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HBO:
We're in another tie-breaker scenario right now in this country but when you set
out to make this picture you probably didn't realize that's where we'd be. What was your
initial impetus was for making a film about the 2000 recount?
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Director Jay Roach (Photo credit: Jeff Vespa/Wireimage)
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Jay Roach:
I joined the project eight weeks before we started shooting so by the time I
read the script, it was already finished, researched and developed. It was kind of an
anxiety dream in a way to relive it through that first read. I thought, 'Oh my God, I
forgot how stressful, complicated, dysfunctional and compelling that predicament was.'
So for me, the biggest motivation for making the film was: That's the best we can do in
running our country's electoral process? There were 175,000 ballots just completely
discounted and disqualified in that election. That's the size of a small city. One hundred
and seventy-five thousand people got up that morning, went to their polls, thought really
carefully about what they were doing, chose a candidate and then had their votes
completely voided. No matter who you thought should've won, or did win — surely we
can do better than that. That's what I was interested in.
HBO:
You had just eight weeks of prep, and shot the film in 40 days, how was that?
Jay Roach:
It certainly was different for me working on a film where it was not a big
budget, and there was not much time to make it and we had a tremendous scope to cover.
We had a hundred speaking parts, two-hundred scenes — I had to prep in eight weeks and
I remember saying to HBO, "You know some days I'm shooting eight scenes. I'm
literally going to have to say to these Academy Award-quality actors — Tom Wilkinson,
John Hurt, Kevin Spacey — I'm going to have to say: "Cut. Print. Run!"
It was literally like we were cracking a whip to herd people at a dead sprint to the next
thing. I said, "I don't know how I'm gonna do that and have them feel good about it," and
you know what? They were out in front. Some days they were pulling me because I was
so exhausted and we pulled each other. It was such a great feeling to be on a set where
everybody had a sense that what we were up to was important and fun too. Not being
religious about it but just being like, "Wow, this is a great story and this is gonna be fun
to see and fun to make, but it's also going to be about something that really matters..."
That made the whole process really enjoyable. Extremely difficult but also really, really
enjoyable.
HBO:
There's a lightness to the tone, given the seriousness of the subject matter. Is that
something you brought to the script?
Jay Roach:
No. [Writer] Danny [Strong] did a great job packing a tremendous
amount of story and irony into the script. Then there was the challenge to also not bore
the audience — to both keep them on the edge of their seats and not lose sight of some of
the absurdities and ironies and full-on humor of the predicament. There's a tremendous
amount of idealism represented in characters on both sides of the story but there also is a
certain amount of dysfunction and frustration and, and in some cases absurdity because it
got silly. Sometimes how far people were willing to go to bend reality
into a kind of propaganda that served whichever side was a good target for satire. And so
I hope most of the comedy that is there comes out of not just jokes but a satirical, ironic
take on some of the more absurd aspects of the situation.
HBO:
It's probably one of the most partisan events in our lifetimes in this country. Did
you have a sense of responsibility to try to depict it in a nonpartisan way?
Jay Roach:
It would be impossible to not have it be partisan in the sense that
whenever you're in any one of the parties' point of view it was a supremely partisan
situation. There was an attempt to have it be fair and to be true, as best we could. It's
like filming a war film from the point of view of the soldiers in the particular battle or in
the trenches. Ron Klain is basically the protagonist of the story but we were determined
to get both sides right and to capture the essence of what each side believed in and what
they were willing to fight for. The validating thing is that people from both sides have
seen it and don't agree with every aspect of it but have confirmed that it tells a story
fairly.
Ben Bradlee and Sally Quinn hosted a screening of the film at their house and invited a
wide range of people including a number of people who were in the film. David Boies,
Ron Klain, Ben Ginsberg, George Terwilliger, Ted Olson, the Republican Supreme Court
attorney — a whole slew of people that had been involved — plus a fair amount of media
personalities. George Stephanopoulos, Tom Brokaw...Senator John Kerry was there. It
was very intimidating. And they all sat and watched it in this tent in the back of Ben
Bradlee's house and it was terrifying to me. Almost all of them had lived through it and
been involved in it or at least reported on it — and it went extremely well. Extremely well.
Nobody stormed out and said: 'This is bullsh*t!' They all sat there and
watched it and stayed and talked about it. It was painful to relive it in a certain way but I
hope also kind of therapeutic in that it raises the questions again. People forgot. Even
people who lived through it kind of admit that some of it they've just forgotten because
9/11 happened, which sort of shook our memories clean, like an Etch-a-Sketch. Bush
stepped up and became really popular right away after 9/11 and it was almost unpatriotic
to talk about the election having so much dysfunction. So in a way the whole issue was
just tabled. I think to some extent it explains why so few of the problems with our
electoral process have been resolved. If it's ever that close again I fear we'll be right back
in the same pickle because we just didn't have time before 9/11 and after 9/11 to revamp
the whole thing. There have certainly been efforts. There have been a number of
congressional acts and the Baker-Carter Commission and some changes - the punch card
process has pretty much been removed from operation, which is great. But there are a lot
of other areas for improvement that just aren't being funded and haven't been addressed.
HBO:
Were there any other surprises in delving into this story?
Jay Roach:
What has been fascinating to see is how much people care about the issue.
Particularly in this election season, it's very exciting to see how much interest there is in
the election, so much less apathy than I'm used to. The candidates are all really
interesting and people really want to make sure their vote counts. I hope that the film
will be out in time to have an impact on the way it goes. There's still time to volunteer at
polls. There's still time to train poll workers better. There's not a huge amount of time
to revamp entire systems and switch to one kind of format of voting or another, but
there's still time for people to get out and get more people registered and to make
themselves aware enough to actually individually vote.
It's validating that people want to talk about it. I was afraid it would be seen as a
political film and an educational film and therefore not be able to compete for people's
attention against Grand Theft Auto IV and Iron Man. And the opposite has proven to be
true, which is really cool.
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