[IMG:L]Best known for his supporting roles in films like The Birdcage and in TV series including Judging Amy, Related and a guest run on Will & Grace, Dan Futterman saw his Hollywood stock rise two years ago when he was nominated for a Best Screenplay Oscar and won an Independent Spirit Award and several film critics honors for Capote. Now Futterman is co-starring in his highest-profile project yet, playing opposite Angelina Jolie as murdered journalist Daniel Pearl in A Mighty Heart, based on the memoir by Pearl’s widow, Mariane.
The film, directed by Michael Winterbottom from John Orloff’s screenplay, plays out the tragic events leading up to and following Wall Street Journal South Asia bureau chief Pearl’s disappearance on Jan. 23, 2002 while investigating a lead about shoe bomber Richard Reid in Karachi, Pakistan, with flashbacks fleshing out the Pearls’ loving relationship.
“The movie succeeds or fails largely on whether you get a feeling for that relationship and a sense of what is ultimately lost by her. We were trying to capture as much as possible this deep connection that they had and this joy that they took in each other and also in sort of exploring the world together and the fact that they were having this child together,” Futterman reflects, praising Winterbottom’s use of flashbacks “in such an artful way where they seem to come from exactly what she’s thinking about. You feel like you have insight into her and they feel organic in the film.”
Since the story is told from Mariane’s perspective, “you don’t see any of the captivity or anything like that because no one knows exactly what happened during that time,” notes Futterman, who, not a part of the tension-filled scenes that take place after Pearl goes missing, often felt like he was making a completely different film. It was one that sometimes posed its own set of problems, thanks to his co-star’s mega-celebrity status.
While many of their scenes were shot in a gated community in Pune, India, making crowd management “mostly controllable,” location shooting was sometimes an exercise in stealth moviemaking. “When we did venture out, we’d get five or 10 minutes before people realized what’s going on. It was lucky that Michael shoots incredibly quickly, so there’s a feeling of being kind of under the radar,” explains Futterman, noting that Jolie’s curly-haired look in the film helped on that score. So did her ability to tune out distraction.
“One thing about her that’s quite extraordinary is that she has a sort of incredible ability to focus on what she’s working on,” says Futterman of his co-star.
Acknowledging a greater sense of responsibility in playing an actual person, particularly “One so many people care about, who has a child who’ll learn about his father only through secondary sources such as this,” Futterman did copious amounts of research, reading Pearl’s articles and meeting with key players like fellow journalists, sources, and family.
He had lunch with and subsequently corresponded with Mariane and met Pearl’s parents in Los Angeles, as did Jolie and Brad Pitt, a producer on the film. “They invited us into their home and they showed us photos and they talked about Danny’s upbringing. I was curious to hear from them about his Jewish upbringing, in particular, and what that meant. I’m Jewish myself–I had a bar mitzvah and so on, but I was curious to know whether they considered themselves religious or if they were more culturally Jewish,” explains Futterman.
He discovered it was the latter, although Pearl “was well versed in [Judaism] and he actually spoke Hebrew. I think that like many American Jews he thought of himself as Jewish, but it’s much more of a cultural thing. And I think that it’s sort of similar to my sense of myself.”
Through conversations a picture emerged of Pearl as “a guy who grew up Jewish in Encino [but] his favorite city in the world was Teheran. That to me sort of epitomizes his sort of place in the world as well as in journalism,” Futterman opines. “He was trying to bring that to an American readership, a real sense of place and people and all of these misunderstandings about Islam and that part of the world. I think that he was excited to be doing that kind of work.”
Futterman, now 40, is similarly passionate about the work he’s doing on screen and especially behind the scenes. The Silver Spring, Maryland native and Columbia University graduate co-wrote a romantic comedy script with his wife Anya Epstein called Finn at the Blue Line, set to star Sarah Jessica Parker for director Lasse Hallstrom. “It comes from a friend of ours who decided to have a baby on her own and then she started having this romantic experience,” describes Futterman, who has two young daughters with Epstein.
“Then I got hired to adapt a book called Everything Changes for Columbia. They bought that for Tobey Maguire. I just turned in my second draft on that and we’ll see,” says Futterman, who hadn’t actively been pursuing acting roles when this one dropped into his lap. Like the journalist he plays, “I feel more drawn to writing at the moment,” he says. “I feel a bit more suited to writing.”
