SM: So you’re on the set for the first day, it is your first feature film, and you’ve got Sean Penn standing across from you. What’s the first thing you think?

NM: You do want a lot of people would do and you step back and say, “Wow, there’s Sean Penn and there’s Don Cheadle.” I mean, I started my first day with two actors who are being spoken of for awards this year; Sean to repeat from last year; Ebert and Roeper (and others) have certainly been pushing him big-time saying this is the best performance of the year; and Don’s being spoken about for “Hotel Rwanda” so I’m starting with these two great actors and I was forgetting to call “Action!” and “Cut!” for the first few takes. It had been four years and I was building up to making this film and here I was being a fan for the first few takes. So then I stepped back and said to myself I had a role to fill here and you snap out of it. You start calling “Action!” and “Cut!” and paying attention. But, it was really an overwhelmingly great experience to actually start to role film after all that build up of years and years and to find myself with Sean Penn and Don Cheadle in front of the camera.

It is really an amazing experience.

SM: Correct me if I’m wrong, but Sean is in every frame of this film other than the newsreel footage.

NM: And other when he is dead.

SM: Yeah.

NM: That’s pretty much it. We shot the film from Sam’s point of view and that was one thing we decided to do was always keep a piece of Sam in the frame. So, yeah, he’s in just about every frame.

SM: So how exhausting was that for Sean? Did you get a sense the character was starting to weigh on him?

NM: Well, I’ve read interviews he’s done on the film and he’s said, “I loved having made this film but making it was extremely difficult.” And he was the hardest working person on the set. The thing with Sean, and any actor who has worked with [him] would tell you he is as generous an actor as there is out there, he’s putting out everything whether he is on camera or off. He’s just amazing, his commitment to the character. It’s really amazing watching him walk from off-set to the set and by the time you’re rolling film you don’t feel like you’re even looking at Sean anymore; it’s Sam Bicke. As I was looking at the dailies after we had shot, you can see when I would call “Cut!” how Sean emerges out of character again; crosses his legs differently, moves differently. Sean really worked through every cell and muscle and pore in his body and he’s as great an actor as he is because he’s willing to inhabit the roles he takes.

SM: What kind of example does that sort of dedication does that give you as a first-time director?

NM: A good one. It’s an excellent example. Sean wanted this film to be what it came out to be. He wanted it to be a great film on every level and one of the most gratifying things I keep hearing is how there just isn’t a false note performance-wise in the entire film and I agree with them. That really comes from having that level of commitment.

I was just saying how he’s such a generous actor to other actors; he’s also a generous director to other directors. He wanted to support my vision for the film and really had my back in some places along the way. I learned a tremendous amount from Sean along the way.

SM: How long did it take you to cast the rest of the roles after you had Sean?

NM: Four years. That’s largely due to not having the financing. Once we had the financing together to have Sean to build a cast around is a great thing. Don Cheadle isn’t going to do a film where the material isn’t right for him or doesn’t speak to him in some way, Naomi Watts and Jack Thompson and Mykelti Williamson the same thing. That said, having the script people were responding to and having Sean [on board] we were able to put together the Cadillac of casts.

SM: Why do you think Bonnie (Don Cheadle’s character) stands by Sam so much? Why are they such good friends? What does he see the rest of the world has trouble seeing?

NM: Well, I think it is just a matter of time, where you meet the characters. I think if we had met Sam and Marie (Naomi Watts character) a few years earlier Marie might be reacting and interacting to Sam in similar way as Bonnie. I often had thought where you see Bonnie and Sam’s relationship is where you would have seen Marie and Sam’s relationship a few years back where she still had hope where he could pulls things together again. Of course, she’s living with him and seeing him up close and personal than Bonnie does, so he hasn’t given up on Sam turning things around. Maybe he doesn’t have as much invested. Marie had to make a choice along the way and say I can either help Sam get things back together again or I have to separate myself from this because I’ve only got so much energy to support myself and my kids and hold it together.

