She wasn't pursuing a film career. 

It came to her because of an accident. Like Josh Hartnett, whose hopes of being a football player were sidelined when he injured his knee, Newton's hopes of being a dancer were jeopardized when she tore ligaments in her lower back. 

"I was 16 at the time and in the thick of my training when I injured my back. It put me out of commission," says Newton, who stars opposite Mark Wahlberg in the romantic comedy The Truth About Charlie, which opens Friday. 

Newton was born in Zambia, but her parents moved to Cornwall in the British Isles when she was still a child. 

At 13, she won a much-coveted scholarship to study dance at London's Art and Educational School. 

"One of my teachers told me about a film audition in London and encouraged me to attend. I studied music and dance, but I'd never tried drama still it sounded like a great way to spend a day in London." 

FLIRTING WITH FRIENDS 

The audition was for John Duigan's film Flirting that was scheduled to shoot in Australia. 

Newton won the role of the young African exchange student who falls in love with a boy at a nearby all-boys' school. 

Her co-stars were Noah Taylor and Nicole Kidman, who have remained her close friends. 

"I came back from Australia that fall a very different girl. I felt more mature than my classmates and I wanted to do more film work. 

"It was so difficult to concentrate on school work. It felt like I was Alice in Alice in Wonderland and the rabbit hole had suddenly been slammed shut on me." 

That door squeaked open when Newton won small roles in Young Americans, The Pirate Prince and Interview with the Vampire, and then much larger roles in such films as Jefferson in Paris and Besieged. 

In 1997 she got her biggest break when Jonathan Demme cast her in the title role of Beloved. 

Newton and Demme remained the best of friends. 

She visited him in America and he visited her in London. 

"On one visit to his house, Jonathan asked me to watch one of his favourite old films." 

The film was the 1963 romantic comedy Charade, which starred Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant. 

HOME MOVIE NIGHT 

It's the story of a young widow who discovers her dead husband has hidden a fortune and several people are determined to find it with or without her help. 

"After we'd finished the film, Jonathan said he thought it would be great to try to update the film with me as the heroine. I thought he was joking, but he wasn't. He sent me the screenplay about a year later." 

Originally, Demme intended to pair Newton with Will Smith as the charming stranger who could either be trying to help or kill her. When Smith dropped out to do Ali and Men In Black, Demme offered the role to Wahlberg. 

Newton says she and Wahlberg did no socializing the whole time they were in Paris. 

"My daughter (Ripley Newton Parker) was four months old. I was nursing her and spending every moment off camera with her and my husband (British screenwriter Oliver Parker)." 

FAMILY LIFE 

Newton met her husband eight years ago when she was starring in the TV drama In Your Dreams which he had written. 

"Since we had Ripley, I've made a pact with myself not to do more than one film a year and not to have any guilt over the fact I'm not working constantly." 

Newton has already completed a heist drama called Shade. 

"It's a great little drama I did with Gabriel Byrne and Stuart Townsend. We play grifters who are trying to con Melanie Griffith and Sylvester Stallone in a big poker game." 

"Not a second!" he insists. "Never. I was the cheerleader. I was cheering (star and producer) Oprah (Winfrey), or trying to, anyway. I'm such a glass- half-full kind of person . . . I tried to keep Oprah's eye on the bottom line, which is (that) she got her movie made." 

Still, it would seem that the low dividends received on "Beloved," particularly when balanced against his Oscar-winning "The Silence of the Lambs" and "Philadelphia," are connected to Demme's radically different direction with his new film, "The Truth About Charlie." 

Inspired by the 1963 romantic thriller "Charade" -- and a remake only in the roughest sense -- "The Truth About Charlie" stars Mark Wahlberg and Thandie Newton in a tale of murder and paranoia, set in a Paris that doesn't resemble the cosmopolitan capital of "Charade," but rather the gritty, multicultural Paris of flea markets and ethnic neighborhoods. 

Demme calls it "a combination of mystery and suspense, but with an active sense of humor." 

