Interview by Anthony Kaufman of indieWIRE
So what's the word for "The Virgin Suicides"?
(Sofia)
Loss. When I was working on it, the theme was loss.
It's interesting the way you tell this story of loss. The camera is often at a distance and your direction is actually very restrained for a story that could have been told with so much melodrama?
I wanted the whole story to be told from the boys' point of view and the neighbors, always looking from across the street at a distance. In my experience, it's always more intriguing to imagine what's happening, as opposed to seeing everything because then you can use your imagination. When we were filming, I always wanted to be at a distance. And also because the Lisbons are shrouded in mystery.
Can you talk about the struggle to get the film financed?
It's impossible to do a movie with unknown actors. It just seems like a hard time to get financing, especially for unusual work. Maybe, it's getting better with everyone getting into independent films. But we got the money selling foreign territories. We also filmed in Toronto to save money.
Can you talk then about the casting? The girls you got were incredible.
I really wanted to have real kids. It really bugs me in movies when they have 30-year-olds playing kids. That age is so specific. So some of them had acted before, one girl was my best friend's little sister that I used to take photos of. And Chelsea Swain is really awkward, neurotic and really interesting to watch. I tried not to be intimidating and make it comfortable. We rehearsed for about a week with Kathleen Turner and James Woods and the daughters, and they stayed in the house and cooked meals together. And we went and all played laser tag together as a family.
James Woods was a surprising choice for the cuckolded father...?
He has this loveable side that you don't see in movies. I didn't know him, at all, but I had seen him speaking at some thing and he had this funny, charismatic side. Then he read the script and I started talking to him, and he really got it. He was like, "Look, I want to help you get this movie made, whatever I can do."
Was he the first to commit to the film?
Kathleen Turner was the very first; she was the bravest one. I had access to her, because my Dad worked with her, so that was a big help. And she read it and I was surprised when she said she'd be Mrs. Lisbon. Because there were no actors on board, it's my first movie, and it's such an unflattering character with no makeup, awful clothes, so that was really brave of her.
So how did you come to start adapting the script without owning the rights?
There had been a couple of versions of scripts and there was a director with another script; he wanted to make it very violent and added all this darkness and added sex. And the book, to me, had this innocence and sweetness that I felt very protective of. It was talking to my friends and saying "this is how they should do it." So I looked back at the book and started writing how I thought it should be done. But I was just doing it as an exercise, because I was curious about adapting a novel to a script. I wasn't even planning on finishing it. And then when I got half way through, I thought I should see if I could finish something. And then, I felt so strongly about it that I went to the producers, but they said, we have someone else. Then they called me months later and said, "His contract's up, do you want to try it?"
What sort of changes did you make in adapting from script to screen?
It's hard for me to remember. I had to change things, but I tried to stay as close to the novel as possible. I had to cut things out, but I tried to keep the essence of it and stay true to the book.