It’s a good question, though, and a really interesting relationship to look at. I think Don Cheadle’s character he played is a tough one to navigate and he did brilliantly. His friend is clearly not doing well in his life and yet this guy is still trying to shore up his friend when we meet him and yet at the same time he will countenance no B.S. from Sam. So there is this strength as well as this working towards trying to help shore him up; there is this sensitivity as well as strength that comes from Bonnie. Where does it come from? It probably comes from a good heart on Bonnie’s part and there is a history to this friendship that is at play [which we don’t know]. But then, the last scene they have together you can see it starting to fry a bit, certainly when Sam pulls the gun and points it out the window and inadvertently at his good friend.

SM: I find interesting Sam through the whole film professes that honesty and truthfulness is the most important thing to him. And yet, everything he decides to do in life revolves around being a salesman, a profession that he sees as being one of inherent and consistent lying.

NM: I think you’ve really hit at and bought into Sam’s perspective. Do you really believe that or you saying that is Sam’s perspective?

SM: That’s Sam’s perspective.

NM: Yeah, that is Sam’s perspective, and I love your questions because it is a really interesting line of inquiry. Sam really is self-deceiving. He talks all the time about truthfulness, and he makes some great sense along the way – certainly not talking about where he goes, but he speaks in these simple truths and you need [those] every now and then that point out some of the glaring inconsistencies in mainstream thought processes. Sometimes they are just such simple ideas that are laughable just because they are so simple but, you know, sometimes you need a voice like that – hopefully not combined with the violence that Sam goes to in the end.

What I am trying to say is that Sam is an ideologue in some ways. The problem with ideologues is that they can get so obsessed with their own ideologies they lose track of the humanity right in front of them. I don’t care what ideology you possess but if you are principled in your ideology may blind you to the people right in front of you and then you’ve got a problem and I think the film speaks to that.

SM: So do you think Sam’s real deterioration begins when he himself also begins to lie?

NM: I don’t think I could parse it like that. It’s another good question, and while I don’t know right were it begins I think that certainly lying and then having to put blinders on and then start finding ways to believe your own lies can certainly promote feelings of insecurity and insignificance that Sam is already dealing with or clearly consumed by.

SM: Because he gets consumed by this is that why he starts focusing his anger on Nixon?

NM: Well, you got to watch the film and put that one together for yourself. People have talked to me about a lot of different things when talking about the film. I spoke with a journalist who was saying that part that Jack Thomson plays [Sam’s boss Jack Jones] that there is a real connection between him and Nixon without them even knowing each other or having any sort of clear-cut connection. But, the common thread you see amongst many assassins is the projection of personal failings upon their intended target whom is usually a public figure and that rejection of responsibility of fault and blame is something that can come from so many different things. You really have to watch the film to decide what his projection and what gripes Sam professes feel legitimate, but there is no easy answer in the film and it’s really up to the audience to put all that together.

SM: Re-watching it again, I found myself feeling even stronger that the most tragic character in the film was Sam’s brother Julius. That brief scene between Julius and Sam towards to end, just the sadness Julius seems to feel at the dissolution of his family, his blood, really affected me.

NM: It’s a powerful scene a lot of people have brought up and said it is one of the most powerful things they’ve seen in a long time. What is it like to be a family member and have brother, who you’ve grown up with, who is clearly slipping into a place mentally that’s unhealthy? The actual Sam suffered from bi-polar, and although we don’t enunciate this in the film, I think you really start to see this is a person that is really suffering and going into this darkness. It must be an extremely difficult thing for a family member to watch and have happen. So, yeah, I can understand why you’re talking about that scene.

What’s so great about Michael Wincott’s performance, along with Sean Penn’s performance, in that scene is not necessarily scripted but what they are able to do as actors and create the history between these two characters. You can just feel the history between [them].  It’s a whole different window on Sam with this one scene where you have this brother who has known him for so long which is maybe why it is impacting you to such a degree because it is a new window on Sam that has this sort of history and weight to it that’s not there much of the rest of the [film].