Newton, who played the title character in "Beloved," is Regina "Reggie" Lambert, the role Audrey Hepburn played in "Charade." Wahlberg is Joshua Peters (Cary Grant in the original), a mysterious charmer who comforts Reggie when she returns from a Caribbean vacation to find her apartment ransacked, her bank account plundered and her husband dead. A trio of menacing crooks (Ted Levine, Lisa Gay Hamilton and Korean actor Joong-Hoon Park) is on Reggie's trail, convinced that she has a bundle of cash that's rightfully theirs. 

Instead of the elegant sophistication of Stanley Donen's film, Demme shoots with handheld cameras, never uses a crane or a dolly, and gives his film the disjointed, off-center rhythm of a Dogma 95 flick or a French New Wave film of the early '60s. 

For Demme, who at 58 is boyishly enthusiastic and remarkably free of Hollywood pomposity or bravado, "The Truth About Charlie" isn't just a return to directing after four years; it's a redefinition. Could it be that Demme, a "late-starting dad" with three kids, ages 7, 12 and 14, was re-energized by fatherhood and wanted to funnel that galvanizing force into his filmmaking? 

The idea for "Charlie" came to him, Demme says, when he realized that Donen had filmed "Charade" in Paris in 1963, at the same time that Jean-Luc Godard, Francois Truffaut and the other New Wave mavericks were reinterpreting cinema with audacious, shoot-from-the-hip experiments. "What if one of those film crews had mistakenly picked up a copy of 'Charade,' " he wondered, "and remade it in the New Wave style?" 

"So we just seized that as a kind of handle on how we could make the movie. I didn't want to do a copycat version of 'Charade,' didn't want to emulate or duplicate what Stanley Donen had done." 

Instead, Demme drew inspiration from contemporary film stylists: Tom Tykwer's fabulously energetic "Run Lola Run," Doug Liman's drug drama "Go" ("I was very jealous of how liberated and how high-velocity that picture was") and Lars von Trier's Dogma 95 tragedy "Dancer in the Dark" ("so damn immediate and exciting"). 

Demme also borrowed from Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar-wai, and repeatedly screened Wong's film "Fallen Angels" for his crew during the shoot. If "The Truth About Charlie" is a reaction to "Beloved," he says, it's in the loose shooting style that he and cinematographer Tak Fujiyama chose. 

"Tak and I had been working together for 20-odd years, developing a style of filming that we associate with the better American-made studio pictures. And I think that with 'Silence of the Lambs,' 'Philadelphia' and 'Beloved' we felt we'd reached the best we could do in that stylistic pursuit. We were ready to have a lot more fun again." 

Demme called Donen to ask his permission. "It was so fast," he says. "(Donen) said, 'Fine, you've got my blessing.' He said, 'Just do me one favor, keep the character's name, Peter Joshua, because that's in honor of my two sons.' " 

During the post-production of "The Truth About Charlie," soon after he'd returned from a family vacation to Cuba, Demme got the news that his nephew and fellow film director Ted Demme ("Blow," "The Ref") had died. Only 38, Ted died of heart failure after a basketball game. 

"We were still in the cutting stages," Demme says. "Ted had come up to where I live in Rockland County (north of New York City), and we looked at a cut together a few weeks before he died. 

"We were a lot more like brothers, probably, than uncle and nephew. I loved watching him grow." 

"The Truth About Charlie" carries Ted's spirit, not only in the song that Ted wrote and recorded for it, a self-satirical reggae tune called "Bigga Man, " but also in the dedication to Ted that runs in the closing credits. 

"I dedicated it to him," Demme says, "because my beautiful nephew was a real self-made filmmaker. And I was really glad I had a movie coming out that celebrates filmmaking." 

E-mail Edward Guthmann at [email protected]. 

