"The Hateful Eight" came along at the right time for Jennifer Jason Leigh, and won her an Oscar nomination; the infamous freeway chase was diligently re-created for "American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson"; things are getting slightly better for female characters in movies, but only slightly.
The 6 craziest details about filming the Bronco chase for 'American Crime Story: The People v OJ Simpson'
The premiere of the FX series "American Crime Story: The People v. O. J. Simpson" became the most-watched premiere in FX history last week.
Episode two, which airs Tuesday night, is devoted to the famous slow-speed white Bronco chase, with Cuba Gooding Jr. as O.J. Simpson and Malcolm-Jamal Warner as the man behind the wheel, Al Cowlings, known as AC.
From the beginning, producers knew they couldn't just shoot the scene on a soundstage — it had to be done for real.
"The question for us all along was how are we going to mount something this insane," executive producer Brad Simpson told the Frame's Michelle Lanz. "But to shoot it on a stage would just feel like the little TV movie that we definitely didn't want to be."
The O.J. Simpson chase raced down the 5, 91 and 405 freeways on June 17, 1994, and it was one of the most televised events of the 20th century. At the time, its broadcast pre-empted the NBA finals, Domino's Pizza saw Super Bowl Sunday-level sales and Angelenos lined up on overpasses to wave signs saying "Go Juice Go" as the Bronco sped by.
That morning, O.J. Simpson had failed to turn himself in to police after being charged with murdering his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman. The Los Angeles Police Department declared him a fugitive and issued a bulletin for his arrest.
Producer Brad Simpson told the Frame about what went in to recreating the events of this day and this iconic car chase.
1. They shut down a SoCal freeway, but not the 405
We obviously couldn't shut down the 405 Freeway, which is a massive freeway — we needed a freeway we could control. We picked the 710 Freeway. We were able to have a two-mile stretch that we could shut down and control that had an overpass over it. We had to rehearse well in advance with big maps and Matchbox cars the stunts that we were going to do. We had to plan each section of the day to the smallest nut.
2. A lot of the dialogue is real
We had audio recordings of cell phone conversations that were happening in that car, because there was an early cell phone in that car and O.J. was calling people, including the police. We also had the archival footage, so we wrote an entire episode based on that.
3. The shoot was a hazard for other drivers
We were really worried we were going to cause wrecks in the other lane on the freeway, because we had a white Bronco driving down a span of road with 12 cop cars chasing it, and people kept slowing down on the other side. We were checking Twitter and we'd see people tweeting, "I don't know what's happening — I just saw a white Bronco running down the 710, it's being chased by cop cars!" That was a big part of the logistics, every time we did the run we'd have to reset all 12 cop cars and the Bronco and space them out accordingly. ... It had to match exactly to what the formation was of the cars on the video footage we were going to cut into.
4. Malcolm-Jamal Warner gave the stunt coordinator hives
It's really Malcolm driving. Malcolm actually gave our stunt coordinator hives because whenever you reset, which is to drive back to where you started, he would actually just back up all the way down the freeway at 60 mph. We kept asking him to stop, but he kept not listening to us.
5. It took a lot of people and gear to pull it off
We had 170 crew that day, we had 200 extras, we had probably 50 picture cars. We had an Ultimate Arm, which is a sort of crane that's on top of a Porsche SUV that allows you to circle cars as it drives up and down. We also had what's known as a "follow van." A follow van is what the director and his main crew stays in. It's a van that's completely blacked out that has a video tap connected to the camera, and it drives behind the camera car going just as fast hurtling down the freeway. You are inside and can't see out and can only see the picture, and it constantly looks like you're going to crash.
6. Producers played '90s music to calm Ryan Murphy's nerves during shooting
Ryan hated the follow van, he hates being in the tiny box, he hates going really quickly. He actually asked me to DJ for him during this time to calm him down, so I would take out my iPhone and we'd play Spotify. We'd play '90s hits, we were listening to TLC "Waterfalls" and other music like that, Ace of Base, anything that was a hit from this period, just to try and add some levity and calmness to the car, but he couldn't wait to get out of the car that day.
The OJ Simpson white Bronco chase
Jennifer Jason Leigh on 'Anomalisa' sex scenes: 'intimate, awkward, uncomfortable'
Director Quentin Tarantino is known for his cleverly written scripts and extremely violent films, and his latest movie, “The Hateful Eight,” is both talkative and really bloody.
