BIO: Dan White was elected as City Supervisor for District 8 in 1977. For reasons still not entirely known, he killed San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and fellow Supervisor Harvey Milk on Nov. 27, 1978. Using what would become known as “The Twinkie Defense,” he was controversially convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to seven years in prison, the verdict sparking what would become known as White Night Riots which devastated parts of the city. Paroled in 1984, White committed suicide on Oct. 21, 1985 by carbon monoxide poisoning.

Q: Do you think this story of Harvey Milk is better served by being made by a director who is openly gay, and at the same time do you think any of the characters are being disserved by being portrayed by actors who are straight?

A: I think it lends to it. I’m sure the fact that Lance, who did an amazing job writing the script, that he’s gay [helped]. I think the fact that producers Dan Jinks and Bruce Cohen are gay [helps]. I think it gave them a passion, and this movie has been trying to get made for so long, it gave them an extra connection, an intimate passion, to get this movie made. I think that is where it does lend into it.

I think Gus, whether he is gay or not, it helped. [Gus] has such an incredible sensitivity, and I’ve met gay people are not sensitive and I’ve made straight people who are, so that whole gay thing being more sensitive and all I don’t buy, but Gus himself is extremely sensitive to behavior and to emotions, and because of that I think he’s the perfect person to have done this movie.

With the cast, I don’t think it matters. You try to find the best actor. I think the only thing that’s a bummer, and I do understand it a little bit, is the fact you have gay actors who are still in the closet and can’t come out because they don’t want to be perceived as being ‘gay’ actors. That’s still a messy thing that we’re in, and I don’t know if we’re ever going to get out of it. I don’t know if we’ll get beyond that. Who knows? I hope we do, but I just don’t know if it’s going to happen.

Q: You just worked with Oliver Stone on W. What the difference between working with him and with working with Van Sant?

A: Not a lot. Oliver let me do my thing. What I did with Bush, I brought. What he did with the movie, he brought. What I did with Dan White, I brought. What Gus brought to the movie, he brought.

They both tweaked my performances. I like variation. I like to mix it up. I like to not [do] the same thing twice so they have more possibilities in the editing room where they can figure out what they want to do with it. They both allowed me to do that, and I think they’re both very similar in that way.

Gus is a lot quieter than Oliver. He comes up and says only what needs to be said. Oliver is the same way, but he’s just not as quiet. He’s impassioned constantly. Gus is more self-contained. But they’re both brilliant filmmakers, and the Coen brothers are the same way, Ridley Scott is the same way, Robert Rodriguez is the same way. They all have that through line where they focus on story. They are all obsessed with story, obsessed with characters, obsessed with behavior, obsessed with emotions, and I think it shows in the finished product.

Q: How important was it for Dan White to come across as a fully-formed three-dimensional human being and not as some sort of caricature or monster?

A: I think it is important for any character to come across as human, unless you are doing a caricature. I find it important to care about what the person is going through. I think the more interesting question is, “why?” instead of saying, “Oh look at that.” I could have played Dan White as he was the moment he decided to get the gun to go and kill those people, but that would be very one dimensional. But, to get into his frustrations, to get into the amount of pressure he had from the fire department and the police department to bring San Francisco back to what it was before, which was an impossibility, the fact that once he was elected he became a guppy in a sea of truly skilled politicians, that’s more interesting to me.

Q: What are some of the responsibilities of playing a real life character, whether it be George W. Bush or Dan White, versus playing a fictional character?

A: It’s harder, no doubt about it. There is some form of wanting to do it justice, especially in regards to Bush. There is so much hatred for him, globally, and that was a little disconcerting to me. But it was also part of the great challenge. How can I do this? How can I pull it off? It just became the greater challenge. So, yeah, you feel a greater responsibility [in Milk or W.] then you do with something like No Country for Old Men, sure, but you also try to find people a little bit like them so you can do whatever character you’re playing justice.

It was a little bit different for Dan White. There wasn’t much in the way of research available to me. You just use the information that you have and try to do justice to the material and to the character. But there is more pressure, definitely. Much more pressure.

Q: What do you think of the fact that the movie is coming out now in the shadow of Proposition 8’s passage in California? How do you feel about that?

A: There is a grand parallel. When you feel like you’ve evolved, and I don’t even know if I know what that word means, and you feel like the gay community and gay society has become more mainstream then something like this happens, which was a huge surprise for me. Regardless of how you feel about it, I was still really surprised. California? Of all places, California?

