THE FIFTH ESTATE Interview Director Bill Condon & Screenwriter Josh Singer
By: John Meneghetti
Here is the interview with Director Bill Condon and Screenwriter Josh Singer. They sat down and talked about his upcoming film THE FIFTH ESTATE and more. And if you missed the interview with BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH, you can read it HERE.
Triggering our age of high-stakes secrecy, explosive news leaks and the trafficking of classified information, WikiLeaks forever changed the game. Now, in a dramatic thriller based on real events, “The Fifth Estate” reveals the quest to expose the deceptions and corruptions of power that turned an Internet upstart into the 21st century’s most fiercely debated organization. The story begins as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (Benedict Cumberbatch) and his colleague Daniel Domscheit-Berg (Daniel Brühl) team up to become underground watchdogs of the privileged and powerful. On a shoestring, they create a platform that allows whistleblowers to anonymously leak covert data, shining a light on the dark recesses of government secrets and corporate crimes. Soon, they are breaking more hard news than the world’s most legendary media organizations combined. But when Assange and Berg gain access to the biggest trove of confidential intelligence documents in U.S. history, they battle each other and a defining question of our time: what are the costs of keeping secrets in a free society—and what are the costs of exposing them?"
PRESS: I understand, I just read the Hollywood Reporter I think it was that said you were in the same agency with the producer of this film who knew you and knew you by politics.
BILL CONDON: Yes.
PRESS: And came to you with this project.
BILL CONDON: Right, and as is Josh. So Steve Golin is that person. Anonymous Content basically produced this movie and packaged the movie. And forget the agents. No. [LAUGHS]
PRESS: What do you think is the biggest challenge bringing a story that some people will say, "Well I sort of know what that's about already. I read the stories in the headlines and I know WikiLeaks and Julian Assange," you know.
BILL CONDON: Well I think for me it was the experience of reading the script was so, "Oh my God, I didn't know that," you know. I think and the fact I think first of all that they're two such compelling characters, that the relationship is so compelling and that within the story you get to really examine these hot button issues that are like really of such incredible relevance to all of us now. So that for me was why I thought, "Well, that's a movie worth making," you know. Now how do we, you know, I hope we're able to get that message out to the public, you know.
PRESS: Was it this movie, Josh, that it says that we thought America was the land of the free and then we find out that they're the first people that try to put a [INDISCERNIBLE].
JOSH SINGER: When Dynadot actually -- when the judge ordered Dynadot to shut down the domain name because Dynadot was located in California and that's what the Julius Baer case. And see that's exactly to me, that was what drew me to the material to begin with was, you know, I knew about all the America data and everything that had happened, you know. And had some idea of, you know, the debates around the cables, but I didn't know any of the history. And the fascinating thing about reading Daniel's book was looking at how much they had done and what great heroic stuff they had done early on and how they had really been, you know, become these wonderful, you know, this wonderful new way of pushing transparency of checking government and checking large corporations from very early on.
And so, you know, to me one of the things I found very exciting was all the stuff that is prelude to what we sort of know. And I feel like one of the wonderful things Bill's done with the movie is by making all of that come to life, I think when you get into the American stuff and you've seen the film so you can tell me. But for me, that stuff now has context and it has context both in terms of Julian and Daniel's relationship and there's context in terms of the ideals of transparency they were pushing for and how, you know, when those ideals -- where the rubber meets the road in terms of pragmatism when, you know, you have an idea which is well editing reflects bias, right? Well, can you really just be that idealistic all the way along? When do you have to start making compromises of those ideals in order to remain true to the larger thing you're going after?
PRESS: But you give him the last word.
BILL CONDON: Julian, yes.
JOSH SINGER: Yeah.
PRESS: Can you argue that he did 'cause he said in that section, "No you cannot show me one instance where that red flag actually meant somebody died."
BILL CONDON: Yes. Sure.
PRESS: Is that true?
BILL CONDON: According to him it is, you know. And it's complicated because there are sources in the State Department who say no that's not true. At the same time at the Bradley Manning hearing when it was time for them to sort of point to someone, they couldn't. So I mean, you know, you decide. I mean it's really -- the jury is basically out on that.
JOSH SINGER: And I think one of the other things that there's a little bit of -- and all those comments are directly from Julian. So at the very end when Bill had this idea well what if we add Julian give a rebuttal at the end, we literally had a -- I went back and said, "Let's make that Julian's words, not my words." And so all those are directly from Julian. But there's a bit of a slight of hand in that comment because he's talking about someone dying, right? But one of the things that we heard and I talked to two or three very good State Department sources who people had left the State Department, people who, you know, one of them was P.J. Crowley who had left because he had protested, you know, the way Obama and the Obama Administration was treating Manning. And so they felt like real sources who weren't just trying to, you know, sell the party line.
