Q&A: “Philomena”

A heads-up from GITS development assistant Wendy Cohen:

For you L.A. folks — the KCET Cinema Series continues its fall season this Tuesday, November 26th at 7pm with a screening of the Coen Brothers’ highly-anticipated INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS. The quarterly series is hosted by nationally recognized film expert and Deadline Hollywood columnist Pete Hammond. Passes for the Fall 2013 KCET Cinema Series are now on sale. For reservations call 747.201.5800, download and mail the registration form, or buy your season passes online.

On November 5th as part of the series, a special Q&A took place at the Television Academy’s Leonard H. Goldenson Theatre following an advance screening of PHILOMENA, a U.K.-produced dramatic comedy which tells the incredible true story of one mother’s search for her lost son. Deadline Hollywood’s Pete Hammond sat down with co-writer, producer, and actor Steve Coogan to discuss his writing process, how he found the source material for the film, and the experience of working with and writing for screen legend Judi Dench.

You can listen to a full audio recording of the panel on KCET’s website.

Below are some of the highlights from their conversation.

Pete Hammond: How did you become involved?

Steve Coogan: The movie for me began four years ago. I was in New York playing number three in yet another studio movie, and I was looking for a project — something that was different. I wanted to do something away from comedy — something that had more substance. And I came across this story online in The Guardian newspaper, and it had a real profound effect on me. I wanted to change the record in my career in a kind of way, and it was compelling and it fit the bill. I looked at it and thought, “someone should tell this story.” It’s about a mother and everyone’s got one of those, so… and with the article there was a photograph of Martin Sixsmith and Philomena together, and they were both laughing in the photograph and it seemed so at odds with the details of the story. And so I optioned the book that Martin had written, and Martin actually wrote the article in the newspaper. But Martin’s book deals almost exclusively with the life of [Philomena’s son] Michael Hess, who became very successful in Washington, and I didn’t really want to tell that story. I was more interested in using the two characters and exploring the ideas of faith and intellect vs. intuition, and I thought the two of them would be a good vehicle to have a discussion about those things.

PH: What I loved about the structure of the film and your screenplay is that it unfolds like a mystery story. It’s a detective story too, which any good journalistic movie is.

SC: I don’t think a studio would make this movie because they wouldn’t know what it was. Is it a comedy, a tragedy, a drama? And we liked the idea of having a little bit of intrigue in there just to drag the audience along. And also, I love Billy WIlder and how he’s able to put comedy and tragedy side by side. I think that’s what limits movies in a way — certainly with studios, because these are things that they have to delineate — it’s either this or this because it’s easy to market. And this is kind of a funny tragedy, I guess… I like where comedy and tragedy sit side by side. I don’t think it’s contrived. I think that’s what life is like.

PH: When you worked on the screenplay for this movie you had a lot of access. Both Philomena and Martin Sixsmith are still alive.

SC: My co-writer Jeff Pope and I built the script up from conversations I had with Martin and Philomena. I spoke to Martin at length as a journalist and then I said “I want to put you in the story.” He was discombobulated by that a bit, but that struck me as more interesting. I put a lot of myself into his character. He’s not quite as cynical as I portray him onscreen. And he’s not a lapsed Catholic either. But I’m a lapsed Catholic, and I wanted to put some of my own cynicism in there, and challenge my own thoughts. I spoke with Philomena and that found its way into the script. I mean, there’s a lot of artistic license, but not with the bones of the story. They’re all true.

PH: Can you tell us about Judi Dench’s involvement?

SC: Judi was my first choice. She was even on board before the director, Stephen Frears. I was writing with Jeff, and I said, “we should get Judi Dench to do this, because she would be fantastic.” And so I went to her house and told her the story, and she said, “I want to do this.” Before we showed her the script, if I remember correctly. We hadn’t finished writing at that stage, but what we did then — I said, “Jeff if we’ve got Judi Dench we should write it for her and play to her strengths.” So there’s a couple of scenes in the film where it’s just her face, and I knew that would be powerful enough without any dialogue. I had to pare away the dialogue in those scenes and just have her alone — these private moments that Martin doesn’t see. The only people privy to them are her and the audience, so it’s quite intimate.

Declare Your Independents! Be sure to check out Philomena and Inside Llewyn Davis.

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