It’s a western that centers on a fugitive named Daisy Domergue — played by Jennifer Jason Leigh — who is destined to be hanged. But a snowstorm forces Daisy and a bounty hunter to take shelter in a remote cabin where a lot of bad things start happening.
Leigh is coming off one of her most successful years as an actress. In 2015, she voiced the part of Lisa in the critically acclaimed animated film “Anomalisa.” Now she has an Academy Award supporting actress nomination for her role in “The Hateful Eight.” Leigh’s early credits include “Single White Female,” “The Hudsucker Proxy,” and “Short Cuts.”
After becoming a mom, she did fewer movies and was mostly cast in smaller indie films. The Frame's John Horn spoke with Jennifer Jason Leigh about how she almost gave up on acting, the awkward and intimate sex scene in "Anomalisa," and how acting in a Quentin Tarantino film and Charlie Kaufman film changed her life.
INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS
What roles were being offered to you before you got attention for your roles in "Anomalisa" and "The Hateful Eight?"
Really, almost nothing. I mean I was wondering maybe I'll just start writing. I've done some writing and that seems like a lovely way to make a living, and I was focused. I have a child who is very young so I was doing a lot, like I was doing dioramas and things like that, and that was my life. I wasn't acting very often at all and really taking what came my way that I could potentially pay a few bills with, and thinking that I had a really nice run and just being grateful for what I had achieved, and realizing that this might be it.
Because of what? Because you reached a certain age? What had happened? You weren't any less an actor.
No, exactly, but at the same time as an actor you don't have much control. You don't get to choose what you do and when you do it. I find that even in the past when I've done plays — and this is gonna be sort of a terrible thing to say — but if you do a play for 10 or eight months, it just takes you out of the film world for that amount of time and it's harder to get back in. Then also envision having a child and then the first job you do when having a child is doing a play.
So you're penalized for having a life and having varied interests as an actor.
Well, except that all those other things are great and doing a play is really rewarding and fun, but in terms of film, it makes it harder. So I never expected to have two films come out this year that I love so much and that are probably two of the best characters that I've had an opportunity to play.
One of those films is "Anomalisa" written and co-directed by Charlie Kaufman and the other is Quentin Tarantino's "The Hateful Eight." I mean there couldn't be anything more different in these roles but also incredibly unique people.
Yeah, that's also what's fabulous for me is that the roles could not be farther apart and it's just a strange coincidence that they're coming out exactly at the same time, because we voiced "Anomalisa" two years and just because it's stop-motion animation that it takes — they shot literally if they were lucky two seconds a day. There's a sex scene in the movie that took six months to shoot, voicing it took three days.
But watching that scene as a movie-goer is incredibly intimate and uncomfortable. What was it like to have voiced the performance of that scene?
Yeah, David Thewlis and I were farther apart than you and I are right now. So we were about six feet apart in a dark room with these mics and it was probably the most intimate, the most awkward and uncomfortable sex scene I've ever done. I've done sex scenes where I was completely naked with an another actor and this felt far more intimate. I have no idea why, but I think it has something to do with the truth of the writing and the awkwardness of the encounter and how honest it is and how it's done real-time. Also, we had nothing to hide behind. You feel so naked when it's just your voice in a certain way.
You're making a fascinating point that you're more naked with your clothes than when you're naked on a set.
Yeah, and not touching the other actor in a sense. It's so mortifying to watch, but I also love it.
What does it feel like to be at that point where you weren't sure of where your next job was going to be or if there was going to be a next job to ending the year with two incredibly performances. Does that reinvigorate your interest in acting and does your phone now start ringing?
Yes, my life changed dramatically, it really did. It also reminded me how much making these movies reminded me of how much I do love acting and it is a big part of who I am, and it's something I kind of forgot about, that's so nice for me.
What is it like being a mom and an actor and how do you figure out a good balance between those two things?
Because acting is such an odd world, I also grew up as a child of actors and writers. My mom's a screenwriter and before that she was an actress, and my father was an actor, my step-father was a director so I was on sets a lot as a kid. I loved the magic of the set. You walk in and it's a living room and you walk outside and it's just a piece of wood held up by another piece of wood.
There's a lot of magic involved in movies that as a child I really appreciated. So I love bringing my son to set. It reminds me of what I loved doing as a child and also as an actor you have a lot of down time. So you're not always on as if you're directing the movie or if you're the director of photography of the movie, and the shoot is two or three months, so the rest of the year a lot of times you're not working. I sort of spend every moment that I'm not working doing things with my son. You do the best you can and you make the most of the time you have.
