Billy Ray is one of Hollywoods most respected screenwriters. With the release of 2003s Shattered Glass he became one of the most exciting directors as well. His sophomore directing project is Breach, which details the true story of the most dangerous spy in US history. Robert Hanssen [played by Chris Cooper] has always been known as one of the FBIs most renowned operatives. When fledging agent Eric ONeill [played by Ryan Phillippe] is assigned to spy on Hanssen, he discovers that there are many things about the man he admires. All the while he is gathering information to put him away for life. I got a chance to talk with writer/director Billy Ray about the film.
Breach opens February 16th
Daniel Robert Epstein: It seems like youre cornering the market on these world changing office dramas.
Billy Ray: [laughs] I might have to give that up so I dont get labeled as some sort of one trick pony. But the same thing attracted me to both those stories. It wasnt that I love to be locked in a room with two male characters. Theyre both about integrity and theyre about these characters who arent quite sure what the right thing to do is. Theyre dealing with someone who is very complex and then they realize exactly what the right thing to do is and the price that they pay for that.
DRE: I am a big fan of [Breach cinematographer] Tak Fujimoto. He is, of course, a guy that can shoot anything but what made you want him for this?
Ray: Tak is a guy who is shaped by the movies of the 70s and that gave us great shorthand for one another. I can talk to him about All the Presidents Men or The Paper Chase and he knew what I was talking about. Also the truth is, if you can get Tak Fujimoto, you do.
DRE: Chris Cooper is a guy who can reveal so much with just his eyes and facial expressions, especially with this character. But is everything that he does in the script or in conversations you had with him or is that what he brings with him?
Ray: Its all those things. There are certain moments like that are indicated in the script but most of them are things that you discover as you work hard with two really good actors and turn them loose on each other. The function of the camera is to capture what a character does not want to reveal about himself and that is what we try to do.
DRE: Is that something you came up with on your own or did someone tell you that?
Ray: There was great advice that I got from someone but I dont know who it was. So he deserves the credit that I just gave him.
DRE: Its interesting that you did this film from the point of view of Eric O'Neill. Did you mostly do that because you had access to Eric?
Ray: The credit for that decision goes to the writers that preceded me, Adam Mazer and Bill Rotko. They were the ones who made the decision initially, to tell the story of Robert Hanssen through the eyes of Eric ONeil. That was the choice that attracted me to the material in the first place.
DRE: When we spoke in Toronto for Flightplan you said that you werent able to get in touch with Robert Hanssen. Would he not respond or did the US government not let him respond?
Ray: The FBI wouldnt let me sit with him, but the FBI did let me submit written questions to him. I wrote out a list of 15 questions and the FBI allowed 14 of them to go through. He declined to answer any of them.
DRE: Were they very probing questions?
Ray: Not terribly. I thought they were pretty legitimate, basic questions but I surely respect his right not to help me.
DRE: You also said that it was Ryans performance in Crash that made you cast him in this.
Ray: Yeah that was really the eye opener for me. I knew of Ryan, but I had never paid attention to him until I saw him in Crash.
DRE: Is it difficult to write characters that are so internal?
Ray: I dont think so. Ultimately we are what we do. Your actions define you and Hanssens actions totally defined him as a person.
DRE: Is what Hanssen says at the end of the film what you believe he thinks?
Ray: Sure, thats what I believe. I wouldnt presume to say why Hanssen actually did it, but the movie comes down squarely in the camp of the why doesnt mean a thing. Ultimately he did horrible things. He put all of us in jeopardy. Who cares why? But hopefully some people will see the movie and be intrigued by it. I thought it would be bad journalism for me to suggest that I knew the exact reason because I dont.
DRE: For Shattered Glass you set up the challenge switching the main character in the movie from Stephen Glass to Chuck Lane. Besides doing a bigger movie, what challenges were there with Breach?
Ray: There was nothing about it that felt easy [laughs] so just start there. We wanted to make sure we got the world right and real. That was huge. The thing that I was most afraid of before we started shooting was to get the stuff right between Eric ONeil and his wife, Juliana. Those were the scenes that I had to write the most number of times and I didnt want them to sound operatic. Now I am really pleased with it.
DRE: Had you known of Caroline Dhavernas [who plays Juliana O'Neill] before?
Ray: No, I met a lot of actresses for the part of Juliana, maybe 50 people. We wound up screen-testing four of them. We brought those four into Toronto to read opposite Ryan, the day after he finished Flags of Our Fathers. Carolyn just popped. Her chemistry with Ryan was great and she proved to be wonderful.
DRE: Besides a lead actor like Chris Cooper, you also have Gary Cole and Bruce Davison in the movie. Tell me about your obvious love of character actors.
Ray: Here is the thing, directing is hard but acting is harder. What I know about directing, I can teach somebody in two weeks. But there is no amount of teaching that could show me how to do what Chris Cooper does or Laura [Linney] or Gary or Bruce. Those are real actors. They just have a gift. If you want to look good as the director you surrender yourself to people who have that level of ability.