Discrimination, I don’t wish on anybody. Repression, I don’t wish on anybody. It’s sad to me. It creates violence. It creates sideways manifestations, which is always sad to me. To me, the most important thing, and what Harvey’s thing was also, is that people allow themselves to speak and allow their opinions to be heard. Howard Zinn says, “Democracy comes from the bottom and not from the top.” Allow yourself to be heard. Suffer the consequences of that, but allow yourself to be heard.

James Franco is Scott Smith

BIO: Scott Smith met Harvey Milk in 1972. The two quickly became lovers, moving to San Francisco and opening Castro Camera in the Castro District in 1973. They remained together for four years, but even after their separation the two still remained friends, Milk often turning to Smith for advice. He died from complications due to AIDS in 1994.

Q: How did you get involved with Milk?

A: I’ve known Gus for like five years. He and I had a mutual friend, a painter whose studio I would go and work in, and I was doing a play that I had co-written and was acting in and our friend invited [him] to see it. It was in this dinky little theater in West Hollywood, and when Gus Van Sant came to see it, it was like the highlight of the whole run.

We had met that way and then [subsequently] saw one another every so often over the years, talking about other projects that ultimately didn’t work out. Then, two summers ago I was in England studying literature and my agent told me Gus was this movie on Milk and [asked] if I might want to get involved. I did a little research and learned that Gus had been trying to make the movie for like 12 years, so I wrote him an email – and just being the biggest Gus Van Sant fan and knowing just how important this story was to him – I said basically I’d do anything in the movie just to be a part of it.

Q: How did you approach the character? How did you create his identity and not have just sit there idling in Milk’s shadow?

A: People have said that I kind of play the housewife role. From what I’ve heard and read female actors say, “I just don’t want to play another housewife role, I really hate playing the housewife role,” but I had never been offered the housewife role before, and I thought it could be a good opportunity to play something different. I also figured, this movie is called Milk, it’s not called “Smith,” so I think one of the big roles in Scott Smith’s life was that he was that supportive background person for Harvey Milk, and in this movie I think it was important to play the person who was going to be the emotional grounding for many of Harvey’s huge ambitions.

If I did anything else than that it would just get messy, I needed to play that supportive character as best as I could. That would show a loving relationship, and that loving relationship would be in contrast to all the political stuff in the movie. It would take what could be a plan political movie and bring it down to a personal level thanks to this relationship that hopefully feels [honest] and true.

Q: Should a gay actor have played this role?

A: I don’t know if a gay actor could have played this role better than I could. I just know that I feel strongly about all the issues that Harvey was fighting for and the ones he was fighting against. Hopefully my passion for those issues was enough for me to devote myself to this character. Inversely, though, you wouldn’t want to preclude actors who are gay from playing straight roles, so to say only gay actors can only play gay roles would be detrimental in the [contrary] way as well. I don’t know if we’d want to start walking down that path.

Q: What was the research like in regards to portraying Scott Smith? What are the challenges playing a real person entails?

A: There are a lot of challenges. When you’re playing a real person who wasn’t necessarily famous being too loyal to their persona or their mannerisms can sometimes be a hindrance, but I kind of find that inspiring. I like to do a lot of research. I like to find out who the real person is and I find that usually helps the characterization, even if most people aren’t ever going to know how accurate I am or not.

It was hard to find a lot of stuff on Scott, but he was with Harvey for four years and was a big part of his life. I talked with Danny Nicoletta who worked at the camera shop with the both of them. I talked to Cleve Jones. I talked to Frank Robinson. I talked to everybody who knew him. And, as an actor, you just take all of those different perspectives and you boil it down into [a performance] that can hopefully be a dynamic part of the movie.

Rob Epstein, the director of The Times of Harvey Milk, he had an old film real of Scott in a vault and he transferred that to DVD for me and I was finally able to see an extended interview with [him] actually from the period. That was great. Very helpful, and it helped me to discover the real Scott, so I tried to be as accurate to him as possible.

Emile Hirsch is Cleve Jones

BIO: Cleve Jones became an activist under the tutelage of Harvey Milk during the 1970’s, ultimately becoming an intern in his city supervisor office while studying political science at San Francisco State University. In 1983, he founded the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, conceiving the AIDS Memorial Quilt during the annual candlelight memorial for Harvey in 1985. The AIDS Memorial Quilt has grown to become the world’s largest community arts project, memorializing the lives of over 85,000 Americans killed by AIDS.