Jonathan Demme's "The Truth About Charlie" is one of those movies where you have to believe everyone had a ball making the film. It's a playful, cinematic riff on Stanley Donen's 1963 "Charade," the French New Wave and the joys of making movies in Paris. The ghosts of movies past turn up at every corner, from the fashionable 16th Arrondissement to the flea market and Gare du Nord.

The movie may mystify younger moviegoers with characters and scenes that play with one's memory of characters and scenes from old movies. But Mark Wahlberg and Thandie Newton make likable romantic leads, the action and mystery mix as well as they did in the original and Demme has assembled a superb cast and crew that gets caught up in the spirit of the production. Yes, Universal does face something of a marketing challenge with this one. But whatever its theatrical success, "Charlie" should be a solid performer in ancillary markets as this is a film many will want to revisit. 

"Charade," you may recall, has Cary Grant coming to the rescue of Audrey Hepburn, whose husband has abruptly died. A trio of sinister men, former associates of her late husband, are menacing her in the belief that she knows where her hubby, Charlie, hid a fortune they insist belongs to them. All this Hitchcock-influenced suspense takes place in a highly glamorous City of Lights, where a lilting Henry Mancini score adds to the romance.

Demme, who penned the new script with its original writer Peter Stone (writing as Peter Joshua) along with Steve Schmidt and Jessica Bendinger, wonders how that 1963 film might play were a director to employ the techniques of the New Wave, which was at its zenith in that year. Demme also has considerably reduced the age difference between the two leads and shifted the emphasis on certain elements within the structure of Stone's original well-crafted screenplay. In other words, this is a rethink as much as a remake; it's a film that pays homage to a "classic" yet wants to find new ways to entertain with the same story.

For the most part, it brilliantly succeeds. Occasionally, a change adds little, and the ending does feel off-kilter, as if Demme and company simply ran out of ideas. But the director's elliptical, tongue-in-cheek approach with fantasy sequences and witty asides allows him to explore the medium with such unmistakable relish that you can't help laughing out loud.

The film is New Wave American Style. Tak Fujimoto's restless camera is nearly always handheld, often shooting through windows or car windshields. The streets and buildings are alive with all sorts of suspicious people. Carol Littleton's editing captures the jumpy mood of French movies of that era. Demme even borrows subliminal moments pioneered in Tom Tykwer's "Run Lola Run" that give flashes of what is going on inside people's heads.

Then there are the movie's wonderful ghosts: Such New Wave icons as Charles Aznavour, Anna Karina, Agnes Varda and Magali Noel turn up in special appearances. The hotel where much of the action occurs is named the Hotel Langlois after Henri Langlois, founder of the Cinematheque Francaise. There is even a shot of Francois Truffaut's grave at the end credit roll.

Two other ghosts haunt the picture -- Hepburn and Grant. Demme's casting of Newton, whom he directed in "Beloved," is brilliant. With her long neck, lithe body, buckets of charm and strong/fragile beauty, Newton is a new-generation Hepburn. Demme even lets her deliver Hepburn's immortal line to the impossibly handsome, silver-haired Grant: "You know what's wrong with you? Absolutely nothing." Only she says this to Wahlberg, whom Demme calls the "anti-Cary Grant." Wahlberg does take the character in a different direction -- rugged, street-smart, resilient -- but like Grant, he grows quite fond of his role as knight in shining armor, especially when Newton is the lovely lady in distress.

The baddies are as wonderfully oddball as the originals. Ted Levine plays one as a hypochondriac
nut. Joong-Hook Park, a popular film star and comic in South Korea, makes his character the strong but mostly silent type. Lisa Gay Hamilton is a tough girl from the projects. Tim Robbins smoothly slides into the Walter Matthau role as the seemingly helpful U.S. bureaucrat who gains Newton's trust. Christine Boisson is the no-nonsense, extremely bright police commandant.

The production has an absolute sheen. This is a different Paris than "Charade's" yet every bit as
romantic, dangerous and fun to visit.

