Normally, press conferences are a mad dash of clever quips and sly but superficial responses. But when one includes such a celebrated crew as The Departed director Martin Scorsese, and actors Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio, it makes for a more interesting event.
The following documents two 40-minute sessions that tell the tale about Scorcese's latest elaborate feature, one that recently garnered top Oscar awards—Best Director and Best Picture.
Question (Q): Martin, doing cops seem new for you. What are the similarities between gangsters and cops?
Martin Scrosese (MS): I think no doubt there's similarities—the old cliche of catch a thief, set a thief. To catch someone in the underworld, to play against it, to try to get them, and make apprehensions—I think Bill's depiction of that world made me try again to work within a genre that dealt with Bill's depiction of gangsters. I felt comfortable certainly with the guys in the street, guys in bars and that sort of thing, and even more comfortable with the doctor scenes.
But with the police scenes, I did feel a little uncomfortable. I did sometimes get a little nervous—it had a feel that I was guilty for something and I was worried that there were cops all around me and they were gonna take me in. So I was nervous a couple of times, but they made me feel comfortable. Duffy (police officer and The Departed consultant) was great to hang around.
Q: What's up with violence in your films?
MS: I really don't know what to say. I've said many times I can't defend it. I don't know if I approach it differently. I approach it the way I thought I experienced, anyway—what I know, what I saw. Some people are more impressionable than others. I was very affected by it. I can tell you more than the physical violence; I was affected by the emotional violence around me. It's part of who and what I am and somehow it channels itself into the films, but I don't see it. I see it almost as absurd. In this film, the violence is almost absurdity. There seems to be a lot of violence in films that are like video games. If you want to experience violence, you should experience violence powerfully and real.
Q: Why have your films become more Irish in recent years? Will you return to Italian-centric cinema?
MS: It's an interesting question. I've always felt a close affinity with the Irish, particularly coming out of the same area of New York City—although by the time the Italians moved in, by the 1920s, 1930s, most of the Irish had moved out of that neighborhood. It goes back to Gangs of New York, stories about the way Irish helped create New York, the city itself, and America. Irish literature is very important to me and the poetry of the Irish is extraordinary.
Yes, there were some differences when they first moved into the same neighborhood. The Irish sense of Catholicism is a very interesting contrast to the Italian sense of Catholicism. Don't forget I do have a very strong love for Hollywood cinema, and some of the greatest filmmakers to come out of Hollywood, were Irishmen: John Ford, Raoul Walsh, and others. How Green Was My Valley was about Welsh miners, but it was directed by an Irishman. It had that warmth, the family structure, and felt very close to the culture of the Irish—and the Italians felt that. Besides, the script is written by William Monahan.
[Someone] talks about crime as being a left-handed form of human endeavor. When you start to go that way in your mind and you live by that in the street, it doesn't matter whether it's Boston, Chicago, New York, or anywhere—it filters down to survival of the streets. In the film you're talking about a society within a society within a society. There's a war in the streets, and these guys know what's going on from the beginning and if they make one mistake, they get killed, they're dead. There's no place to run or hide. None. So you take that as a philosophy of the situation and then your philosophy becomes survival. I think as a human being, the differences between different ethnic groups as quote gangsters, that's purely technical.
Q: Why film Boston in Brooklyn?
MS: We didn't really shoot in Brooklyn, we shot in an armory in Brooklyn. That's where there's a space. I think it was an issue of very good shooting deal in New York as opposed to Boston. After looking at locations in Boston, we thought we could double for things in Boston, but it's not easy. It's difficult to rent, the bit players have to be from Boston, so we had to bring them back from Boston, it got a little complicated. But it turned out to be advantageous for us.
Q: Marty, why did you do a remake?
MS: I'm aware of all the Hong Kong cinema. I felt it was OK because what they do I cannot do. I have to find my own way and I think Bill's script was the way. I think the microcosm that he described—the people, the way he described them, the way they behaved, the language they used—that all added up. The story of trust and betrayal, only set in the context of the Irish Catholic world of Boston, the incestuous nature of the world that that depicts. Both Matt's character and Leo's character have relationships with Vera's character, but they never know that. Then you add Jack's character, and all these characters are connected in this incestuous way.
We were able to collaborate with Bill, Vera, Matt, Leo, and Jack bringing his own elements, it all pulled together. Mark Wahlberg's attitude was very clear, Alec Baldwin picked up on it beautifully and counterbalanced, it was almost like an Abbott and Costello routine between Wahlberg and Baldwin. I didn't have to say anything to them, they just did it. But this is really by Bill and from Matt's placement.