DRE: Are you writing any scripts for other directors?
Ray: I certainly have and I will continue to. Its not a goal of mine to only direct my own scripts. I want to work with great directors. I can learn a lot from sitting in a room with Ang Lee or Steven Spielberg or Martin Scorsese or Clint Eastwood. Id love to have that opportunity.
I just finished this script called Hurricane Season for Universal. Its another true story, post-Katrina set outside New Orleans. Im hoping to make that this year.
DRE: What was the hook for you in this particular story?
Ray: Its about La Plaz, Louisiana. La Plaz wasnt wiped out by the hurricane so a lot of refugees moved there. The population of La Plaz went from 20,000 to 40,000 in about ten days. This one high school called East St. John, averaged 500 new kids and 20 of them were football players from a school that recently got washed out. The coach at East St. John was this white, Cajun character named Larry Dauterive and they call him Coach Doe. What Coach Doe did is treat those 20 players like he would want to be treated if he were in their circumstances. In other words he opened up every starting position on his football team to these 20 new kids and let them compete. Obviously this created some dissension on his team. But then they won the first district title that the school had won in 25 years.
DRE: What do you like about directing true stories?
Ray: The short answer is that theres no character that I can invent that would be more compelling than Robert Hanssen. Real life provides so much more interest I think.
DRE: So how do you conquer something thats not in real life?
Ray: You have to work a little harder to make stuff up.
DRE: Do you teach any writing classes?
Ray: Not on a regular basis. I do a lot of them, but always as a guest speaker. Once I taught a screenwriting class at the Braille Institute. I had been doing a lot of volunteering there and they asked for me to teach a class in creative writing which I started to do. Then people heard that I was a screenwriter and there were a lot of people at the Braille Institute that wanted to be screenwriters so it morphed into a screenwriting class.
DRE: Do you find that a lot of students nowadays know what makes a good screenplay?
Ray: No I dont think. I would like to do a lot more teaching because if people learn how to write screenplays based on the kinds of movies that are made today. We are going to have some pretty horrible movies in the coming years.
DRE: What is the issue?
Ray: I think that a lot of movies made today are horrible. They really dont seem like movies to me. They seem like two hour long trailers and I think theyve gotten away from the kind of storytelling that is more compelling. I worry about that a lot.
DRE: What teacher or experience pushed you into being a good writer?
Ray: Very early in my 20s I took a class taught by a man named Robert McKee. I dont think I would have been a writer without that class. That was huge. It was the same way with directing, I read Judith Westons book Directing Actors.
DRE: Now you should write a book.
Ray: No, too much work for me.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
Breach opens February 16th
Daniel Robert Epstein: It seems like youre cornering the market on these world changing office dramas.
Billy Ray: [laughs] I might have to give that up so I dont get labeled as some sort of one trick pony. But the same thing attracted me to both those stories. It wasnt that I love to be locked in a room with two male characters. Theyre both about integrity and theyre about these characters who arent quite sure what the right thing to do is. Theyre dealing with someone who is very complex and then they realize exactly what the right thing to do is and the price that they pay for that.
DRE: I am a big fan of [Breach cinematographer] Tak Fujimoto. He is, of course, a guy that can shoot anything but what made you want him for this?
Ray: Tak is a guy who is shaped by the movies of the 70s and that gave us great shorthand for one another. I can talk to him about All the Presidents Men or The Paper Chase and he knew what I was talking about. Also the truth is, if you can get Tak Fujimoto, you do.
DRE: Chris Cooper is a guy who can reveal so much with just his eyes and facial expressions, especially with this character. But is everything that he does in the script or in conversations you had with him or is that what he brings with him?
Ray: Its all those things. There are certain moments like that are indicated in the script but most of them are things that you discover as you work hard with two really good actors and turn them loose on each other. The function of the camera is to capture what a character does not want to reveal about himself and that is what we try to do.
DRE: Is that something you came up with on your own or did someone tell you that?
Ray: There was great advice that I got from someone but I dont know who it was. So he deserves the credit that I just gave him.
DRE: Its interesting that you did this film from the point of view of Eric O'Neill. Did you mostly do that because you had access to Eric?
Ray: The credit for that decision goes to the writers that preceded me, Adam Mazer and Bill Rotko. They were the ones who made the decision initially, to tell the story of Robert Hanssen through the eyes of Eric ONeil. That was the choice that attracted me to the material in the first place.
DRE: When we spoke in Toronto for Flightplan you said that you werent able to get in touch with Robert Hanssen. Would he not respond or did the US government not let him respond?
Ray: The FBI wouldnt let me sit with him, but the FBI did let me submit written questions to him. I wrote out a list of 15 questions and the FBI allowed 14 of them to go through. He declined to answer any of them.
DRE: Were they very probing questions?
Ray: Not terribly. I thought they were pretty legitimate, basic questions but I surely respect his right not to help me.
DRE: You also said that it was Ryans performance in Crash that made you cast him in this.
Ray: Yeah that was really the eye opener for me. I knew of Ryan, but I had never paid attention to him until I saw him in Crash.