THE TRUTH ABOUT CHARLIE
Universal Pictures
Universal presents in association with Mediastream Film a Clinica Estetico production
Credits:
Director: Jonathan Demme
Screenwriters: Jonathan Demme, Steve Schmidt, Peter
Joshua, Jessica Bendinger
Based on the film "Charade," written by: Peter Stone
Producers: Jonathan Demme, Peter Saraf, Edward Saxon
Executive producer: Ilona Herzberg
Director of photography: Tak Fujimoto
Production designer: Hugo Luczyc-Wyhowski
Music: Rachel Portman
Co-producers: Neda Armian, Mishka Cheyko
Costume designer: Catherine Leterrier
Editor: Carol Littleton
Cast:
Joshua Peters: Mark Wahlberg
Regina Lambert: Thandie Newton
Mr. Bartholomew: Tim Robbins
Il-Sang Lee: Joong Hoon Park
Emil Zatapec: Ted Levine
Lola Jansco: Lisa Gay Hamilton
Commandant Dominique: Christine Boisson
Charles Lambert: Stephen Dillane
Running time -- 104 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13

The truth about Mark Wahlberg and Edward Norton? Forget reports that they're not getting along even before they begin filming the upcoming remake of the Michael Caine movie "The Italian Job."

Last week, the New York press reported that Norton was forced to do the movie based on an oral contract he made with Paramount years ago, and he isn't a happy camper. "I spoke to Edward, and he said he was looking forward to doing this movie and working with me," says Wahlberg, who has the Caine role. 

Then why is the press stirring up trouble? "I think Edward wanted to play my part and he ended up playing the bad guy. The script was rewritten to his liking, and I think he's happy. He starts work really soon." 

Wahlberg's movie "The Truth About Charlie"--another remake--opens Friday. "I know you're thinking two remakes in a row, but there are few original stories out there. And I've got these two that are extremely original," said the actor, who also headlined a "Planet of the Apes" redo. "You know, it's always the same story anyway. It's just how it's told. No one has really reinvented the wheel yet."

In this update of 1963's "Charade," he plays the role that Cary Grant made famous in the original. "I didn't feel pressure to be Cary Grant. He's great in everything. I just did my own thing." Wahlberg filmed the romance opposite Thandie Newton in Paris. Did he get a chance to fall in love in Paris? "No, me and my girlfriend broke up about a week after I got there!" he says of his split with "Fast and the Furious" star Jordana Brewster. "That was bad. I'm looking forward to filming 'The Italian Job' in the Italian Alps. Maybe I'll fall in love there."

Re-imagining the original charm of Stanely Donen's 1963 romance thriller Charade, Jonathan Demme, in his new film The Truth About Charlie, not only respects the task of generating a remake but does it using a style completely different than the original, French New Wave.

"Some remakes have gotten into a lot of trouble trying to recreate the original movie. I think [the cast and crew] were all liberated in trying to go in a different direction with this. To rethink the relationship. In The Truth about Charlie we could really get away from the elegance of Stanley Donen and go for this cinema nouveau, shooting from the hip in an exhilarating photographic style. When Donen was making Charade in 1963 that’s exactly when the New Wave was burgeoning. Literally around the corner from where Donen had his screen set up doing these fabulous shots, you would have turned the corner and seen Godard with a shaky camera. I like the idea of making the time-appropriate ‘new’ New Wave version of Charade," explains Demme.

The original, starring Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant imparts nothing short of classical beauty and style. Hepburn plays a damsel in distress who's just found out that her elusive husband's been murdered. With the help of Grant, she runs around Paris trying to find answers and people she can trust who will give her those answers, safely. Filmed by Donen to accentuate the glory and romance of Paris, Charade shows a picture perfect city, as crisp and white as a set of linen sheets. It's a Paris that Demme wasn't interested in. 

"Charade is made with extraordinary elegance and style. It's classic thriller filmmaking as its very finest. I didn't want to do that. We had made this vow not to show the Eiffel tower. We were so against showing the picture-perfect postcard Paris. We were going to go to parts of Paris you never see and parts of Paris that communicate the extreme diversity of Paris. Paris is not a picture-perfect postcard city composed of white people anymore. It’s a throbbing churning diverse place," he continues.