Q: Leo, what is it about Scorsese that attracts you to his films?
Leonardo DiCaprio (LD): Well, I'm a fan of his work, number one. It all started with wanting to work with him doing This Boy's Life with Robert DeNiro. So I became a fan of his work at a very early age. If you asked me [when I was] starting out in the business, who I wanted to work with, it would have been Marty.
I got fortunate enough to work with him on Gangs of New York in 2000. I think just from there, we have a good time working together and we have similar tastes [in] films. He certainly has broadened my spectrum as far as films that are out there, the history of cinema and the importance of cinema, and it really brought me to different levels as an actor. I look at him as a mentor.
Q: How did you get into this project?
Matt Damon (MD): Graham came to me because his company had access and I first heard about it through him. It's like the dream of all dreams: Hey, did you hear that Martin Scorsese is directing a movie about Boston? Then I got a copy of the script and loved it and when I came back to New York, I met with Marty. But I think I had already agreed to do it. Most of these things are contingent on a meeting. I wasn't even trying to be cool about it—I'm in, so if he needs to meet with me, I'll go meet him wherever he wants. It was a really easy yes for me.
LD: I never had an initial conversation with Graham. I had received the script and Bill Monahan's work is this tightly-woven, highly complex ensemble piece, this gangster thriller. It's very, very rare in this business where a script lands on your lap ready to go—this was one of those rare occurrences. There was a certain amount of work, character development, taking things out, changing dialogue, but to have the construct of the story and really complex, duplicitous characters, information, disinformation, plot twists, all leading to a satisfying ending, is something you hardly ever get to in this business. So I know I got the script when Marty got it and it was one of those things that we really didn't need to discuss. He really wanted to do it. I really wanted to do it.
Q: So Matt and Leo, can each of you talk about why you picked your characters?
MD: Leo and I both thought they were these incredible roles. I think we would have been happy to play either one. We're happy [with] the way it turned out because I can't imagine playing the other one. It's really rare in a film of this budget to have characters this interesting. Generally the bigger the budget, the less interesting the characters become. All of us had great things to play, so that's a real credit to Bill Monahan and his script. To be able to have that much to do when you go to work every day was really great. And then we also heard the director had done a good movie here or there, so...
LD: I agree with Matt 100 percent. These characters are two sides of the same coin in a lot of ways. They come from different backgrounds but they each could have easily made choices the other character made, depending on the circumstances. It just happened that way.
Q: Your characters don't share screen time but they have to be very similar, so how did you make it work?
MD: The script makes it work, it is really well written. A lot of this was already on the page, and as long as Leo and I both did our work and got prepared and just played the scene without even thinking about that, and just letting Marty sort it out, it was bound to work well. There are similarities in the characters, they're the same guys, they're the same age, from the same neighborhood, they're both pretending to be people they're not, there's bound to be comparisons.
LD: Certainly, they're two sides of the same coin. They're products of their environment, they make certain choices early on in their own lives that affect everything that goes on in the film. I think the working experience was interesting because it was almost like we were shooting two entirely different films. Of course they intersected at moments, but they were completely different experiences. But the moments that I did have with Matt, I enjoyed them. He's an unbelievable actor, he really is.
I think there are a lot of really, really interesting characters in this film. That's what I love about Mr. Scorsese's work. He not only gives the same appreciation to the entire film and the construct of the film, but he really lets the audience engage with every character. No matter how small they are, each character is fulfilling.
Q: Martin, how did the script develop on the shoot?
MS: It evolved over a very long process. Ever since I've been making films, I've loved talking about the processes between the writers, myself, and the actors. But I've found over the years that it gets misunderstood. You really have to be there. It's a collaborative process, there's no doubt. But the basis is what Bill [Moynihan, screenwriter] did, and he continued to do when it was called upon. When he was called upon to evolve a character, it was usually with the actors and myself. The editing also contributes greatly to what the film needed here or there.
Q: Did you have a lot of changes for Jack's character?
MS: Nicholson worked in a different way, but that again is a private process. We developed [Costello] a little different from what Bill had put in. Basically we decided the date, the age, and the power of this man and the appearance of his total coming apart with so much power, and yet he's falling apart. This is the way I work, this is my process. The other actors can talk, but we all worked together.
Q: Matt and Leo, please talk about working opposite Jack Nicholson in this film?
