now to the first part of the question, I think it’s a combination of different things, it’s an inability to communicate, or certainly more to do with the fact that they have forgotten to communicate with each other for some time, and it’s only when April turns around to him and says, “We can’t go on pretending that this is the life we wanted,” that they are both then truly forced to question exactly that. For April, it’s very clear that this isn’t the life she expected for herself, and Frank is then forced to question that too. And it’s at that point that they realize maybe they aren’t the people they were when they first met, they want different things from life. And April, ultimately, is so determined to find happiness; to feel something again other than what she has, that she’s prepared to risk anything in order to get that, which to me is a very heroic act, and not a cowardly one.
Leonardo DiCaprio: And my character, on the other hand, is very un-heroic and cowardly. (laughs) Which is the truth. Ultimately, he’s a product of his environment, he doesn’t have the courage to manifest any tangible change in his life. On the one hand, April is wanting to risk everything for a new opportunity, or to pursue the dreams that she once had of what she wanted her life to be, and ultimately my character is my father’s son – I want to conform to my environment. Is it about two people that don’t communicate enough? I don’t think that’s the truth. I think it’s about two people that are being forced apart, but are desperately trying to salvage their marriage and stay together. I think their trains on different courses. Ultimately, the façade of what Paris represented, the ideals of what Paris was to them, it was an opportunity that could or could not have resulted in something positive or tangible. But, I think they were people that were being forced apart by different intentions for what they wanted their lives to be.
KW: Also, I think Paris for April represents possibility, hope, change. And the notion that she might be forced to live a life without possibility is just the kiss of death, ultimately.
Q: Having famously worked together before (Titanic), where there any surprises this time around?
LD: Well, Kate and I remained close friends for many years. Since Titanic, I think we’ve been both actively looking for the right project to do. The fact that Sam was attached to this, the fact that this was a great piece of material and such a departure from what we’d done before – this wasn’t at all treading on similar territory, and we knew that that is a complete set-up for disaster, having done Titanic. We knew we needed to try something completely unique, it was just about finding that project. And this was something that Kate was shepherding for many years, and putting the pieces together, and I felt very fortunate to be chosen for it. As far as how Kate’s changed or not changed, I think that she’s always had that pursuit of excellence within the characters she plays – she’s got an unbelievable work ethic that she’s retained ever since I knew her in her early 20’s. She cares about the movie being great, and the other actors involved, and everything – that’s all still there. What has changed, since that movie, she’s done quite a bit of work, as have I, and we don’t approach the filmmaking experience quite the way we did in our early 20’s. We don’t look at the director or the producers involved as parental figures, which I feel is what we did in our teenage years – we were constantly looking for that guidance. We come into movies now as kind of equal pieces to the puzzle, and bring our own ideas for what the movie should be and, for lack of a better term, we’re more like “adults,” whatever that word means.
KW: Any major surprises? I think he’s nicer than he was (even if that’s possible); he’s funnier than he was (even if that’s possible); and he’s a better actor than he was (even if that’s possible). And quite honestly, playing Frank and April Wheeler, there was a surprise every day. I just loved so much playing some of the difficult scenes with Leo, knowing that because of the trust we have as two people having known each other for so long, that there were no boundaries; that was a real gift to have as two actors playing these parts. And to be able to do off-camera dialogue for him, and to have to stop myself from crying because I was seeing someone for whom I have so much respect doing things as an actor that I’ve never seen him do before, and morphing his face into positions that I’ve never seen him morph his face into before, as an actor or as a person. There were moments like that pretty much every single day.
Q: Was there one scene that stood out that was the most exciting or the most rewarding for you two?
LD: The most rewarding… Well you know, what was interesting about the way Sam set this whole film in motion was he really attacked it like he would a theatre production. He really realized it was an ensemble piece that depended so much on the actors, and listened to all of our different ideas endlessly in the rehearsal process. But then what we got to do was sort of live this tiny, microcosm of a life in a 4-month period in almost real time, it was bizarre because we shot the beginning sequences in the beginning, and there was so much unsaid throughout the first two-thirds of the film, so much pent up within these characters, that when the kettle sort of explodes at the end of the movie, all that stuff felt ultra-realistic because we were confined to this tiny suburban house for months at a time, and there was so much that our characters had wanted desperately to say to each other. So when those scenes finally happen, that was something I was really looking forward to, because I just felt, certainly doing it with Kate as well since there’s such a comfort level we have just being friends and knowing, like she said, that we have the best intentions for each other, so we can be brutally honest and brutally savage to each other onscreen and we trust each other in that regard, so that was the stuff I was looking most forward to, and I think it was fun, ultimately.
