I think we'll start
by a.m. talking about the genesis in this movie and
starting with the play I but after with him first because
did you see the play before you some decided to
commit to them well I mean had you seen the play just in the course of your life
yeah I'd side saw opening night I believe sum up the nice thing about the
party after I was on broadway another
MTC a and I saw it again because a friend about understanding
remember no one else will see him when he went on: wow
and so I saw it twice and Eunos incredibly impressed
you know buy it but also that it had an early reading
at Lambert their companies summer intensive
which was in the first reader and battery thing I remember people talking
about after that
and saying how special was with a typical play for you to write
was it a it was a I mean it's obviously something from your past a certain
degree mmm was that did that make it harder easier
no a you know me
people say how long to take you to write the play about any play whatever India
you say I mean it took me probably five weeks to write the play
I and we could say it to me my whole life
yeah and and one is more true than the other
yeah statements more true than the other who was it difficult to come to the
point where you can right
this place because obviously written many other players was a
incident in your life that you or part of your life that you had to put
to the back of your mind to sort of have a moment when you be ready to
to deal with better to come well I always knew you know that I had this
particular education with this
a order of nuns called Isis is a charity with these peculiar
Victorian black bonnets and I always knew that was kinda good custom
I and the
you know I had filed away as we are one of the few good customs that I actually
know anything about the people in the US Customs
I and and that I knew a lot about been
with them for eight years and so I really knew that world quite well
a but I had no particular reason to write a play about it and
the the I got an idea
I was in rehearsal for the play and we're on a break and I was sitting
staring at this stage with the
an actor and I don't know where I said I think I want to write a play called
doubt I an asset
what's it about I said that's all I got but
and the a but then within the couple weeks a
though I remember those nuns and I'll be about those
it'll be about those nuns that I had and I don't let's just
anthropology you know yeah
and so you know so %uh sliding up and then I thought about
a a that they had suspected a priest the wrongdoing
%uh having an improper relationship with the child and I thought
that's a little topical that's all
ripped from the headlines I i don't want to do that
and that immune want to do it just means I didn't have the bank disorder extra
time
and then I thought above this black mother and the
up the only black child in the school and I've been in this cool with that
been only one black kid
and I always thought what's it like to be that kid a
and what I thought about her are put that together with other
advance for my own past I thought that supply
that supply that that's a play I would write and then very shortly after having
that thought I just sat down about the whole
by do you have a certain and today
I over here for
I drug I
the better love to actually read them like I didn't know that
it was to you I you have did you have a
a do have a particular process to start with the end and then go back to the
beginning or do you have a
no I I start on the first page yeah I know but you know the end
I mean don't look at me like I'm crazy be rather it be
i'm aware. the people who have the people have to know the ending I think
Eugene O'Neill
back said you have to know the ending before you can
John Irving said that once yeah i i think that that's often a few major
backers
want to say I i'm for I I feel better I think that's often true because in other
words if you have a target that you're headed towards
yes it provides a a narrative propulsion and politeness
that you might know not YM might not otherwise achieve
I I did I know the end at the beginning
I honestly don't recall well that's good
but you know I do start at the beginning and go straight forward towards
towards the end I
it and you act from the beginning to the end I
all what I that's true that is different yeah it that way I'm curious you also
know
when I did the when I did the yeah I wrote a play
and then we went to the rehearsals and we a differs really that the play which
is always
a good you get a good take on that you know you
you get a good few because people a very good act as a really good at doing call
readings
for some reason a lot of factors and so did this call waiting
first reading the play cherry Jones and bring up a bar and
at the Golden are Asian Adriane Lenox and I why I said no it
/url the second to last seen as the strongest scene in the play
that will not do I and
this the lesson is very strongly so the and a I was actually
the the same between the missus miller the black mother and
and the and the older nun was planning a new
from the reading that it was the strongest seen and that the
confrontation with the
between the trees in the principal was very good it was just a little less
strong
and I went home and I rewrote the lessee to put another
turn in it to get it where it needed to be a
so that the thing played right so that it played is the piece of music that it
wanted
be
in you were working primarily in the theater was there a moment when you
thought
I will adapt this for the movies or was it did you wait till the successful are
with their
it always seems like it could be a movie to you no I don't go to make it in the
movie
I Scott Rudin came to me after the play was very accessible
produce and he was one of the producers on the play and he's
should have been anomaly in american movie-making he is sorta
the free-floating studio I and
he makes yeah disorder a
more intellectual properties like the hours or
many many many other movies I and he came to me and he said
at actually what happens you know eighteen years ago I directed it will be
called Joe versus the volcano
and I f/2.8 directed this like for
and a right after you read this script called
India and into it did not I did Joe versus the volcano it
and and you know a lot of people didn't like it and there were people that liked
it but
it was definitely you know the movie industry was like not sure what to do it
ruden came to me back that and said
I you know I like the movie and i'd like to let's do a movie together
and I said I just don't feel like I
so eighteen years later Scott came to me and he said
you know I think out to be a movie and I i think you should recognize said
I think you're right
and that we should mind Scott's eighteen-year
brief journey the central premise of the movie or one on the premises and movie
is this question of whether or not this
priest has in fact a something I'm toward with
a student and
it's a really fascinating promise that that keeps the action
it becomes almost like a melodrama in a sense
I like Elettra I right now I don't care when I think it
I think it's really it becomes fascinating in terms of the movie
but they also think that the question then becomes a question
is whether he did or whether he didn't do it isn't so interesting to me as