And when we talked to them we really got a sense of, you know, to what extent this has really disrupted what had gone on in the State Department, you know, in terms of, you know, any number of confidential sources who might not have lost their lives but were in jeopardy and had to be moved out of their countries, you know, like we showed with Tariq.
PRESS: And who says where do I go now?
JOSH SINGER: Correct. And, you know, there's an actual story of a woman in a South American country who got a call much like the one we have Sarah Shaw, Laura Linney's character plays. And got a call and literally vomited into the film. You can ask anybody in D.C. They've heard this story, right? Because she knew her life was over in that country. She had to leave, right, because these cables might come out as they eventually did and when they would come out she would no longer be safe. And so her entire home, her entire way of life was gone.
PRESS: Assange mocks print press in the movie early on, and but then he [SOUNDS LIKE] rebles in the fact that The Times is giving him quoate pages and his getting fourteen pages on the Guardian, so I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about where you see print versus the new media and how they kind of work together or is print done?
BILL CONDON: Well, hopefully that isn't done, but it's in trouble. There's no question, right? Nick Davies talks about this a lot, the fact that investigative journalism is as the script says, pricey, and the money for that is less and less available. And so, yeah, there's some value to what people like WikiLeaks can provide but the crucial thing is, who then becomes the person who decides, you know. And, yeah.
JOSH SINGER: Yeah, one of the reasons I wanted to write the movie to begin with is, you know, as you all know the past five, 10 years have not been kind to the Fourth Estate, to traditional journalism. There have been layoffs, there have been, you know, newspapers have shrunk, a lot of them have gone out of business and this is a real problem, you know. Clay Shirkey has documented this ad infinitum, you know. The old models are dying a little bit, right? And if the old models are dying, how are you going to -- what is going to be the proper check? Who is going to check government? Who is gonna check these corporations? Who's going to make sure this graft isn't happening? And that's where hopefully pioneers like Julian and Daniel come in. So it's interesting 'cause there definitely was I think early on very much attention between, you know, some of the folks in The Guardian were very interested in what Julian and Daniel were doing and some of the folks were like, "Well, that's not real journalism," right? And yet then there was this idea well maybe it can help [SOUNDS LIKE] The Augment. Maybe it can help pick up the slack for us and, you know, the question then is, you know, one of the things that we like about the Times and the Post and traditional journalism is that they have journalistic standards, right?
PRESS: The Post has standards?
[LAUGHTER]
JOSH SINGER: But there are [LAUGHS] standards. There are journalistic ethics and so when you have this Fifth Estate, you know, it's a question of well who is giving us that news and will they stay true to the same sort of level of journalistic ethics and integrity.
PRESS: What type of relationship -- I mean I kept asking Daniel and Benedict, is this kind of an S&M relationship?
BILL CONDON: How did you get that? You're the first one.
[LAUGHTER]
PRESS: Well, I mean he's so abusive and dismissive and horrible to him throughout the whole movie. He's never sort of saying, "You did a good job," or anything like that and yet -- and his girlfriend keeps saying to him, "What do you put up with his shift for?" So how do you two guys --
BILL CONDON: Have you met many Germany men? No, no.
PRESS: Well, I can't imagine.
BILL CONDON: I'm kidding. It's a joke, right? No. S&M, that's interesting. No, I think [LAUGHS] -- to me it is the -- one of the things we, you know, in this kind of laying out of the relationship, there was a certain guru element to Julian and, you know, he is somebody who -- and it's part of the betrayal that he ultimately feels with Daniel. It's the reason, it's one of the things happening in that scene with the parents, you know. So that he's somebody who has really extracted himself from all the comforts of life, certainly of middle class life and that includes having a home, having a bed, having a steady girlfriend. All of those things, you know. He has children all around the world and all that stuff.
PRESS: Which we never find out about.
BILL CONDON: Well, a little bit. There's a hint of it. Right, right. But the idea is now he's found this person who sort of gets him and he's gonna join him on this journey, you know. And like any guru, you know, his word is ultimate, you know. So if you notice each time there are those moments of lashing out, it has to do actually with a sense of betrayal on Julian's part that somehow this person who he thinks is thinking about the world in the same way actually isn't. And one of the worst is when he gets to the parents' house and sees again that there's the background of domestic comfort which means that yet again this accolade will never really be able to join him. He's lonely and alone once again, you know.