Though Demme's effort to make the story believable for modern audiences using loose cinematography and unconventional location shots, the key to his modern adaptation is not just the cinematography, it’s the cast of characters too. And specifically how they were able to re-invent their character for modern sensibilities.

Thandie Newton, who worked with Demme in Beloved, had no idea she'd, in essence, "become" Audrey Hepburn for this role. When she agreed to the role, she'd never seen Charade. Demme, who decided to remake Charade partially because he saw it as a Thandie Newton vehicle, showed her the movie sometime after she'd agreed to take the role.

Because Newton has a style and grace similar to Hepburn, it's easy in Demme's film to see a resemblance between the two despite the fact that Newton didn't plan it that way. "I just accepted the role from the script. So I didn't think about it because that’s not my job. The character is different and the situation is different. I was very aware that in my presentation of the character, I needed to absolutely forget that we were related in any way. When it came to making it, I had a practical amnesia. And its only now that I think back and think of any relation," says Newton.

Starring across from Newton is Boston's own Mark Wahlberg, who does a capable job of flipping between nice guy and suspicious guy, but by no means presents anywhere near the effectiveness or dashing good looks of Cary Grant. Tim Robbins plays the very dry and exacting Hamilton Bartholomew originally handled in near slapstick form by Walter Matthau. And for sake of honoring the dead, a photograph of a dead stamp collector is played in cameo form by the late producer Kenny Utt.

Most Hollywood movies are works of fiction, but what if the screenwriters credited with creating them are fictional as well?

In Jonathan Demme's new film, "The Truth About Charlie," which debuts Friday) with a cast that
includes Mark Wahlberg and Thandie Newton, one of the screenwriters listed in the credits is Peter Joshua. Sound familiar? It does if you recall that in Stanley Donen's 1963 romantic thriller "Charade," on which Demme's movie is based, one of Cary Grant's identities is Peter Joshua.

In reality, the Peter Joshua credited with Demme, Steve Schmidt and Jessica Bendinger with writing "The Truth About Charlie" is none other than Peter Stone, who wrote "Charade." Why the fictional name?

"Since Peter Stone didn't do any work on this adaptation, he, in deference to Jonathan Demme and the other writers, took the name Peter Joshua as a nod to the character in the original movie," explains a spokeswoman for Universal Pictures.

Hollywood is replete with films in which fictional names are listed in the credits, from W.C. Fields, who wrote under such colorful pseudonyms as Mahatma Kane Jeeves and Otis J. Criblecoblis, to Robert Towne, who reportedly was so dissatisfied with the movie that he used the name of his sheepdog, P.H. Vazak, on "Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes." In "Adaptation," which debuts Dec. 6, Charlie Kaufman and Donald Kaufman are listed as the screenwriters, although Donald does not exist.

And how does the Writers Guild of America feel about this?

"The right of writers to pick a pseudonym is embraced in the guild's contract" with the studios, a WGA spokeswoman said, but "the studios usually try to curtail it." 

HOLLYWOOD (Variety) -Wednesday's Academy premiere of "The Truth About Charlie," was awash in crepes and berets. 

Director Jonathan Demme said the picture, a remake of Stanley Donen (news)'s 1963 romantic thriller, "Charade," about an endangered widow and her mysterious suitor, is his valentine to the artsy French New Wave of the early '60s. All shot on location in Paris, it even includes clips of nouvelle vague auteur Francois Truffaut's gangster noir "Shoot the Piano Player." 

And though the "if-it-ain't-broke" argument might be applied to some recent remakes ("Swept Away," anyone?), Demme says "Charlie" wasn't about revising the original Cary Grant-Audrey Hepburn starrer so much as it was about recreating it. 

"I like to think this movie as the offspring of 'Charade,"' the helmer said. "It's kind of a DNA thing
-- this movie loves its parent." 