Q: How did you get involved with the project?

A: I’d met Gus once right before he made Last Days, and we just chatted and stuff, and he was looking to cast a couple of the band members in that. We got along well. After he saw Into the Wild at the Toronto Film Festival he told me that was when he knew he wanted to put me in the movie, and he brought the idea to Sean [Penn] who agreed.

Although, I can’t imagine Sean agreeing too easily after just spending so much time with me on Into the Wild. There had to be part of him that was just saying, “I’ve got to get away from this guy.” I mean, he not only had me on the set he was also stuck with me in the editing room, and that’s a really long movie.

Q: How was your relationship different working together as actors here compared to your relationship as director/actor on Into the Wild?

A: He was very focused on his part. But, you know, it was like playing basketball with the coach. It’s not something you’re used to. I mean, I was very used to the other way so suddenly being in the same scene with him was strange, very strange. But great. Really great. It was a reminder of what an extraordinary actor he is because I had started to think of him more as a director. But, yeah, I felt like if I was a violinist this was my opportunity to chill and watch Yo-Yo Ma.

Q: What was it like having Cleve Jones on the set? Was that intimidating having him around?

A: Cleve has a very strong personality but for some reason we got along really well. We had a very jokey, kind of mischievous relationship. We’re both kind of joksters, in a sense, but we also care about sharing our personal stories. I would tell him about my life and he’d tell me about his – and he’s had an extraordinary life. I always had so much respect for him and what he’s done. We just had a great time.

But, the pressure of having him on set everyday, that kind of upped the stakes a little bit. There were times that I was like I don’t want to let Cleve down and it’s not like nobody knew who he was before this movie, he’s already pretty well known and I didn’t want to damage that. Sometimes with me, though, I need a little bit of pressure to focus, and if everything is too lax it’s harder for me to get that focus. I play better at crunch time, and having Cleve around made it crunch time all the time.

Q: Your character arguably has the biggest transformation, going from street hustler to esteemed political activist, and has to do it in a limited amount of screen time. How difficult is that sort of transformation under those sorts of restrictions for an actor?

A: It’s tough. You’ve got to be focused. I always try to keep my eyes on the ball, which wasn’t hard when all my scenes were with Sean. Any young actor, you step onto a set with Sean Penn and you’re bringing your ‘A’ game. There’s just no ifs, ands or buts about it, you’re going to be ready.

So I kept my eye pretty sharply on where I wanted [Cleve] to go, but at the same time I wanted things to be able to just happen and Gus created an environment that made you feel relaxed so you could breathe some life into your role. You didn’t have some asshole in the corner yelling at you to the point you get gun-shy and your confidence is gone. Acting is like this fragile quicksilver that you have to lure out of the actor. You’ve got to make them feel real cocky and then turn the camera on.

Q: You’ve had a pretty varied career in a relatively short period of time. Have you come up with your own personal bag of tricks yet?

A: No, no bag of tricks. I have my instincts that I try to work from, whatever that quality is. There are also certain processes you see other [actors] using in really specific ways and it’s fun to try that and see how it works [for you]. I like to try and play around. I like to do different things.

Q: Does that mean you can work with that director who yells?

A: Yeah, I can, and sometimes that’s exactly what you need. But, not always, at least that’s what I think. There has to be a balance.

Q: You had a lot of success with Into the Wild. You’re getting impressive early responses for your work here in Milk. You got lots of praise for your performances in The Lords of Dogtown and Alpha Dog. With that in mind, how do you deal with something that fails like Speed Racer?

A: I was bummed out about Speed Racer mainly because I really liked that film, and I’m really protective of the Wachowski brothers because they’re just such nice guys and they’re just such geniuses. I kind of think they were unfairly mauled by critics a little bit but then that’s, you know, what sometimes happens. It’s not up to those who make the movie to judge how it’s perceived. It’s unfortunate, though, because I thought the movie was better than then it was treated.

Alison Pill is Anne Kronenberg

BIO: Anne Kronenberg is Deputy Director for Administration and Planning of the San Francisco Department of Public Health. She was the campaign manager for Harvey Milk’s campaign, his third, to become city supervision for District 5 in 1977. Anne was appointed to the State Board of Podiatric Medicine in 1998, serving as the President of the Board for three years and Vice President for two. Prior to her tenure with the Department of Public Health, she was Director of the San Francisco Mayor’s Criminal Justice Council from 1991-1994.

Q: Having seen the completed film, what are some of the highlights for you? Is the film better served by being directed by a gay filmmaker?