PRESS: He's damaged I thought that scene also meant.
BILL CONDON: Oh, absolutely.
PRESS: He resents somebody --
BILL CONDON: That's correct.
PRESS: -- who had that kind of thing who could look and say, "That was my father."
BILL CONDON: That's correct.
PRESS: Who wasn't part of this cult.
BILL CONDON: Absolutely, but he sees more clearly that Daniel then isn't that perfect both, you know, accolade that would become his own mentor. It's a very complicated relationship so, yeah, it is probably S&M, yeah.
PRESS: On the casting of Daniel as Daniel and what they brought to the movie.
BILL CONDON: Yeah, well, you know, with Daniel Bruhl in a way the tougher part to cast, you know. Always, the every man, the person who doesn't get all the pyrotechnics, you know, but has to hold his own against the person who has all those great scenes, you know. And I met a number of people and it was that sort of love at first sight breakfast with Daniel Bruhl after which it was just an obsession with making sure that he's the one that got to be in the movie. Clearly, you've met him, you know, it's this incredible openness, kindness, intelligence, wit and also generosity, you know, because I do think it's tough sometimes to play those parts, you know, and to see somebody else get the last word and get to -- so I, you know, I can't tell you how crucial Daniel Bruhl is to making the movie work.
And with Benedict again, it's so interesting when you cast roles and you start to think about what's actually demanded, how those long lists become very short very quickly, you know. And he again this extreme intelligence and obviously he wanted someone who was, you know, had great charisma, a great voice which Benedict does. And also there's something 'cause I can think of a couple of other actors who might fit that bill, there's also something about Benedict, there's something about the British stage actor where he's a natural entertainer. And actually I think that was crucial to that part because even as he's being so odd, there's something -- he's always kind of weirdly enjoying himself, you know, I think. And all those things combined into like making it clear that that was the choice.
PRESS: As the, I assume after you finished the movie and all of these other stuff continues to happen surrounding Bradley Manning.
BILL CONDON: Yeah. Right.
PRESS: Did you think to yourself, "I wish I could go back in," or did you have just sort of draw a line and say, "Okay, we're going to end it."
BILL CONDON: Yeah, no I never honestly thought that because I thought when I first read Josh's script I thought what was so clever about it is that it told a story that had a beginning, a middle and an end which was the Daniel story with WikiLeaks and it felt to me that within that everything else that we're seeing played out now was being addressed, you know. All the issues, all the important issues surrounding it. So yeah, I mean that's incredibly juicy stuff, but I don't know that Bradley Manning's, you know, desire to have a sex change operation really speaks to what's going on or the issues that are happening in this movie.
PRESS: One of the things we heard or that people know about is that Julian tried to persuade Benedict not to play the part and told him it was going to be a smear job and you do present him as somebody who's an egomaniac and a liar. And it comes through very clearly when they decide to take down the site because they say he lied to people and he will say whatever. Can you talk about trying to balance the arrogance and the brilliance of Julian Assange with a character that the audience can sort of sit there and continue to be interested in for two hours?
BILL CONDON: Yeah, it wasn't even so much for the audience because I think in a way it's Daniel taking the audience through that. But I think in general it's part of the impulse behind the final scene, you know, giving him the last word and he gets to refute some of those things, you know. And look, he's an extremely complicated public figure, you know. And all of those things that are depicted in the movie are on the record. And so they go into creating a portrait of somebody who's interesting. He doesn't like it. He's got, you know, an array of incredible good qualities. One of them is not, you know, he's very thin skinned to any kind of criticism. So --
PRESS: Is he a megalomaniac?
BILL CONDON: I don't know. That seems like too simple a word, you know. I think that's your word. I don't think that's what the movie's saying necessarily.
PRESS: What's next for Bill?
BILL CONDON: I'm gonna do this small movie with Ian McKellen called "The Slight Trick of the Mind" about Sherlock Homes --
PRESS: Is it funny?
BILL CONDON: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I know, I know. I can't get away from them, yeah, yeah, yeah.
PRESS: And when he's aged.
BILL CONDON: Exactly, yes, yeah, yeah.
PRESS: Does somebody young come along to try to help them?
BILL CONDON: Yeah, basically it's a story about the woman who takes care of the house and her son and their relationship with Holmes.
PRESS: And it's set in the fifties?
BILL CONDON: It's set in the late forties, you know.
PRESS: Oh, okay. Great format.
BILL CONDON: Yes, it is. Yeah, good design period, right? Yeah, yeah, right. Good. Thank you. Good seeing you, Steven. Yeah, yeah. Thank you.
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