Written Interview: Danny Strong (“Game Change”)

Actor-writer Danny Strong (Recount) is back on HBO with another film, this one called Game Change, based on the book of the same title by political writers Mark Halperin and John Heilemann. Some excerpts:

What is it about her that makes her such popular subject for film?

At the heart of it, it’s the great American story. A person no one had heard of, with humble roots, who overnight almost becomes the vice president of the United States. It’s a real everyman journey that strikes everyone in their core, whether they hate her or love her.

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As a VP candidate, Palin had a huge popular appeal while also bewildering plenty of others who couldn’t believe she was being taken seriously. What are the challenges of writing someone representative of such a divide in perception? How did you look to bring empathy to the film’s portrayal of her?

The divisiveness isn’t a concern in terms of how to write the character. The goal is to just write her as truthfully as possible, to explore the person with as much depth as you can. People are going to bring their own perceptions to the movie, but our goal is to just show them the truth of what we believed happened.

As far as sympathy and empathy, I think that comes from the same thing — as truthfully as you can, dramatizing the circumstances of her position, what she’s going through and the pressure she’s under. And of course bringing in all of the other factors — pregnant teen daughter, newborn, son going off to Iraq, two other kids to take care of, all the while being lampooned and attacked by the media, and having to answer questions in front of the entire country and not knowing the answers — it’s extremely dramatic. That’s what drew us to making the movie. There’s so much to this story.

For more of the article, go here.

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