Interview (Part 3): Craig Borten

I first met Craig Borten at the 2014 Austin Film Festival where he was a panelist in a session I moderated. We discussed the movie he co-wrote and was nominated for an Academy Award: Dallas Buyers Club. Seeing as The 33 is coming out this week, another movie Craig co-wrote, I reached out to him for an interview and Craig agreed. We had a great one-hour conversation.

Today in Part 3, Craig and I dig into the Dallas Buyers Club:

Scott: Thanks for that background, it’s amazing to see the route that took over 20 years for Dallas Buyers Club to get made. Let’s talk about the story. At the heart of the movie, you’ve got Ron, and he’s got two key relationships, Rayon, played by Jared Leto, and Eve, played by Jennifer Garner.

Both of those are fictional characters, is that right?

Craig: Yeah.

Scott: Could you get into how those characters evolved, and why you felt they were essential to the story?

Craig: Rayon, it was interesting because he played the great foil to Ron. If you think about it, who would be the ultimate outliers in Dallas Texas in 1985? Well, definitely some guy who’s a heterosexual, homophobic cowboy, who gets AIDS, but of course who is the ultimate outlier? That would be a transgender person in Dallas Texas in 1985.

The other thing that was interesting about this character was that Ron Woodroof was racist and a homophobe. There was something that was interesting about it. If he was a gay man, he could probably look away, but if she looked like Rayon, he couldn’t look away, and he would have to face his own bias.

He couldn’t look away, and so there was something very interesting about that. Eve was created because we were able to represent an alternate point of view with her, and use her as a conduit to show both sides of the coin.

Scott: Of the medical industry.

Craig: Yeah. Also, it is interesting because doctors at that time that I had interviewed, they were really thrown in. They didn’t have all the information. There was a lot of hysteria, and so they were learning as they went along, and people wanted anything, because people were dropping like flies. This is 1985.

Scott: I’d like to talk with you about some of the themes and story dynamics at work in the movie, and see which of those kind of resonated most with you.

For example, Ron is a classic movie underdog both in terms of his physical health, because he’s struggling to survive, but also when taking on the medical system.

Like you said, they didn’t know what was going on, and so he ran with this thing, “Let’s ask questions,” and so took on this whole sort of pessimistic dynamic around the HIV/AIDS situation. How important was that underdog idea?

Craig: Yeah, for sure. He’s an underdog, he’s also incredibly polarizing, he’s also an anti‑hero. There’s a lot to explore, but for sure any one person taking on the medical establishment, obviously they’re going to be the underdog. That was an interesting way to go.

It’s not so much that. It was more like this is a reluctant hero because selfishly that path, he was trying to stay alive. He wasn’t trying to be some crusader. The whole movie is about a guy trying to live, not about a guy dying.

Scott: Surviving.

Craig: It’s not even about surviving, he wants to thrive.

Scott: Actually I think I read in an interview with you that you said, the one thing that you were really struck by his character, was how passionate he was.

Craig: Yeah, he was so passionate. He was passionate, and I was lucky enough to meet him at the right time, because when people are…I don’t know if he knew he was going to die but I definitely think he was aware that he could. When people get to that point, they’re much more effusive. They talk about things they probably would never discuss, knowing that they might not be around.

Scott: We discussed the script on my blog for a whole week. Somebody came up with something I thought was an interesting way of interpreting the story. Basically, that one of the themes is knowledge equals power. That for example, the knowledge he gained in his quest to find appropriate medicine to help himself, that did actually did help him live longer.

Over a period of time, that stuff disseminated out into the larger community, the knowledge that he gained about the medical industry, and big pharma, and leading him to create the Dallas Buyers Club.

On a more personal level, the knowledge that he gained, and his personal relationships with the LGBT community, and most notably Rayon, that empowered him to move beyond his own personal bias, and then sort of discover a family that he may never have known in the first place.

Do you think that idea that he gained some power through knowledge, do you think there’s any resonance there thematically in the story?