KW: For me, one of the most memorable scenes that we shot together was the breakfast scene at the end of the film, because I remember reading it on the page and thinking, “How the hell are we gonna get through this? How on earth are we gonna do this?” And everything about that scene took me by surprise, from the way that it was lit in that incredibly stark, beautiful, naked way; from the way that Sam really steered us through the very difficult emotions. Rhythmically, the scene is very delicate; and I remember feeling very strongly that Leo and I were very much in Sam’s hands when we were shooting that scene, because it was so difficult for us to have a kind of sixth sense of what we needed it to be. All we knew was that we had to be very honest about every word we were saying, and we just had to trust in Sam so completely, because emotionally it was just very difficult to get through.
Q: Kate, was your character a heroic figure? Leo, your character is such a tragic figure. Do you think he ever recovers? For any of you, for all of you, do you think the ’50s were as much a character in this film?
KW: I feel that April is a heroine. I didn’t feel she was a coward, neither did I feel she was suicidal, and I certainly didn’t think she was bipolar. But I do believe that this was a woman that was taken to an emotional brink in her pursuit of happiness, and I think it literally sent her mad, I really do. And in giving herself an abortion, I don’t think that she was intending to kill herself, but she knew that it was a very big risk, and there’s something incredibly courageous and stoic about that. And it’s a fine line, you know? It’s very difficult to translate those two things simultaneously.
LD: Where do I begin? I think what’s interesting about the novel and the way Yates writes all these characters is that the sympathy shifts constantly throughout the course of the book. Where you think Frank is sort of despicable for cheating on his wife at the beginning of the film, at the end of the film you realize that he’s the one trying to salvage the relationship. I just loved playing a character that just slightly fell short of his ambitions. I thought it was just a compelling thing to do. He just did not have the courage at the end of the day to follow through with the life he wanted. He would be happier conforming to his existence. At first, having read the novel and read the script, I thought the ’50s was a huge component. This was the era of prescription medication, and we’re moving to Levittown and the suburbs, and trying to have that symbolic American family existence drove a lot of people nuts. But I thought as much as that was a product of the movie, once we did the film a lot of that stripped away, and a lot of that became a backdrop to the emotional drama of these characters lives unraveling.
Q: Leo, you’ve done a lot of big movies with many famous directors, including Scorsese four times. What did Sam Mendes bring to the table as a director?
LD: He knows how to work with actors, that’s simply it. He’s kind of masterful at that. And he realized very early on that we’d all have questions about our characters, and the true intent of our characters, and he let us unleash a lot of that. We got to express all our doubts and disbeliefs of what our characters intentions were, and what we felt, and he listened to a lot of that, and asked us these very penetrating questions. Sometimes it’s jarring, when you’re in the middle of doing a scene and he says, “What do you think your character’s really doing this for?” and you have to stop and say, “Actually, I didn’t think of that. I have to admit you’re right… I should have an answer for that, but I don’t. Let me think of that answer.” That ability to question his actors in a very gentle way, it gives you all that subtext that you need. I could go on and on about it, but I think you get the picture.
Q: Michael Shannon and Kathy Bates, you come from a theater background as well, could you elaborate?
Michael Shannon: Yeah. My favorite story about it was Sam, during some of the takes ,would actually take notes like a theatre director. He would sit by the monitor, and he came over after one take and said, “Mike, I’ve got 8 notes. There’s eight things I want you to do. Can you remember them?” And I said, “Well, tell me the list.” And he told me all eight, and he said, “Can you remember them?” And I said, “No.” And I said, “Tell me again.” And he told me again, and we did the take, and he came back over and said, “I think you remembered all eight of them!” And I think that was probably my biggest sense of accomplishment (Laughs). On a serious note, I do think theatre directors tend to be more focused in character development, by and large. Not that Sam’s not paying attention to the visual component, but he’s definitely very grounded in character development.
Kathy Bates: I’ve said this before at the expense of ever working again, but I think he’s my favorite director. We had proper rehearsals where we got to sit around the table and talk to one another; we got to bring the elements of the book in, and bring things in that we lost, and take things out that we thought didn’t work. We really got to push it around like a piece of clay, and I think that was all due to Sam. He’s absolutely brilliant, he’s so articulate, and he really knows how to work with each of us, and how to make each of us feel we’re very special. I was just sure he was crazy about me, so he has that way about him of making you feel loved, and like you’re in a very safe environment where you can try anything and do your best for him. It’s been a long, long time since I felt that excited about coming to work, and a long, long time since I felt that satisfied about what I’d been able to accomplish in a film.