Star Thandie Newton (news) chimed in: "Why would he waste his time copying when he's got so many amazing ideas?" 

Among those living la vie Parisienne were stars Mark Wahlberg (news), Ted Levine and Joong-Hoon Park; plus guests including Roger Corman (news), Bill Paxton (news), Colin Farrell, Donnie Wahlberg (news), Charlize Theron (news) and Jake Gyllenhaal (news). 

Director Jonathan Demme has created an eclectic pastiche of films over the past three decades making risky, quirky films, which reflect his canted view of the world. Be it socially conscious (Philadelphia), horrific (The Silence of the Lambs), surreal (Beloved) or just plain comedic (Something Wild), Demme’s vision on film has always been something fresh and unique. 

Thus, when Demme announced that he would be tackling a remake of the frothy Audrey Hepburn/Cary Grant classic Charade, you could practically imagine the cumulative gasps and double takes amongst cinephiles and Demme fans. The most common question being why Demme, an artist known for his distinctive choices, would take on such a seemingly unoriginal project? The answer was simply that he loved the original and he “leapt at the opportunity to re-team with Thandie Newton in a contemporary persona.” 

And while The Truth About Charlie captures shades of Charade, this new incarnation is more of a riff and homage to the original work. Charlie is really a love letter to the city of Paris and the cinematic style (the French New Wave) to which it inspired. Demme not only shot this film with the techniques of the French New Wave directors but he also peppered his landscape with the actual iconic figures of the movement including: Charles Aznavour (Shoot the Piano Player), Magali Noel (Riffifi), Agnes Varda (Vagabond) and Anna Karina (A Woman is a Woman.) Jonathan explains, “We were looking for an opportunity to toss away the rulebook and make our New Wave movie. A version of Charade that might have been made by the French filmmakers who were making their handheld camera movies around the corner when Stanley Donen was in Paris.” 

Demme considers his film, The Truth About Charlie to “be the respectful offspring of Charade.” Undaunted by those questioning his choice in re-making it, he fearlessly answers his critics by saying “I love remakes! They are exciting and can be audacious.” 

Demme explained his methods recently when he stopped in Philadelphia to promote the film. He discussed his inspirations for the re-make, his love of working with leading lady Thandie Newton and his outlook for the future. 

Why did you decide to remake Charade? 

I think I was definitely looking for a light entertainment to do. A switching of gears from my previous three pictures which were each in one way or another kind of heavy. I felt I needed at least a vacation from big themes that were huge and important to me. While being in this open state, I saw Charade. And I also really felt very strongly about the magic of Thandie Newton in a contemporary part. Thandie  is a very vibrant, deep, funny person who (surprisingly to people have only seen her in her trilogy of American slave movies) speaks in an English accent and is completely different from those roles. So, when I saw this wonderful “woman in jeopardy” movie again, I thought that could be a terrific Thandie Newton vehicle. It also invited an opportunity to indulge in an aggressively playful filmmaking style. 

Most of your films have featured a very strong central female. Is that something you consciously do? 

It’s not something I consciously do but I have to note that I am really susceptible to a story with a terrific woman in a real jam surrounded by a bunch of guys – none of whom are making her life easier. It can be said about Silence of the Lambs and Married to the Mob. 

How did you choose to include the French New Wave elements in the film and how do you think the French will react to the film? 

They will either love it or they’ll be “How dare he!” I’m not sure, maybe a little of each. (Laughs)

I didn’t realize how impacted I would be by suddenly finding myself in the city [Paris] that has provided the location for so many films that I’ve loved my entire life. I fell madly in love with Bridget Bardot and then as a young man, I discovered the New Wave specifically in the film Shoot the Piano Player. It completely opened up the boundaries of what movies were capable of transmitting. In Shoot the Piano Player, when the gangster says to the cop, “I’m telling you the truth! If I’m lying may my mother fall dead” and it cuts to an old lady and she falls dead - this was an enormous moment for me as a moviegoer and it opened up doors to me. 

