Interview (Written): Cary Fukunaga (“Beasts of No Nation”)

A Writers Guild of America East interview with Cary Fukunaga (Sin Nombre, True Detective) on the movie Beasts of No Nation which he wrote and directed, based on a novel by Uzodinma Iweala.

After TRUE DETECTIVE, what attracted you to doing BEASTS OF NO NATION? Was this a project you sought out or was it brought to you?

Prior to going to film school, I was interested in doing a story about the wars in Sierra Leone and Liberia. One of the first shorts I wrote was about an assault on a village by the RUF. So when I applied to film school, I applied with the idea of doing a child soldier project as my first feature. I actually wrote the first draft of BEASTS OF NO NATION before I shot SIN NOMBRE.

When exactly did you write the first draft of BEASTS OF NO NATION?

I wrote it over Christmas of 2006. It was a very dark Christmas.

Did you have the book rights at that time?

Focus Features optioned the rights to Uzodinma Iweala’s book for me in early 2006, the same time they optioned SIN NOMBRE. I hadn’t planned on that being the basis for the movie, I had read a lot of books on the subject while accumulating research but when I read Iweala’s book, it felt to me a complete cinematic experience, far more impactful and emotional than I’d been coming up with. It’s a very pure story in terms of this child’s experience. I felt like I could adapt it and still include much of the research I had already done as a basis or background for the story.

Can you tell me how you went about adapting BEASTS OF NO NATION? Were you concerned with keeping specific parts or the essence of the book? How did you go about figuring out what needed to be in the film?

I reordered the book because the book was written nonlinear, and rewrote the first act to be heavily focused on his family. I felt an audience needed to see his childhood first, see the love of his brother and parents and the relative innocence he enjoyed. There were a lot of things I had to change in the third act as well but the first act is where I needed to invent. Uzo’s final scene in the book with the therapist was always going to be the ending, and I felt it was a strong ending, so I wasn’t as concerned with that part of the adaptation.

The movie’s trailer:

For the rest of the interview, go here.

Twitter: @WGAEast.