Q: What type of entertainment do you enjoy in your free time?
Sam Mendes: Should I just go down a list of things we TiVo every week? “America’s Got Talent,” “Dancing with the Stars,” “Gavin and Stacey,” “Pokemon” for my son, “Catherine Tate Show,” and the Premier League Review Show on Sky Sports News, which is English football. So yeah, those are the sort of things that I enjoy. For me, it takes a lot – particularly when I’m working – to go and watch another play or a movie. I’m confronted by my utter “averageness” when I watch a movie, and I think, “Oh, that’s just great. I can’t possibly make a movie as good as that!” So I do find it difficult watching a movie when I’m making a movie or a play when I’m making a play, so as that’s been the case the last 9 months I’ve been working, I haven’t seen anything at all, besides “America’s Got Talent.”
KW: My answer to that is, I’m actually not a huge movie buff. I love movies and I love watching movies, and I’m always very excited this time of year when all the screeners go out, because I know I just have weeks and weeks of evenings in watching inspiring work. But I dunno… Anything that’s entertaining, anything that’s moving, anything that’s thought-provoking; in movies, those are the things that I look for. And films that my friends are in, or films that my friends have made, quite frankly.
LD: I like movies…
SM: He really is a movie buff.
LD: I love theatre, and paintings are great and all that (laughs), but to me, the greatest artistic medium of our time is film. To me, there’s nothing else out there where I can suspend disbelief for two hours. If a film is good, and I’m able to absorb myself within that world and get lost, that is a pretty powerful tool. And there’s not many paintings out there that make me stare at it for hours at a time wondering where I am.
Q: Do you do a lot of private screenings, or watch Turner Classic Movies?
LD: I watch a lot of Turner Classic Movies, I do. But private screenings… I don’t have the old school reel-to-reel projector. I do have a big screen TV though, and a DVD player.
KB: Yeah, I watch Turner Channel… I have “Now, Voyager” TiVo-ed. And I also watch “Animal Planet,” and I watch “American Idol,” and I’m hooked on “Entourage” now since I missed the whole first five seasons. I’m kind of eclectic in my approach, but I’m always watching a lot of movies and watching performances. Sometimes I’ll go back and re-watch movies because I want to see it at a different time in my life when I’m feeling differently, and I just want to see that performance again.
MS: I don’t get to see much. I just had a kid recently, so I haven’t been going out much. But I’m obsessed with a show called “Dr. Katz” that used to be on Comedy Central. We have the whole thing on DVD, and I just keep watching it over-and-over again.
Q: Sam, you’ve directed some very intimate films. I was just wondering what attracts you to film projects, and what types of film projects will you be working on in the future?
SM: The thing that generally attracts me to film is the central character, or in this case the two of them. I find that I’ve been drawn to characters who are in some way lost and trying to find their way through life, and that’s been the case with all the films I’ve made. The strange thing is that my first movie was intimate, and this movie was intimate, and the movie I’ve made since this was also intimate, but the two movies I made in between I was much more concerned with style, and much more concerned with using the bells and whistles of moviemaking. And I found that weirdly I’ve been drawn back again to the sort of work that’s close to what I do in the theatre, and I’m enjoying it. Having spent so much time proving that my film work is totally different from my stage work, I feel now much less concerned with the different between the two, and less worried about making a point about that. As far as projects go, I’m developing this thing called “Preacher” which is based on a graphic novel. “Road to Perdition” was based on a graphic novel, and I’m a big fan of graphic novels as a genre. It’s something I was interested in before but the rights were gone, and they came up again, and I jumped on it. Beyond that, nothing, but I would like to do something on a bigger scale again, just for challenge.
Q: What was the film you just completed?
SM: It’s a movie called Away We Go, and it’s an original screenplay written by Dave Eggers, and his wife Vendela Vida. It’s John Krasinski, Maya Rudolph, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Catherine O’Hara, Jeff Daniels, Allison Janney; it’s a road movie, and it comes out in the summer.
Q: Could you talk about the plight of oppressed women in the days of “Revolutionary Road?”
