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HBO:
How did this project come about?
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Bob Balaban (Photo: Mark Von Holden/Wireimage)
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Bob Balaban:
Well, I didn't set out to make a movie about
Doris Duke. The script was actually sent to
me. And I immediately responded to it. The
idea that the richest lady in the world, from
this enormously upper class background,
somehow bonded with her younger, Irish
itinerant butler, Bernard Lafferty, who was
barely a butler- almost illiterate, alcoholic and
gay. This was not necessarily a sexual
attraction, although in the movie we imagine
that there might have been on her part some
form of sexual attraction. And it really
interested me, these two damaged people.
One can imagine if somebody had 1.3 billion
dollars and they were a single woman, it
would be damaging, somehow. Bernard was a
pretty messed up guy. And yet somehow, six
years after entering her service, she left him in
control of her 1.3 billion dollar foundation.
I thought that was quite fascinating. To really
trace a personal story of what might've
happened between these two people, that
caused this intimacy. How much trust she
places in him.
HBO:
Where do you think that trust came from?
Bob Balaban:
Well Doris Duke was famous for not trusting
people. She did have something of a
reputation for being rather whimsical in terms
of what she wanted, when she wanted it, and I
think if you grow up and inherit a fortune
when you're 12 years old and are left
pretty much to your own devices you probably
do get somewhat of an unrealistic expectation
about how you're going to be treated and what
you expect people to do for you.
Our Doris Duke in the movie can be a tough
old bat. But she has very humanistic
interests. She's very interested in the common
person. She's also a very sexually interested
person, and as we imagined it, it was
completely immaterial to her that Bernard
happened to be gay and did some cross-
dressing. So you could imagine that the real
Doris Duke was hardly homophobic. The
causes that she focused on were very, very
human causes, that you wouldn't think
necessarily somebody who lived in an ivory
tower all of their life would have been so
interested. But she was deeply interested.
HBO:
What other liberties did you take in creating
this imagined relationship?
Bob Balaban:
Well, we took a lot of liberties [LAUGHS].
Everything they say and do together was
imagined by us. This is a dance between two
people getting to know each other and care
about each other. Had we wanted to be
historically accurate I don't know how we
would've done that. We simply imagined a
way in which a very, very wealthy lady, who
came from a very particular background- how
she could've had the kind of trust and
emotional attachment she came to have. How
is it that this happened in six short years?
And with a guy who you wouldn't have
thought she would've spoken to?
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Bob Balaban (Photo: Dimitrios Kambouris/Wireimage)
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HBO:
How did you get Susan Sarandon and Ralph
Fiennes on board?
Bob Balaban:
I was working with Susan on a project very
close to both of our hearts called The
Exonerated. It was something I had produced
and directed in New York, as a play. Right
around the time I was doing this with Susan, I
had gotten the Bernard and Doris screenplay,
read it, and went home one night after
working with Susan and went, "Oh, she'd be a
great Doris Duke." I then got her on the
phone and said, "You want to look at this? I
think you'd be great." She read it quickly and
said, "I'd love to be this character. I've never
done anything like it."
If you're the kind of actor Susan is, you're
interested in doing things you haven't done
before. I mean, they're all different kinds of
movie stars, and to me, Susan Sarandon is a
movie star really known for taking chances.
So, Susan said she'd love to be Doris, and we
both thought of Ralph for Bernard. We got to
Ralph quickly and he liked the script a lot,
and adored the idea of working with Susan.
So we had two actors working together who
were so interested to work with each other.
That's a great way to begin a project. So with
these fascinating actors playing really
interesting characters we decided to find a
way to try to get inside of their heads as much
as we could.
When did that first moment of trust happen?
When did she realize that this cipher of a
butler was a man who could really take care
of her in some way? We had to find that
moment. And the whole movie is structured
as a series of small personal events leading
two people to become close to each other.
HBO:
What do you hope audiences will take away
from the film?
Bob Balaban:
I hope that it will be interesting for them. I
mean, there aren't many movies that spend a
hundred minutes of screen time with two
unique characters played by two unique
actors, really getting to know each other. I
find it fascinating to watch. And my hope is
that people watching the movie will identify
with these characters with whom you never
thought you'd identify. Because they're either
so far beneath you or so far above you what
would you have in common with them? And
yet, these two actors bring a tremendous
amount of humanity to these two complex
characters.
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