Craig: 100 percent. I think he became a man in this dilemma, and I think he became a man he could respect in this. I think it’s a film about tolerance, and grace, and love, and humanity. He was able to tap into those things he never would have been able to see had he not have gotten sick.

Scott: You made a really interesting choice with the Ron‑Rayon relationship. It’s very powerful, but Rayon dies on page 119 of the script, and the story goes on for a whole other 29 pages. Since Rayon’s a fictional character, you weren’t bound by historical facts that he died then, and then Ron goes on and lives for longer.

I’m curious. What’s your thinking about the placement of that, to have Rayon die, and then essentially that last act is all Ron’s story?

Craig: I think we were looking to use it as a device, and to kind of maybe open his eyes a little more, and kick him a little bit more into action. Like you said, educate him a little more about how people are being treated, and what’s happening to people.

It gave us a moment to actually experience him experiencing a loss of a friend, and maybe in a sense, his only friend ever that really maybe unconditionally loved him.

It was kind of The Dark Night Of The Soul, in certain ways, and with the IRS and all that stuff, so it was used as a device. Unfortunately, this movie in certain ways, you’d like it to be longer, and there’s a more round story to tell. It had to be cut out, and we didn’t have the time.

Scott: It has an interesting structure to it. It doesn’t really fit into kind of a traditional, I suppose I should say, three‑act structure maybe?

Craig: Yeah. Jean‑Marc Valle, and Matthew McConaughey, didn’t want to do that type of film. They didn’t want to go through traditional three‑act structure. Jean‑Marc, even though he’s from Montreal, he has this European sensibility, and the directors that he loves.

Like a lot of directors that I’ve worked with, or have met, or have read about, they’re more interested in character, than traditional storytelling. That was a choice we made, we were making an independent film.

People were trying to tell us what to do, but we had no real studio we had to answer to. We decided to go through a little more untraditional route with this.

Scott: It does have kind of a European feel to it, doesn’t it?

Craig: It does, but the truth is, there is a three‑act structure in place, it’s the way it’s been cut and put together, we skewed it a little bit. The screenplay, if I were to break it down, I could show you it hits all the right marks.

Scott: You’re sitting here after the fact. I’m curious, after all the award ceremonies, and the acclamation for the movie, and this 20‑year journey, you promised this guy Ron you’d get this thing made. Is there some sort of object lesson, or one overriding feeling you come away with?

Craig: On a personal level for me, it helped me to evolve as a writer, and become prepared for the work, and what needs to be done, and how work within the system of Hollywood. I learned so much over those 20 years as a writer, and also as a human being.

It prepared me for what’s been going on the past couple of years, and what lies ahead. On an emotional level, it’s incredibly gratifying, because many people have either written to me, or come up to me, and have been truly affected by this film on the way that art can change lives, and affect people.

People with AIDS, survivors, from back in ’85, people with AIDS today, people with other diseases seeking out treatment. It speaks to a lot of different populace. It’s incredibly gratifying to have people come up to you and say, “That film really affected me. That was a really beautiful story.”

The coolest thing about it is it starts a conversation. You realize that for people to want to have a conversation about it, they must have been affected. That’s really gratifying. In certain ways, that’s one of the beautiful things about making film, and the way it can affect people. It has nothing to do with you.

Scott: So start conversations, maybe those will involve asking questions, which is what Ron was talking about.

Craig: That’s exactly what it did. We traveled all over with it, and people had some fantastic questions. By the way, my friends who brought their kids, they knew nothing about AIDS. They knew nothing about this time period, and they were asking questions, so that was really cool.

Scott: Younger generation of adolescents, or what not, they were not even aware of this period of time or the basic origin of the HIV-AIDS crisis?

Craig: Exactly.

Tomorrow in Part 4, Craig talks about The 33, the movie he co-wrote about the Chilean miners who were trapped underground for 69 days.

To read Part 1 of the interview, go here.

Part 2, here.

Craig is repped by UTA.

The 33 opens in North America, Friday, November 13th.

The movie’s website here.

Twitter: @CraigBorten.