the fact that there's that you know that that the motivation for the melodrama
was that with that intentional intends
let me know that I guess you know this is a dangerous thing it means a lot of
yes I made a movie
I made a play that it will be about these nuns in this priest
the church scandals you know the or I am
the and with the trip to the headline say and I wasn't interested in the
church
I wasn't interested in the church candles I wasn't interested whether the
priest it is it not
and a a but I was going to treat very seriously
and rigorously that subject in order to get where I wanted the girl
which was basically to drew to take the audience
step-by-step to where I live
which is a place where I'm like I don't know
II don't know what's going on I'm I have my own theory that my assumption is that
my ideas and I
stage those together into a little crazy quote I hope to float across the river
and
not drown but I don't know yeah
so a which is
actually I think you know I i'm very personally at Homewood contradiction
a very personally at home with the fact that I can never know for certain yet i
want to live
a a Thor it a tough life I want to live boldly I want to step forward in a in a
bold way I want to
act if I feel there's an action that needs to be performed and yet although
this constantly informed by
my deep belief which does not interfere with this aspiration
that I don't know what's going on or if I'm right about any other fight you
never do anything
and when you got the scripted yeah
that you have a similar said a belief system
for but this would appeal to your
the project was the sense of not knowing
are what I think that the base
I think that debates I good I think the
well what did you %uh put it another way what did you
when you received you get operated everything in the universe what was it
about this
them script the particularly a project to complete particularly
was appealing to you well I'm because I'd seen the play
up it was different it was a different experience
I getting caught getting a call from Dawn ultimately him telling me
they like to play this part because I hadn't imagined ever playing it so I
truly up to that point had taken a
as viewer as wanted you where an audience member watching and taking it
and that's interesting
think that doesn't that doesn't happen pretty much ever and
so I at all these feelings and thoughts assumptions in my head about
what I'd seen you know and and I too would be no. the play the first time I
saw was like a haitian a big your nails
yeah you know you know him a little bit because I remember really want to but is
now the Lord
guilty yeah
I kinda they are under having that completely you know and then
and remember we remember watching my friend too often bring with them they're
also good
remember having those same thing so which is part of the poor I think part
of what's great about watching it all the things that happened you all the
things you project
onto it's awfully and sold with such certainty
really and then you walk out and you start to question
that's what happens to them when the %ah before then I started thinking about it
nice then think about those things I immediately started thinking about
which I was just talking a media story but once
I realize that I might be put in his shoes I thought
ho well that's a whole other ball away you know what i mean and I opened up
everything
and I thought this isn't about that that thought you had that one time in the
theater
or the many thought you had while you're watching it and I knew I had the kind of
move that aside and
and I think I'm very uncomfortable living in uncertainty
I do I think I think John is more home probably than I am
but I'm I'm living with it all day long
to know i IIIi I think being an artist is about saying I don't know ultimately
I and I'm not very comparable to that part
and I and so there was something so I knew that this
taking on this job was gonna be are
worth it i know i mean at all that stopped the car to go I
yeah I'll do that that that's that's something I'm going to be over
show up to want to do well you know
in in
in did you find this difficult to play did you find this character difficult
arm
I i think this for
doing something well as difficult thought
my lame answer to because they get some parts I think are easier to get inside
an oven others and
probably doing it well one on the day when you're there
it's very tricky and a any other
the my love this was a will it really comes down to
will concentration will focus nearly all the workers
before and so that has to do well
from but term it was really decisions just other
how to get away from what we're talking about earlier about the story that so
hot and Mike what is it the boat will make sum up what drives him
what what is when he wakes up in the morning what's he trying to do
why is he there you know that that stuff was the difficult stuff for to really
think
about that because you have to fill all that in order to
walk into this story have people watch
these very real people so they're free to
or project there stuff on them
because if you don't you know if it's not for the
fully fleshed out people the not mysterious
journey think if you haven't done all that stuff that Islamist serious enough
and saying kinda take it easy watch I would imagine
seeing a bad production are bad for with you probably make a decision so earlier
I don't know maybe
but I that's what I thought this feeling all that in and you did have a
conversation where you
a told him what you think is the true
I would never characterize that conversation have that way
no no am so so I I said to
yeah lose it yeah on
II as philippi I said you wanna know a backstory for this crap you noticed the
be used to the indefinite article I am very yes
I S and the I apologize dave said he said
yes I would and so Asia oh come on the whole
and I do about all that I told them the this backstory and I said is that worked
out and I'm all out a set designer
does that work unique said yeah actually the that does work for me that's good
but next time you have to take me on the whole
you I that the the day I was about something else you told me the backstory
we made them on the whole we don't know we were in the room I was worried across
the table okay
you told me you told me the idea the back so it is very hopeful
I and and then and then there was another time he said
but he did talk to. the whole I
editorial though it he told me something I am very helpful that was
that I said because I was scared yeah I already talked at all I thought all this
is that I've really tried to
I of but
I day and you were filming actually
you were coming at the school you went to that was just we shot the exterior at
the school that I want to
the church school that I want to use in the film and the kids are old lined up
outside like they were when I was a kid
lash out on the street i grew up on them a shot on rooftops in alleyways I played
it says a lot about that
was a very emotional for you in any way the I'm not sure of course
but you not the kind do for I
going home and see my Valley again kind of that more
I Friday I
she's call your ballot I mean old
like in Scotland as I they always like that
sleeves brian has got a different day
they'll I dad there's the car but
in
the car hole in the wall that I played it