People who have done Quentin Tarantino movies know that you show up knowing all your lines and you don't deviate from the script, but Quentin and your co-star Samuel L. Jackson have talked about what you brought to Daisy in terms of gestures and unexpected looks. What is the liberation as an actor when you know you're not gonna vary the words but you can vary performance through looks and gestures?
Quentin's theory is that if you're ever searching for a line, you cannot ever be fully alive, and then that moment that's inspired can never come. It's really true. You really have to know those lines backwards and forwards and the lines are so good, there's no reason to change them. Honestly, being in those scenes with those other actors, I was constantly engaged in the moment because I was surprised every time because the dialogue is so rich. Things seem to springboard and every take does feel different and new and you feel tremendously free and the scenes feel incredibly alive.
I am someone that's shy. So for me, to be able to communicate inside of Daisy or play Daisy — someone, for a lot of it, doesn't speak and she is feral and mysterious at the same time. It was so much fun because I'm pretty private and if I can keep my mouth shut for most of the day, I will.
Is that why you're an actor?
Well, you can communicate so much about yourself when you're playing other people, but it's all very private. No one knows what is me and what is Daisy. No one else will know, I know, and yet I can disappear into these women and also play things that I have no idea what they're like and completely come out of myself in a way I would never have the courage to do. I'm a fraidy cat. I play everything very safe in my life so I think that's why I like characters that don't.
Jennifer Jason Leigh is nominated for an Oscar for "Best Supporting Actress" for her role as Daisy Domergue in "The Hateful Eight."
New Twitter account exposes how female characters are described in scripts
#OscarsSoWhite has dominated much of the conversation surrounding this year's Academy Awards, but it's not like race is the only issue in Hollywood.
For example, a recent study out of The Center for the Study of Women in Film and TV found that among last year's 100 highest-grossing films, women accounted for just about one-third of all major and speaking characters. Those numbers were even worse for women characters who were black, Latina and Asian, and for all women characters older than 40.
Coincidentally, a new
has been launched which, in less than 24 hours, exploded the Twitter-verse. The account is run by film producer Ross Putman who uses it to shed light on how female leads are introduced in scripts. For the tweets he changes the actual character names to the generic JANE.
JANE, 28, athletic but sexy. A natural beauty. Most days she wears jeans, and she makes them look good.
— Ross Putman (@femscriptintros)
JANE, 28, athletic but sexy. A natural beauty. Most days she wears jeans, and she makes them look good.
— Ross Putman (@femscriptintros) February 10, 2016
JANE pours her gorgeous figure into a tight dress, slips into her stiletto-heeled fuck-me shoes, and checks herself in the dresser mirror.
— Ross Putman (@femscriptintros)
JANE pours her gorgeous figure into a tight dress, slips into her stiletto-heeled fuck-me shoes, and checks herself in the dresser mirror.
— Ross Putman (@femscriptintros) February 10, 2016
As a producer, Putman gets a lot of scripts sent his way. So he created the account @femscriptintros to show how some writers view their female characters — and thus how those characters are cast.
Though drop-dead beautiful, JANE (40) has the appearance of someone whose confidence has been shaken. She is a raw, sexual force, impeded.
— Ross Putman (@femscriptintros)
Though drop-dead beautiful, JANE (40) has the appearance of someone whose confidence has been shaken. She is a raw, sexual force, impeded.
— Ross Putman (@femscriptintros) February 10, 2016
Like draping the Venus De Milo in a burlap dress, Jane’s sensational natural beauty fights through her plain blue Ann Taylor outfit.
— Ross Putman (@femscriptintros)
Like draping the Venus De Milo in a burlap dress, Jane’s sensational natural beauty fights through her plain blue Ann Taylor outfit.
— Ross Putman (@femscriptintros) February 10, 2016
In an interview with Jezebel, Putman observed:
Women are almost always, first and foremost, described based on their physical attractiveness ... The suggestion is that women are only valuable if they’re "beautiful." It’s not always true, but it’s an underlying current. Beyond that, scripts always make a point of quite distinctly saying when someone "isn’t beautiful."
And while Putman says he doesn't want to "shame individual screenwriters," it seems like his Twitter account could go a long way toward making some of the wider "systemic" changes that Putman wants to see in Hollywood.