In my script, I knew that the hotel should be called the Hotel Langlois because Henri Langlois was the founder of French Cinematheque. I knew as a film buff that François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard first fell in love with American movies and then went out and made their films. So, that was a sneaky little homage.

I knew I wanted a Charles Aznavour song. I was really thrilled that seeing him actually materialize in the room in the film seemed to be entertaining. In order to get permission to use the song, I had to request in person, permission in his office and there he was! So, I couldn’t resist asking him to sing the song and he was amused and he came and did it. I feel really strongly that you don’t have to know who this guy is to know there is something magical about him. 

What elements did you feel needed to be preserved from the original film? 

The spirit of fun. The basic premise for Charade, as I understand and understood it, was that it was a movie that does invite the audience into a deal whereby we are going to shift mood on you, we are going to play with you. When Audrey Hepburn is introduced in Charade, within moments a gun comes into frame and intense suspense music comes up and then a stream of water comes out and it’s revealed to be a little kid with a water gun. Charade announces we are going to play with you. Yes, it’s a thriller but one with a very active sense of humor. 

In our movie, we meet Reggie begging for her life and she falls out of frame into water and it turns out she is playing with a little boy in the pool. So, I wanted to make that same announcement but in a different way.

I’ve never done a mystery before and I love them. One of the other things a remake offered me to do was to pull the backstory, the sources of the mystery, much more into the present than the first picture had chosen to do. I liked being able to play more of a puzzle game. 

What did you see in Mark Wahlberg and Thandie that made you want to cast them in roles originated by Grant and Hepburn? 

Nothing. (Laughs) The teaming of Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant is champagne. It’s just the finest champagne and that’s a particular delicious taste and the original film offered that. I didn’t want to try and match that unique champagne. I wanted to go for a younger, more oaky Chardonnay.  I didn’t want to copycat the original. 

In the original, Audrey falls for Grant like a ton of bricks and it’s delightful to see her try to get him
into bed. It’s great but why do that again? The basic story of Charade gave us the opportunity to take a different look at the same story, which could be fun in its own way. Now, here is Mark, a guy who gets to meet Thandie Newton and he wants something from her very badly but he falls madly in love with her. Yet he must continue to deceive her to attain his goal but also let her know that he loves her. I also liked the idea of taking Mark Wahlberg and dropping him down in a foreign country and sticking a beret on him and making him speak French. (Laughs) 

Did you consult with Stanley Donen at all? 

I did. The night I saw Charade and decided that it was fertile terrain. I called him the next day and reached him in his office and essentially said I would love to do a remake and how would you feel about that? And he said exactly “You’ve got my blessing.” 

Would you have done it without his blessing? 

No. Absolutely not, no way. 

What was improvised in the film? 

The camera was improvising all the time. We were lucky enough to find a very brilliant, young French camera operator, Pierre Morel. We looked at certain movies like Run Lola, Run, and Godard’s A Woman is a Woman, then Dancer in the Dark; movies where the camerawork was very liberated.

And the actors were always free to toss some lines in or drop something. Ted Levine (“Emil Zadapec”) is a very big improviser. 

The soundtrack is very eclectic, as they usually are for your films. How do you go about selecting pieces for the film? 

Endless experimentation. Paris is maybe the definitive musical crossroads of the world. It’s got all the ancient classical European music there and all the popular American music and even the alternative American music. There is also an enormous amount of the Francofone music from the former French colonies and a lot of Middle Eastern music. It’s just all there and you hear it all the time. This opened the door for a music lover like me to really populate the soundtrack. I was very taken with the Middle Eastern music. It’s very fresh with a lot of drama to it. 

You dedicated the film to the late Ted Demme? 

The film is dedicated to Ted Demme [Demme’s late nephew] and Marshall Lewis, who was a great pal of mine. He used to be the manager of the Bleaker Street Cinema, which was a fantastic movie theater in New York City. He eventually became an advisor and member of my family. 

