the awards editions 2010-2011

i
n a career now spanning more than 20 years, Peter Morgan has become one of the film
industry’s most reliable writers, best known for crafting screenplays based on real–life
people and events. In 2006 his original screenplay for The Queen was Oscar nominated,
winning numerous other awards including a Golden Globe. The same year he
won a BAFTA award for The Last King Of Scotland. Then he won an Oscar nod for
adapting Frost/Nixon (2008) based on his own play. This year, he is writer and executive
producer of his latest film Hereafter, directed by Clint Eastwood. A complete
departure from his previous scripts, it’s a mult–character study telling three distinct
stories about people affected by death or near death. It’s also the most personal of all
Morgan’s work and something he wrote on spec not knowing if it would ever be made.
DeaDline: What was your reaction when you saw the movie?
peTeR moRgan: I spent most of the time when I watched for the first time loathing my
work, wishing I had done more here or there. And then the second time, at the New York
Film Festival, I really enjoyed it — not my work but the pace, of being allowed in. There are
extremely honest things about it. I can assure
you this is the most honest piece of writing I
have ever done. I wrote it in a hut on a mountain
for nobody because I wanted to. I don’t
know, it just came to me.
DeaDline: What drew you to this material?
moRgan: The stuff that I have perhaps become
known for that’s based on fact, and English
statesmen shouting at each other all the
time, doesn’t entirely represent who I am. I am
not a politics wonk. I like the idea of my writing
reflecting more about who I am or other
people. I wrote this not thinking for a minute
that it would get made. I mean, the tsunami sequence
— anyone in England would know if you
write something like that, it’s just going to get
taken out. You can’t afford anything like that. I
wrote the first draft on my own in between assignments
where I was being paid. I wasn’t paid
to write this. I wrote it for myself and wrote it
quite quickly and left it in a drawer.
DeaDline: How did Clint Eastwood become
involved in the film?
moRgan: I sent it to my agent and he then
sent it to producer Kathleen Kennedy and she
sent it to Steven Spielberg. He rang me up.
Having a phone call from him was just a fantastic rite of passage. I loved it, and he was
very focused, very likable, strictly business, and really sharp. The phone call lasted about
three hours and I loved his ideas. I then changed the script based on the notes he’d given
me and was thrilled with it. I then got a phone call saying, “Would you please come out
to California as soon as possible.” So I jumped on a plane, went to the Universal lot for
a meeting at 1 o’clock, went into the boardroom, an assistant came in and drew the curtains
and said Mr. Spielberg has taken to having his meetings in the dark. She turned all
the lights off, and then she left and I thought, “Well, he’s really not here. It must be an
imposter. But soon there he was, and we had a really long lovely meeting in which he said
the notes he had given me had harmed the script and I said, “No, it was good,” and he said,
“No, no, it isn’t good and I damaged your work, and I don’t want to touch it again, and I
want to go back to the original script that you sent me, and I want to give it to my friend
16 deadline.com
By Pete Hammond
THE SURPRISING HEREAFTER
PEtEr morgAN IS a maSteR oF manIPULatInG CHaRaCteRS,
BUt not In tHIS SCReenPLay tHat manIPULated HIm
Clint Eastwood.” Then I got this phone call saying Clint Eastwood wants to do it, and I
said, “Wow, I can’t wait to start working.” But I not only didn’t have to do any rewrites, I
wasn’t allowed to. I wondered why not since it was my material and I wanted to change it.
But Clint said, “Don’t touch it. Don’t change it. I like it as it is. I want to make it as it is.”
DeaDline: Was that reaction a surprise to you?
moRgan: I’m not accustomed to that at all, I am accustomed to pain and self–destruction
and draft after draft. On the one hand, you might think for a writer this was a
dream come true. We finally came to this rather profound difference in our approaches.
He likes the mess, the imperfection, the instinct. And it is full of bumpiness: it’s full of
things that don’t quite add up or work that could be honed a bit more. But his view is
the looseness and the imperfection allows an audience in. And it’s sort of the antithesis
of overworked controlled freakery that so much of the entertainment process is. There
was something about the rawness of the first impulse that he wanted to preserve and
protect. It’s a very different way of working than I’ve come across before.
DeaDline: What kind of tone were you trying
to achieve?
moRgan: Writing this was in part an effort
to help medicate the ever–present fear of death
that you sort of live with. But it isn’t all about
that. It feels to me like it’s a real correlation
between grief and romance. And so somehow
there’s the blur between loneliness and grief in
the story. The story needs to be harsh but it can
be quite sweet or a sweet melancholy, and I think
that was the tone I was after. I love how simple it
is, and it’s not that emotionally manipulative.
DeaDline: Do you feel the film was faithful
to your script and were there any scenes that
weren’t shot?
moRgan: No. I’ve never known anything like
this before. For example, Clint told me the scenes
with the Matt Damon character were shot in San
Francisco. I originally wrote them for Chicago.
And Clint rang me up to say, “I hope you don’t
mind, but we are going to actually change the
heading of the scene to say ‘San Francisco’ on the
script.” I said, “I think that’s very appropriate.”
DeaDline: What is your motivation to write?
moRgan: Sometimes you are lucky enough
to get offered things and there is no rhyme or reason. I am very lucky because I come from
England and you have a whole range of things offered to you from television plays and shows
and theatre so much more to explore, so it’s never really money. But it’s always what it is that
interests you, although I’m not interested in Tony Blair so I don’t know why I keep writing
about him. I am drawn to characters so full of internal contradictions. Idi Amin was one. I
loved writing him.
DeaDline: Do you want to direct?
moRgan: The real beauty in my professional experience has been friendships and collaborations
with filmmakers. I don’t want to direct. I have no directing ambition whatsoever. And
as long as I meet filmmakers like Tom Hooper, Stephen Frears and others who allow that collaboration,
I can’t see why I would ever want to direct.