Lawrence Bender
by Daniel Robert Epstein for SuicideGirls (http://suicidegirls.com/)

Lawrence Bender is best known as the producer of Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill and Good Will Hunting. By his own admission he’s never made a movie as deep as his latest, Innocent Voices.

Based on the true story of screenwriter Oscar Torres's embattled childhood, Luis Mandoki's Innocent Voices is the poignant tale of Chava, an 11 year old boy who suddenly becomes the man of the house after his father abandons the family in the middle of an El Salvadorian civil war.

Check out the official website for Innocent Voices

Daniel Robert Epstein: Innocent Voices seemed like something that you must have had a passion for to get made.

Lawrence Bender: Yeah, this was a very hard movie to get made. Literally the director and I didn’t get paid and we worked on it for a long time.

DRE: Did the project start with Luis Mandoki?

LB: Yeah before this he did movies like When a Man Loves a Woman, Message in a Bottle and White Palace. But this movie is much different than those. This is a much tougher, cutting edge, in your face kind of thing.

DRE: When someone told me that Luis made this. I didn’t know what to expect. He doesn’t make the kind of movies that blow people away.

LB: He wanted to reinvent himself. He wanted to go back to his own country and recreate himself like some of the other south-of-the-border; Mexican directors have been doing quite successfully. We’ve been talking for a long time about doing something together but hadn’t quite found the right thing. He brought me this script and the idea was just fantastic. It’s a true story, about a little boy caught in the middle of civil war in El Salvador. What struck me is that when we see war on TV, sometimes you see teenagers throwing rocks but you never really think about the kids. I thought it was fascinating to see and ultimately learn about what happens to families and kids that are torn apart by war.

DRE: It doesn’t seem to be the kind of film that needs any exaggeration for story purposes.

LB: It feels really real. We developed the movie in English but we decided to shoot it in Spanish. They make a lot of movies that take place in other countries in English but we wanted to have a real kinetic feeling when shooting so we included the native language.

Luis brought it to me and then we worked on the script for a while with the writer, Oscar Orlando Torres who based the movie on his life story. It was very difficult to raise money, but we did it really quickly. We found different financiers but they were all falling out constantly. Then a company called Altavista Films ultimately financed the thing.

DRE: You’re a guy who’s made many movies that have made quite a bit of money. So when you would go to people and ask them for money do they wonder why this kind of film is coming from you?

LB: No because producers are always trying to do slightly different things. They just say, “Great story but it’s just too risky” or they say, “No it’s not for us.” But I just had a passion for it. When you watch this movie and then you meet Oscar, it’s just mind-blowing. I meet people afterwards and they ask “Did that really happen?” because in the movie, the firefights go on for days sometimes. The people live in these cardboard houses, so the bullets go right through the walls houses. As you saw in the movie, they throw up everything against the wall even the mattresses they slept on. I told Oscar that didn’t make sense because the bullets will go right through them but he told me that was the only thing they had. It was just absurd.

But there’s a scene which was very funny but we had to cut it out for timing reason. During these firefights the family would put their cooking pots on their heads and crawl on their knees. It was horrible but when we shot the scene, it came out funny. I felt bad that we had to cut it out, but we had to. Truth is stranger than fiction sometimes.

DRE: Was the writing and the shooting hard on Oscar?

LB: This was like months and months of therapy for Oscar. He felt like he was always on the couch because he was writing about himself. At one point during the writing process Luis asked Oscar if he ever picked up a gun. Then Oscar said it wasn’t important and Luis said “What do you mean it’s not important? Of course it is important.” They got in this big fight and Oscar stormed out of the room. Luis picked up a chair and threw it across the room. Later Oscar came back in the room and was crying. He said that he never talked about it because he felt so ashamed. He said that he did pick up a gun but never shot it. He was ashamed because he didn’t shoot the people who killed his friends. Luis put a scene like that into the movie and it’s one of the most powerful moments.

DRE: It’s very tough stuff.

LB: We don’t think about things like that when we go to war.

DRE: Where’d you shoot this?

LB: We shot in the state of Veracruz in Mexico for almost a year. It was a very difficult shoot. I’ll never forget one time as the soldiers were running down the little street in the village some guns didn’t go off and I was yelling at Luis “Hey Luis, that gun didn’t go off and that soldier didn’t make his mark.” I turned to Oscar and he’s sitting there crying behind the monitor. I wasn’t even paying attention to him at the moment, but he’s reliving his life every time we were shooting.

DRE: As a producer, what are your daily duties on a film like this?

LB: Every movie’s different. If everything is going smoothly, a producer has no job on the set. You’re just there for support but on a low budget movie there are always problems. So producers are therapists, problem solvers, everything. I was also helping to work on the script and as a creative bouncing board as Luis was trying to solve problems.

DRE: You mentioned that Luis was trying to reinvent himself. Were you doing the same?

LB: No but I make different kinds of movies and I’ve been very fortunate in terms of the different movies I’ve been able to make. Not all of them have done well but I love making movies that have a social context as well. Even though Innocent Voices takes place in El Salvador in the 80’s, this could easily be happening in Iraq or South America. I felt that it was relevant so it was great when we had the screening at the United Nations.