SM: What about Wincott? He’s so known for playing the heavy, the bad guy, and watching him here I was extremely impressed with his ability to hold a scene with Sean and deliver such a delicate and dynamic performance.

NM: Actually, I read a lot of people and I was having trouble finding the right person, just couldn’t find somebody that felt right. Sean said to me check to check out Wincott in “Before Night Falls” where he plays this Cuban nightclub owner and he has this beautiful, really understated scene where his forehead starts pinching involuntarily as he’s being questioned by this tribunal. I cast him straight off of that.

I talked to Wincott every few weeks or so and kept in contact with him. Bright, sensitive guy and just a great, great actor and hopefully will see him in this new light and utilize him in a way he’s been really underutilized because this guy is just a great, great actor.

SM: I’d have to agree with you. When I saw him in “Before Night Falls” I was surprised and amazed, but than he went right back to doing the types of rolls I was used to seeing him in, playing the heavy.

NM: Well, but then, people want to pigeonhole you in this business and that can happen to somebody pretty easy. I don’t know if that is the case for Michael or not, but I would ask people to look at him in this film and look at him in “Before Night Falls.” I know he’s got quite a few fans out there when I’ve spoken about the film, but, he really has a range that guy and is a fantastic actor.

SM: I wanted to talk to you about the visual look of the film. You were working with Emmanuel Lubezki – I have no idea how to pronounce his name…

NM: No, that’s exactly right. We called him Chivo, I think it means goat in Spanish. I guess people think he looks like a goat. [Chuckles]

He’s like one of the most sought after cinematographers around. He’s shot Terrance Malick’s new film [“The New World”] and “Lemony Snicket,” so he does big and small.

SM: Well, I was just going to say, most of the stuff he’s known for is very big, very visual, very wide in scope.

NM: He also did “Y Tu Mamá También.”

SM: What was the working relationship like with him?

NM: It was a great, great, great partnership and collaboration. I think, also, he and Sean worked beautifully together. Much of the film, although it doesn’t feel like it, is very steady hand-held. We shot it pretty classically in terms in of master and overs and close-ups and etcetera, but what it allowed Chivo to do was to be a participant in a scene. Because we weren’t tied down to a dolly track all the time he was able to work off of what the actors were doing. The great thing about Chivo is, because I was able to build this cast a crew around Sean – people for good reason want to work with Sean Penn, I was meeting with some very prominent and great cinematographers and some people were concerned about this film being as intimate and claustrophobic as it is and were suggesting ways to open it up and Chivo said we really have, in some ways, to go to the claustrophobia for the film because that is what is happening with this character.

So Chivo was all about performance, and at one point I talked to him about this one, long scene in the Small Business Administration; which is a scene gets great laughter and one of the scenes you have that uncomfortable comedy; but it was like four-and-a-half page scene and I was wondering how you keep that visually interesting. Chivo looked at me like I was crazy and said, “Point the camera at Sean!” He was really about capturing performance and didn’t want to put anything ‘cinema’ in-between the audience and these performances.

SM: One thing I did notice is that the way the camera work becomes more frenetic; jittery; as Sean progresses down his path of self-destruction.

NM: Well, I think it is part of working off of what is happening in front of the camera. Sure, it is very conscious during the [hijacking] sequence where – frenetic is a good word actually – things fall apart. But there was a symbiotic relationship between what Chivo was doing camera-wise and what Sean was doing. On a lot of films you have people put down their marks and they put the visuals ahead of the performance, and we certainly worked the opposite way; tried to capture performance and let them live. Again, those are the films I’ve always been drawn to where the performances feel as if you are embarrassingly intimate with these characters. We tried to support that with how we shot it.

The Assassination of Richard Nixon opened in limited release on December 29, 2004.