DRE: Is it difficult to write characters that are so internal?
Ray: I dont think so. Ultimately we are what we do. Your actions define you and Hanssens actions totally defined him as a person.
DRE: Is what Hanssen says at the end of the film what you believe he thinks?
Ray: Sure, thats what I believe. I wouldnt presume to say why Hanssen actually did it, but the movie comes down squarely in the camp of the why doesnt mean a thing. Ultimately he did horrible things. He put all of us in jeopardy. Who cares why? But hopefully some people will see the movie and be intrigued by it. I thought it would be bad journalism for me to suggest that I knew the exact reason because I dont.
DRE: For Shattered Glass you set up the challenge switching the main character in the movie from Stephen Glass to Chuck Lane. Besides doing a bigger movie, what challenges were there with Breach?
Ray: There was nothing about it that felt easy [laughs] so just start there. We wanted to make sure we got the world right and real. That was huge. The thing that I was most afraid of before we started shooting was to get the stuff right between Eric ONeil and his wife, Juliana. Those were the scenes that I had to write the most number of times and I didnt want them to sound operatic. Now I am really pleased with it.
DRE: Had you known of Caroline Dhavernas [who plays Juliana O'Neill] before?
Ray: No, I met a lot of actresses for the part of Juliana, maybe 50 people. We wound up screen-testing four of them. We brought those four into Toronto to read opposite Ryan, the day after he finished Flags of Our Fathers. Carolyn just popped. Her chemistry with Ryan was great and she proved to be wonderful.
DRE: Besides a lead actor like Chris Cooper, you also have Gary Cole and Bruce Davison in the movie. Tell me about your obvious love of character actors.
Ray: Here is the thing, directing is hard but acting is harder. What I know about directing, I can teach somebody in two weeks. But there is no amount of teaching that could show me how to do what Chris Cooper does or Laura [Linney] or Gary or Bruce. Those are real actors. They just have a gift. If you want to look good as the director you surrender yourself to people who have that level of ability.
DRE: Are you writing any scripts for other directors?
Ray: I certainly have and I will continue to. Its not a goal of mine to only direct my own scripts. I want to work with great directors. I can learn a lot from sitting in a room with Ang Lee or Steven Spielberg or Martin Scorsese or Clint Eastwood. Id love to have that opportunity.
I just finished this script called Hurricane Season for Universal. Its another true story, post-Katrina set outside New Orleans. Im hoping to make that this year.
DRE: What was the hook for you in this particular story?
Ray: Its about La Plaz, Louisiana. La Plaz wasnt wiped out by the hurricane so a lot of refugees moved there. The population of La Plaz went from 20,000 to 40,000 in about ten days. This one high school called East St. John, averaged 500 new kids and 20 of them were football players from a school that recently got washed out. The coach at East St. John was this white, Cajun character named Larry Dauterive and they call him Coach Doe. What Coach Doe did is treat those 20 players like he would want to be treated if he were in their circumstances. In other words he opened up every starting position on his football team to these 20 new kids and let them compete. Obviously this created some dissension on his team. But then they won the first district title that the school had won in 25 years.
DRE: What do you like about directing true stories?
Ray: The short answer is that theres no character that I can invent that would be more compelling than Robert Hanssen. Real life provides so much more interest I think.
DRE: So how do you conquer something thats not in real life?
Ray: You have to work a little harder to make stuff up.
DRE: Do you teach any writing classes?
Ray: Not on a regular basis. I do a lot of them, but always as a guest speaker. Once I taught a screenwriting class at the Braille Institute. I had been doing a lot of volunteering there and they asked for me to teach a class in creative writing which I started to do. Then people heard that I was a screenwriter and there were a lot of people at the Braille Institute that wanted to be screenwriters so it morphed into a screenwriting class.
DRE: Do you find that a lot of students nowadays know what makes a good screenplay?
Ray: No I dont think. I would like to do a lot more teaching because if people learn how to write screenplays based on the kinds of movies that are made today. We are going to have some pretty horrible movies in the coming years.
DRE: What is the issue?
Ray: I think that a lot of movies made today are horrible. They really dont seem like movies to me. They seem like two hour long trailers and I think theyve gotten away from the kind of storytelling that is more compelling. I worry about that a lot.
DRE: What teacher or experience pushed you into being a good writer?
Ray: Very early in my 20s I took a class taught by a man named Robert McKee. I dont think I would have been a writer without that class. That was huge. It was the same way with directing, I read Judith Westons book Directing Actors.
DRE: Now you should write a book.
Ray: No, too much work for me.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
zoetica:
Billy Ray is one of Hollywoods most respected screenwriters. With the release of 2003s Shattered Glass he became one of the most exciting directors as well. His sophomore directing project is Breach, which details the true story of the most dangerous spy in US history. Robert Hanssen [played by...
cineman:
Good interview. That Weston book is good (I'm trying to make time to get through the follow-up The Film Director's Intuition right now) and as good a book as any when it comes to examining the actor-director dialectic, I think. Nice work, DRE.