My biggest role as director on the film is keeping a sense of the overview - how to cast the movie and shoot it in such a way that it will cut together. And how to design the style and tone.

Jay Roach

Categorized in : Cutting Design Style

It seems like you can't actually have really bad hair or be bald and run for President of the United States.

president hair running

I'm a patriot, and I think democracy is the best system available. It's very flawed, but it works better than anything else.

patriot democracy thinking

Sometimes you fall in love with some things and then you fall out... by Jay Roach

Sometimes you fall in love with some things and then you fall out of love with it.

falling-in-love sometimes fall

People have an actual bias against there being some kind of popularity for political films, and when they get acknowledged, it helps keep the conversation going.

political helping people

When Dalton Trumbo and his friends joined the Communist Party it was 1943, and Russia was our ally in World War II. This was connected to a very popular movement of artists and intellectuals at that time towards anti fascism, and an alliance with the union movement.

party artist war

It was a way to try and shut down what the unions were negotiating for, like better hours and pay. [Dalton] Trumbo and his friends joined the Communists mostly for these reasons.

unions trying pay

[Dalton] Trumbo himself was a terrible Communist. by Jay Roach

[Dalton] Trumbo himself was a terrible Communist.

communist terrible

Dalton Trumbo was constantly criticizing the membership [in the Communist Party], and was opposite to being a loyalist.

loyalists party opposites

There were two writer's unions in those days[ during World War II ] , the studio-friendly guild called the Screen Playwrights, and the more activist Writer's Guild. The studios were fairly upset that their group wasn't effective, and they sought to punish the other union by labeling them as Communists.

upset war two

From our perspective now, there is a not a huge understanding about the totalitarian Communism that Soviet Russia practiced during the 1950s - it was an atrocious system.

russia perspective understanding

There is an energy in the USA that will have to be dealt with, will have to be acknowledged and coped with. There are people who feel that they've lost ground, lost access to government - people whose quality of life has been affected.

usa government people

People are willing to throw our civilization under the bus to discredit the existing system, without any proposed solution to the problems that they're willing to pointing at.

problem civilization people

I do understand the free market, having my economics degree, and if someone on the right had some good ideas, I'm not so dogmatic that I wouldn't listen to them.

economics degrees ideas

This is a movie version of the play [All the Way]and when Bryan [Cranston] was on stage the bigness of the man was played to the back of the house. When we turned the cameras on that, it changed a bit with close-ups, but we got just as much power in that beautiful intimacy.

play beautiful men

Hedda Hopper was a better direct opponent to [Dalton] Trumbo. We wanted to use Trumbo's battles to represent the larger battles, so the audience could understand the personal sacrifice he went through and the personal damage to his family. The choices were about who were the best representations of his antagonists, which is why we chose as we did.

sacrifice battle choices

The first thing we noticed was how flamboyant [Dalton] Trumbo was... by Jay Roach

The first thing we noticed was how flamboyant [Dalton] Trumbo was in real life.

real-life real firsts

It's hard to imagine in this day and age the accent in Dalton Trumbo speaking voice, the Mid Atlantic mixture of an English and American dialect, so flowery and oratorical that it almost sounds theatrical. It would be uncool today, no one would ever speak that way.

voice age sound

For Bryan [Cranston ] to go back in time and become this larger-than-life and somewhat theatrical guy, who performed his ideas and rhetoric in public in a melodic and flashy way, was a bit of a risk.

risk guy ideas

Bryan [Cranston] created something completely unique, that was earned by its authenticity. That's what gave us the license to push it a bit.

authenticity license unique

In his life, [Dalton] Trumbo uses wit and comedy to fight these v... by Jay Roach

In his life, [Dalton] Trumbo uses wit and comedy to fight these very high-stakes battles.

battle fighting use