DRE: Have you shown Innocent Voices to any El Salvadorians?

LB: Yeah, El Salvador was the first country we opened it in. It was a big hit there and it was a phenomenal experience. It just sort of reopened the wounds that never really got healed. It became a discussion piece.

DRE: But does making a movie like Innocent Voices fulfill something for you that Kill Bill doesn’t?

LB: First of all, when you get to work on like Kill Bill that’s as good as it gets because you’re dealing with enormous creativity. That’s big movie shot in four different countries, China, Tokyo, Mexico and the United States. So a lot of problems go along with that. But ultimately that’s a pretty phenomenal experience to be part of. We’re people with different parts of ourselves, so this is just one part of me and God knows I enjoy it.

DRE: How is the breakup between Miramax and the Weinsteins going to affect you?

LB: I’m a producer. I have a great relationship with Harvey [Weinstein] and I actually have a great relationship with Daniel Battsek who’s running Miramax now. He used to be the distributor in the UK and since we released a lot of movies through him in the UK, we got to know each other over the years.

DRE: What else are you working on then?

LB: I?m doing a movie with Harrison Ford called Manhunt and Harrison Ford plays this man who?s tracking the guy who assassinated President Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth. So we?re supposed to start shooting that next year.

DRE: Who’s directing that?

LB: An Ecuadorian director named Sebastian Cordero who directed the movie called Crónicas. Myself together with Walden Media decided on him and Harrison approved.

DRE: Who wrote it?

LB: A guy named Andrew Marlowe is rewriting it as we speak so we’ll see how it goes.

DRE: Is Harrison Ford still one of those top guys that everyone goes to?

LB: Yeah, it’s been pretty great working with Harrison Ford and this is a great role for him. I grew up with Harrison Ford and it has been a lot of fun. He’s a good guy and a very smart actor.

DRE: Is it a lower budgeted movie?

LB: No, I think it’s a regular studio size movie.

DRE: Has Harrison talked about reinventing himself with this?

LB: We haven’t had that discussion. But this movie plays on all his strengths.

DRE: As producer you can produce a few movies a year. Is it tough to recover from a film of yours that doesn’t do well? I just happened to see a movie of yours on cable yesterday that I remember as not being successful, White Man’s Burden.

LB: White Man’s Burden was just one of those movies where our heart was in the right place. But I learned a really valuable lesson in that movie because I was working with Harry Belafonte, John Travolta and the director, Desmond Nakano, is a Japanese-American whose parents were in the Japanese internment camps. So we had this rainbow coalition and we really focused on the social context but the story wasn’t strong enough. It doesn’t matter if you have an interesting social cause; the story has to be really strong in order to win.

But as for your question, we’re not machines because we put your heart and soul into these things. Then if it doesn’t do well you’re not happy. It’s very gratifying when your movies do well and it’s depressing when your movies don’t do well. But also one movie doesn’t kill a producer, but certainly when your movies do well it helps.

DRE: How did your life change back when Pulp Fiction became such a phenomenon?

LB: For me it was weird. I was broke so the only thing that changed was that I didn’t have to do PA jobs on movie sets. It was also incredibly exciting that I was now making movies. But it’s not like I spent that much time hanging out on my one laurel. I dove right in and started working on Fresh then Killing Zoe. I was always working like a dog and I continue to work like a dog.

DRE: Do you have any desire to direct?

LB: No but I did at one point. Now that’s gone into my work with social causes.

DRE: What social causes are you involved with?

LB: I’m very involved in environmental work. I’m involved in Jewish-American stuff in terms of Israel.

DRE: What’s going on with this big Kill Bill DVD set that combines both films?

LB: I don’t know where we are with that to be quite honest right now.

DRE: Did the Miramax breakup mess things up?

LB: I think so.

DRE: Will the scene in the beginning of Kill Bill 2 where Uma recaps be gone?

LB: No, it’s going to fit in there somehow.

DRE: I think Quentin mentioned two weeks ago he wants to do a sequel.

LB: I actually don’t know what he’s going to do. Whatever he figures out to do next will be smart and amazing. Quentin has such a specific vision that you just basically do everything possible to give him what he needs. You have your own opinions and he’s happy to hear them but basically he’s got a very strong direction. He is the definition of an auteur.

DRE: When you guys have a disagreement, what is it over?

LB: Basically the normal stuff that happens on a movie like running out of time. For Kill Bill we shot for a 155 days. I miscalculated the schedule so I blame myself.

DRE: [laughs] Do you have another passion project that you’re developing like Innocent Voices?

LB: Yeah, I’m shooting a documentary with Al Gore about global warming. David Guggenheim is directing it and we’re shooting it as we speak. It’s Al’s presentation on global warming.

DRE: What’s it like working with Al Gore?

LB: Oh he’s phenomenal. He’s an extraordinary man.

DRE: Does he ever talk about his run for the presidency?

LB: He jokes about his run. But he’s got enormous passion, humor and compassion. It’s going to be a big deal.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

SG Username: AndersWolleck

web address: http://suicidegirls.com/words/Lawrence+Bender/