A: The one thing I appreciated the most is the fact the relationships between men are just taken as a given. The story isn’t about their discovery about being gay or any of that. Within the first five minutes there’s this beautiful love scene between men, and it’s not like, “Oh, my god! This is shocking!” It is instead depicted just as you would in any other romance, and I think that is something that Gus definitely does very well.

Is that something a straight director could have done as well, I don’t know. But I do think there is a certain way of viewing it, not in any foreign way, but in a way that’s just very beautiful and real. The movie isn’t really about [treating] being gay as anything more than being a given, it’s just the way of life, and I think that’s important. The fact that it’s a given is just very real and unique and important for starting the discourse about what’s really going on inside the actual film.

Q: How much time were you able to spend with Anne Kronenberg in constructing your character? Was she on set as much as say Cleve Jones was?

A: Anne was back a little bit further [than Cleve] but mostly because she has a job in the [California] public health department and she had to try and deal with the budget. As much as I would have loved to have had her there every day she had to deal with San Francisco, so I think I have to forgive her for that one.

It was fantastic to have her around when she could be there, though. When I first arrived for rehearsal I got to meet her and sort of recalibrated my character idea based on how she can just rule a room, but very much as a woman and not in any overtly aggressive way. She was a den mother, and I had come in with a very different idea of a girl playing a man inside a man’s world instead of girl in a man’s world and then using that as a strength. It was an incredibly important thing for me [to learn].

It was also helpful for me to learn because when I arrived for shooting they had already done the earlier Castro scenes and all the earlier campaign scenes, so I came in [to the film] literally like she did in real life as this 22-year-old kid walking into a room with all these really important gentlemen. I was the only girl. Everyone had already formed their little cliques, and having her there that particular day was so nice because she was telling me that was exactly what it was like, that she was a kid from Seattle who had just arrived and who Harvey had just asked to run his campaign. So, thankfully, I was able to use that, and I was also able to use the strength of the real woman helping me. It was great.

Q: Is there a greater responsibility then on an actor playing a real person than when they’re playing a fictional one?

A: I think so. I definitely didn’t want to live with [Anne’s] disappointment, and I wanted to do justice to the essence of her because she’s a pretty incredible woman. So there was a lot of pressure I put on myself for that, but there also comes a point where you have to take into account that it is a [movie] and you can’t be totally exact because that’s just not possible. It’s an interesting balance that you have to try and find.

Q: This film is set in a era that, while still not too far removed from today, was over before you were even born. What was that like? How do you create that same sense of community they had during the 1977 campaign?

A: I did a lot of research, and it was also incredibly helpful to hear a lot about [the time] form both Anne and Cleve, especially about the social aspects outside the campaign that you don’t really see in the movie. We also talked about how when you’re working on a political campaign you’re working with a small group of people towards one specific goal with a  very specific time frame with long hours and late nights, which is just like being on a movie set. We were all away from home staying in one hotel, so of course we built up our own little community. You shoot a film and you live in this little vacuum, and we all looked like this really wacky group of people running around the hotel St. Francis at night. All that camaraderie is just built in.

Q: What do you think of the almost total lesbian invisibility in the film and how your character is sort of the of the sole female representative of that side of the discussion during those times? What kind of pressure did you feel because of that?

A: There just wasn’t enough time in the movie to get it all in. The same could be said for what Harvey did for the Chinese communities and the Senior communities in [District 5]. There are sort of hints at it, but I know I’m like the one girl in the entire movie. I do wish we could have done more with it, showing Harvey creating that coalition with the lesbian community and the Chinese community and the Senior community and the Women’s Right’s community into his campaign.

It was really incredible and it crossed a lot of boundaries which I totally didn’t realize going into it, I didn’t realize just how separate everything really was. But I do wish we could have seen more women in the movie, definitely, but I also know that it’s called, “Milk,” and there is a very specific story that needed to be told in order to make it a workable film. Hopefully somebody will be able to do another film about that [lesbian] side of it, because I do think that would be important. But, to answer your question, yes, there was a lot of pressure to try and justice as the single representative of an entire community. I certainly felt that.

- porttions of this interview reprinted courtesy of the SGN in Seattle

Additional Links:

• Interview with director Gus Van Sant and writer Dustin Lance Black by Sara Michelle Fetters
• Milk review by Sara Michelle Fetters
• Milk theatrical trailer

Article posted on Nov 26, 2008 | Share this article | Top of Page

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