LD: Well, as far as Jack was concerned, we expected the unexpected. We knew that having Jack Nicholson join up with Martin Scorsese and play a gangster is something I think a lot of movie fans have been waiting for. For me, there were a number of different scenes where I had no idea what was going to happen. One scene in particular, we did the scene one way, and I remember Jack [telling] Marty he didn't feel that [Costello] was intimidating enough. It was one of the table scenes—it was one of the most memorable moments of my life as far as being an actor is concerned. I remember coming into the scene one way and then I came in the next day and the prop guy told me, be careful, he's got a fire extinguisher, a gun, some matches, and a bottle of whiskey. Some things are in the film that he did that day and some things aren't.
For me, as an actor, playing this guy that has to relay to the audience this constant 24-hour panic attack that I'm going through for my life, surrounded by people that would literally blow my head off if I gave them any indication of who I was, coupled with the fact that I'm sitting across the table from a homicidal maniac who will maybe light me on fire—that gives your character a whole new dynamic. It completely altered and shifted the scene in a different direction. I think we all knew that if Jack came on board he would grab the reins with this character and let him be free-form, and we all were completely ready for that every day that we walked on the set. He had a short run, he filmed his scenes and then he left. But those were some of the most intense moments of the film. For me, certainly, there were some memories that I will never forget.
Q: Matt and Leo, can you talk about your experiences with violence?
MD: Growing up, I wasn't someone who fought a lot or anything like that. I saw a lot of violent things happen, but probably not more than most kids growing up in the city. My mother was a professor of early childhood and she specializes in nonviolent conflict resolutions. I hear about portrayal of violence in cinema all the time, particularly gratuitous violence, so I'm careful not to do any of that. None of the violence in this film is gratuitous and the characters all pay a price for their violence. That's a good message to send out to people—that there's a price to pay.
LD: By watching Martin Scorsese movies, right? That form of immediate violence really is not familiar to me, but that's what you do as an actor. If you can't draw upon anything in your real life, you go meet people who have done these things. Part of the process for me was going to Boston—I had never spent any time there. I learned about the Boston subculture, meeting some of the real people who were around during the late '80s, the Whitey era. I really wanted to meet some guys from South Boston. I spent a lot of time with a guy I met in Los Angeles who told me a lot of stories about the streets. Boston's a really interesting place because everyone knows each other's business. It's like a little microcosm there—everyone waves to each other on the street and they all have overlapping stories.
It was very important to meet some of the real characters and get to know them and hear some stories. I read a few books, but to be able to penetrate some of these guys, and really get deep into what they were thinking was important. We shot a lot of it in New York; we should have shot some of it in Boston. We had a great technical advisor named Tom Duffy, who knew the entire history of Boston and what the streets were like. He was there throughout the entire filmmaking process. And the police gave us unbelievable advice. Matt actually went on a raid at a crackhouse.
Q: Matt, can you discuss going on a drug bust with police?
MD: As Leo said, Tom Duffy was a huge resource for us. Leo got connected to some people who were around Whitey Bulger. Duff was able to get me around the police, and it was really fascinating. I had a real advantage because I'm from Boston, so I didn't have to learn an accent or anything like that.
What I knew of the state police was from the times that I got pulled over for speeding on the Pike. So to get in there and really see what these guys do was great. The ride-along was a great experience. I was a lot closer to the action than I was comfortable with, I'll tell you that. We did the whole deep breathing, the little huddle, before we went in. They gave me a bulletproof vest and put me at the end of the line of people who go crashing through the door.
Q: Was the decision to have one character want religion and have one push it away, was that originally in the script or was that added?
One embracing religion and one not, I never thought of that. A lot of work in this film was intuitive; I never really thought that out. But I did understand the corruption of power and havoc of Jack Nicholson's character Costello. He's beyond power, he's beyond God, he's got all the money, he's got all the drugs, he's got everything that he ever needs. But he's still not satisfied and ultimately he sets himself up to be taken in by his sons.
Q: Is this a moral ending or a just ending? How does it reflect on American morality?
MS: I think that's a good question. What I immediately related to in Bill Monahan's script is that it's like a picture and I don't know what it is. It's like an obsessive behavioral pattern on my part to be dealing with this material, but this film is a little different. I felt a kind of despair that's reflected in the story, in the characters and how they all interact with each other, and particularly in the ending. How the whole plot is resolved in the elevator, in the hallway, and of course in Colin's apartment in the end.
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