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HBO:
Jim, where did this story come from?
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Jonan Everett (Angel) and writer/director Jim McKay.
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Jim Mckay: Well, I wrote the script with my writing partner Hannah Weyer, and I had been working for a number of years on notes for a story about a young man, and had made a lot of notes, but I wasn't getting anywhere
with it. And then Hannah had spent some
time working in an after school program and
connected with this one young man and had been really inspired by his
personal story.
And so we ended up actually taking a couple
elements of his real life story and using it as a
jumping off point to create the story of Angel.
That's the genesis really. And even though it is to a large degree Angel's
story, Nicole is a very central character, and
to some degree of equal importance in terms
of how they play off of one another, and I
think both Hannah and I were going through
things in our own lives in terms of middle life
stuff, changes, and dealing with questions
about our own identity as professionals and
also as parents, that we ended up putting in
there as well. So it's by no means based on a
true story, but like everything I've ever
written, a lot of it was taken from real life
experience, and then fictionalized, and worked
with.
HBO:
Compared to some of your previous films, the
movie seems so quiet, there's not a drop of
music until the end credits.
HBO:
Jim Mckay: Yeah, that was intended from the start. And
I'm not sure why. I mean, it was a stylistic
choice. A lot of the work I saw in the couple of
years that we were developing the project that
was inspiring to me followed along similar
lines. A lot of films from overseas, from Iran,
and Belgium and France; kind of sparsely told
stories that don't rely on music or tricky
camera stuff to tell their story, but more on
intimate, quieter, non-dialogue moments with
the characters to tell the story.
HBO:
Jonan, this was your first film. What was the
experience like?
Jonan Everett: It's been a tremendous experience for me. In
the beginning it was a little awe-inspiring
because I was a newcomer and
everybody else had lots of experience. I'd seen
some of Jim's work before I knew I was going to
be working with him, and I thought he's a
fantastic director. It was a lot of fun with Jim. He helped me discover who Angel was, and helped me get closer to the character. But there
were also some personal things I drew from
for the character.
HBO:
The character is interesting and complex.
At first he seems like a sweet,
gentle, misunderstood creature, and suddenly
he's practically beating a relative to death.
Jonan Everett: Well, I think everybody has their two sides.
To me, I saw it more as this kid is being
pushed a little, at that point, over the edge.
Everything is kind of against him, and he's
just trying to stick in there. But at that point I
guess something just snaps, and we see
another side of him. Everything isn't black
and white. There are shades of gray in there.
Jim Mckay: Usually we're shown stories of the kid who's
just trying to overcome the odds, if he can
only be given the chance. And for us it was
important to show that this kid is a fuck-up
sometimes, and he does sabotage himself. But
we all do that, you know, not just quote,
unquote bad kids.
And that's frustrating to watch, it's frustrating
for the people who are trying to help him, and
it's frustrating for him. But for us it was
much more interesting to explore something
that's real. Both Hannah and I have done a
lot of work with young people, and what we've
observed is that kind of push and pull that
happens.
And for Nicole it's equally frustrating and
challenging. Obviously this kid is important
to her, because she's not bringing home kids
all the time. So there's something special
about Angel, and yet where do you draw the
line?
The father has obviously drawn the line, and
that's really tragic. And yet you see kind of
maybe why he did. And so you have all these
kind of first impressions of people, but it's
more interesting to try and look at that reality
than to just demonize the father or demonize
the child, or angelize the child. We were just
really going for those shades of gray, and the
ambivalent parts of that kind of a
relationship.
HBO:
Jonan, can you talk about some of the
personal aspects of your life you drew on?
Jonan Everett: Well, I myself at one point, I was Angel.
[LAUGHTER] I did draw a lot from personal
experience. I've gone through the same thing.
I do have friends that have gone through the
same thing with other family members. I
think it's a part of being a teenager, the
rebellion. And people around you do give you
chances, your teachers, your mother, but
somehow you just don't want to listen, and
you often give up all the chances you have.
And you stab people in the back, and you do
things that just push people into a
corner and then they're forced to say, I've had
enough.
HBO:
And there are no easy answers in the movie. It
ends with a great deal of ambiguity.
Jim Mckay: Yeah, absolutely. The ambiguity is intentional
so that people can kind of do their own
thinking about what's in store for this kid. I
think the more you're asked to think at the
end of a movie, the more you're forced to
reflect on the content of what you just saw. I
prefer movies that don't piece together
everything for you, but kind of give you some
work to do, work in a good way I guess.
I think that you can look at the end and be hopeful because this kid is kind of
stepping up, and someone is giving him a
chance. Or you could choose to look at the
ending and say, well, he's stepped up before,
and people have given him chances before and
he's blown them. And to me what it's more
about is the cycle of those ups and downs,
going backwards, and saying, well how do
these things then end up kind of piling up as
well.
I think it's easy to give answers and
prescriptions about how things can change.
But it's interesting when you look at how
circumstances play on one another and how
they build and how people can find
themselves kind of trapped. I mean, Angel is
up for a job in the end, but he spent the night
sleeping on a train, and still he gets it together
enough to go in and put on a nice shirt and
ask for a job. But where is he going to sleep
tonight? Even if he gets the job, is he going to
hold on to it? Those are really the questions
that need to be confronted, I think. And
there's no easy answers.
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