What would Ted have said about this film if he saw it?

Ted did see it.  He didn’t see the finished picture but the last time I saw Teddy was last December and he came up to my house and did what I had great pleasure of doing over the past previous years – looking at one of our movies together and talking about it. He liked it a lot. 

Are you more inclined to return to heavy drama now or do you want to look for more comedic projects? 

I finish a movie and all I know is that I hope I will again encounter another piece of material that will
become a movie. The fact is that Jodie [Foster] and I wound up having our expectations of doing a thriller together again dashed when we didn’t do Hannibal. I have a very active itch that needs to be scratched to get out there with this courageous, brilliant woman in a role where she can be up against some very serious adversaries. I’m hoping there is a chance for us to find something. But I enjoyed the light stuff this time very much and I would be happy to find a hilarious side-splitting comedy. I’d love to do a Meet the Parents or Something About Mary. 

What’s next? 

I’m not sure. I’ll be relieved when The Truth About Charlie opens. It’s been two and a half years of work. But in November, I have a producer’s credit on Spike Jonze’s new film, Adaptation starring Nicholas Cage, Meryl Streep and Chris Cooper.

The Truth About Charlie opens October 25, 2002

With ''Red Dragon'' reviving Hannibal Lecter for a new generation, ''Silence of the Lambs'' director Jonathan Demme talks about first films, franchises, and when to walk away. 

Q. Why did you walk away from the chance to make ''Hannibal''? 

A. [Novelist] Tom Harris, for me, took such a bold, unexpected direction with those characters; it broke my heart. It absolutely broke my heart. I had to tell Tom that it was a journey I couldn't take. I felt that the fact that we had, to my mind, lost Clarice was more than I could handle in making a movie. 

It was disappointing because I wanted to get back with those characters. I wanted to get back out there on another case with Jodie [Foster], and I wanted to see her integrity challenged by Dr. Lecter. I wanted to see her up against a brand new foe more frightening than anyone we'd seen before, and I had hoped for a confrontation between Clarice and Dr. Lecter that would really make us all go, ` What on earth is going to happen here?' 

I had very formulaic ideas, in other words. And Tom Harris, man, he's an original. He just went whoooooo, way over there. 

Q. Have you seen ''Red Dragon'' yet? 

A. Haven't seen it, no. 

Q. Do you feel proprietary in any sense? 

A. It's funny, I don't feel proprietary. But I feel paternal. 

Q. Variety recently reported that Ted Tally, screenwriter of ''Silence'' and ''Red Dragon,'' has been hired by producer Dino De Laurentiis to write an original Hannibal Lecter script, without Harris's
participation. 

A. Very interesting. No comment. 

Q. Tally was quoted as saying that Dino had even mentioned the possibility of a TV series. 

A. [wincing] Aw, gee whiz, no, no! Gosh, nothing good can happen anymore without it being exploited until every single centime has been milked out of it. Isn't. That. Something? 

'TRUTH' AND BEAUTY: Later that evening, a packed house filled the academy for the premiere of "The Truth About Charlie," JONATHAN DEMME'S new romantic thriller starring MARK WAHLBERG and THANDIE NEWTON.

The after-party was populated by black-clad, beret-sporting waiters serving brie and camembert, in keeping with the Parisian setting of the film, reminding Thandie Newton of the fun of the job.

"To live in Paris for four months -- I was there with my new baby, and my husband came, and we had this amazing apartment -- it was just completely wonderful," she said, slim and stunning in a teal spaghetti-strap Warren Noronha dress. 

Newton's co-stars Wahlberg, CHRISTINE BOISSON, JOONG-HOON PARK and director
Demme all joined in the festivities, along with friends CHARLIZE THERON, JAKE
GYLLENHAAL, COLIN FARRELL, TED DANSON, MARY STEENBURGEN, BILL PAXTON and CHRISTINE LAHTI (who looked smokin' in a black top and form-fitting black lace skirt).