KW: We should also share this question with Kathy. But, one of the things that was so touching to me and moving to me about April Wheeler was that this was a woman who seemed to me, like so many women of that time, whose interior world was so much bigger than her exterior world. I’m very different to her, and I had to find a way of understanding her and loving her, which I did and which I do, but it was not always easy. She’s a very complex and complicated women, who has no emotional outlets. I’m lucky, I get to express my passions and the spirited side of myself, and the strong-willed side of myself through the jobs that I do. I was so moved by April’s lack of emotional outlet, and it was just crushing to me, and it was very difficult to play. Frank and April, they do see themselves as being slightly more glamorous than everybody around them, and in many ways I think that that’s the one thing, actually, that’s kept April going, living this life that she’s really unhappy living. She’s somehow managed convinced herself that everything’s okay, because they’re not like the Campbell’s, they’re not like the Giving’s, they’re just a little bit better than everybody else. She goes to Frank, “We can’t go on pretending that this was the life we wanted,” and in many ways she’s incredibly brave, even to be able to admit that to herself. So many women were coasting along and living this lie because they simply had no other option, and as Leo said, prescription medication and sneaking beverages midday all began during that time.
KB: Thank you Kate, I guess my response would be a rather personal one, but I’ll share it with you. My mother was born in 1907, and my father was born in 1900, and I came to them very late in life – I was an unplanned pregnancy. My mother was 41 when she had me, and I think she came very close to making the same decision that April makes in the film, but then changed her mind, and I’ve been haunted by that all my life. I remember another moment when she was 76, sitting on the sofa after an argument with my father saying, “When do I get my turn?” To me, that’s what this film is about: when do you get your turn to live your dream? When do you give up that sense of duty and sense of obligation that you’ve been trained for, and when do you get to be the lawyer that you’ve always wanted to be? Instead, my mother poured everything into me, and I wish still that she could be here to share in some of the experiences that I’m having now, because I feel that in some strange way my coming along cheated her out of the life that she could have had. It’s getting kind of personal I guess, but it’s all to do with the book, and with the choices that we make, and the roads that we take and the ones that we don’t take.
SM: I just want to add something. In answering your question about the ’50s, I don’t think of it, it’s about what Leo said. To me, the book and the movie start with this giant canvas, which is New York and suburban Connecticut in the ’50s with Grand Central Station and the crowded streets, and the hats and the period is written large. But then gradually, as the movie goes on, that falls away, layer after layer of it, the world, the other characters, the community, Leo observed this as we were going into shooting, until all that’s left is two people, a man and a woman, in an empty room. That’s what the film is about ultimately. It’s not about the 1950s, and I don’t think the plight of women in the 1950s is that different from many, many women we now know, many of them in person. To make a period film, you have to believe that it’s not just about the period, but to believe that it’s a universal story, and Yates here wrote a universal classic novel, and we’ve tried to make a classic film out of it. But here, is a story about how – I was incredibly moved by what Kathy said, because I think people do refer it directly to their own life, and many people understand the feeling you have, where you wake up one morning and you think: this is not the life I wanted to have; this is not the life I expected or deserved: how do I change? How do I get back to the dreams that I once had? I think a lost of people fall into this category. And April, I think the reason why Kate describes her as a heroine, is because she’s the one character who’s willing to risk and lose everything to find that again. And she does lose everything, in tragedy. At the end of the day, like very great classic tragedy like On the Waterfront, or A Streetcar Named Desire – I’m speaking of the novel not about the film, because I’m not making claims to the film – but those great movies that you watch, a great tragedy leaves you feeling elevated, and leaves you feeling uplifted, because you’re not living the life you see in front of you. You find a determination in film to not do what you’ve just seen, so it is in a sense a cautionary tale. But the idea that tragedy is by definition depressing is wrong, I think. It’s sad yes, it’s serious yes, but at the end of the day, it makes you feel more alive. And the best argument for any great piece of art is excellence, and nothing else. Not the message or what it’s trying to tell you – if it makes you feel something, and the way you feel about yourself and your life is different when you leave from when you went in, that’s the reason we do all this, you know? And so that’s what this movie is trying to do. But that’s a very hard thing to do. It’s a big task for any film. If you’re trying to make a tragedy, you have to make it the saddest, and the most terrifying, and the most honest that you possibly can, and I think that’s what we reached for in this, the way Yates does in the novel. I think that I was lucky as a director to be able to have these people, all of whom knew who they were playing; I didn’t have to explain anything to them, all I had to do was ask them to go deeper into themselves and deeper into the characters, and see what they could find there, and they were all capable of doing it, and I think that’s what’s onscreen. That was my main job.
Paramount Vantage releases the picture in theaters December 25th.
