Hollywood.com: How many years did you work on bringing this story to the screen?
JM: “Well, I first talked to Cathy Konrad about making a movie about Johnny Cash on the set of Copland in 1996, but we couldn’t get the rights. We met John in 1999. The biggest thing was he knew someone was going to make a movie about his life. So that wasn’t shocking, that wasn’t a big concern. His big concern was that whoever played him couldn’t hold the guitar like it’s a baby. He wanted to make sure it was a credible performance. And there were a lot of holes in their story. In a lot of interviews, John would tell his life from the 70’s on, but then most of the writings about his life is about the 60’s: most specifically, ‘that happened like that’ and that kind of generalization of when he had problems with amphetamines. He was specifically concerned of who was going to play him–physically, walking around, not holding the guitar like it belonged in a museum.”
HW: How did you choose Joaquin to play the part?
JM: “It was Kathy, my producer, who came to me and put a picture of him in front of me. There was a piece in the LA Times on him, maybe during the time of the Oscar thing of Gladiator, and it was a beautiful picture of Joaq with his hair greased back. And it just struck me that not only did he have this physical parallel to John–early John–but it just sort of clicked. I was looking for a modern James Dean. I was imagining this movie as East of Eden, about two brothers. One was incredibly perfect, almost near-perfect, and has the love of the father. And in a way, the June relationship is kind of like the relationship with Julie Harris–that was like his brother’s girl, that was someone too good for him. And that film ends with the reconciliation of the father and son: Dean’s character is with Julie Harris, the brother is gone. When you’re dealing with a real life, and it’s really sprawling, it became a really useful template for me. But it was also a style template, a style I wish I could approximate. I think it’s one of our greatest movies, and it’s also one of the styles I miss: the acting, the story telling, and lack of distance. But it got me thinking a lot about this movie, like the incredible parallel between the Actor’s Studio in New York at the same time in the 1950s and Sun Records in the 50’s and what was going on with Brando versus Elvis and James Dean versus John and Paul Newman versus Jerry Lee Lewis. I’m not saying these specifically are corollaries, but what was going on with these young men in New York and what was going on with the men in Memphis was really interesting to me, because it actually gave me a way of explaining, even to myself, of what was unusual about what was going on in Memphis. I understood what was happening in New York, and that when I was talking to people out here trying to get someone to make this movie, what that moment at Sun was like and why it was so important, I would talk about what was different about James Dean and Errol Flynn. Something huge happened. And, the difference between Johnny Cash and Bing Crosby and Doris Day and Frank Sinatra is also huge: something happened. You listen to this music, the right music, from Sun Records and it’s as edgy, and colorful, and multi-layered as anything that Kurt Cobain wrote in the 90s.”
HW: When did you know Joaquin could pull it of–or did you not know?
JM: “I didn’t know. We have different jobs; Joaquin is allowed to not know. Where as I am a parental role on the movie, I have to believe. I have to believe, even if I don’t. I have to hide it, and the fact is, on this, I just believed. I really didn’t think about what would happen if it didn’t work–in part, because I couldn’t think of how to make the movie any other way. How do you make a movie about a guy who’s life is marked by his authenticity and his honesty on stage?”
HW: Did you ever feel you were talking to Johnny rather than Joaquin?
JM: “I had realized he had created a fully, realized person. The John I knew was a different John than the one we were making the movie about. That was the clear thing I wanted to make clear to John and June because they were deans of the world, they were incredibly round, full people. But I was making a movie about the John who questioned God, who thought he knew God; I was making a movie about the John who didn’t know he was good. The John Cash I knew knew he was a powerful artist, he had confidence in himself and understood what he had created. The John Cash at this moment– the one the film is about–did not know that.”
HW: Was do you think about the talk about the parallels between John’s life and Joaquin’s, specifically both losing their older brothers at a young age.
JM: “I’m not the type of director who feels like it’s my job to start opening cans into the actor’s personal lives. But, I think, at the level that these actor’s are at, it’s highly disrespectful to be honest. But in a way, I think that actually gets in the way, sometimes more than it helps. Have you ever had a situation where you tell someone something and they say ‘Oh, I know exactly how you feel, the same thing happened to me. And then all you’re thinking is ‘That’s nothing like what happened to me.’ It’s so often that some actors make it their business to tell you a story about what ever kind of sh*t they just went through and hope that their performance, which is mediocre, is better than it looks because they just told you this powerful stuff. So this is the complete opposite; this guy is the real sh*t, who doesn’t need to reach into his own life to try to and convince you how strong and powerful his performance is.”
HW: You didn’t get Joaquin and Reese together until after they’d both been cast. Were you confident in their chemistry before then?
JM: “The thing is you’re always looking for opposites in movies; I’m always looking for opposite energies, not just in romantic relationships but in everything. It’s like you’re looking for contrast, in music and anything, and in this case, Reese is a very together young lady, and incredible: razor sharp, but a real pro–she’s been doing it a long time, but it’s not the same energy as Joaquin. Joaquin is more of a cloud of energy, kind of raw. And the marriage–of this kind of woman who has tons of energy from below but manages it with discipline and this volcanic guy who looks at any kind of management as a threat to whatever kind of fireball he’s playing–is really interesting.”
HW: So what was the casting process like for the other iconic roles, like Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis?
JM: “Well, what we did was, in casting besides Joaq and Reese, was we made this one central demand in that anyone coming in to read for the part had to be able to play, and they had to literally audition like they would for a musical. Lots of people in this town call themselves ‘actors’–all it takes is an 8×10 from Kinko’s to make themselves a ‘certified actor,’ and all it takes is a guitar to be qualified as a ‘musician.’ But the truth is I’ve found that musicians can be really good actors, from my very first movie ‘Heavy,’ where Debbie Harry was in the film, Evan Dando was in the film, Liv Tyler was in her first movie; I had really good luck with people who had the right instincts, and what I was really looking for when I made that first film was it was a real kind of ‘hootenanny’ on the set and after hours while we were making the film. Something about musical people made it musical all the time; I really wanted musicians to be part of the movie, and so when people came in to read, they had to play first. Tyler [Hilton] came in hoping just to be in John’s band, but he came in playing ‘That’s All Right’ as his audition material. And as I was sitting there, T-Bone Burnett was sitting here and Cathy Konrad was sitting here and they both shoved napkins in front of me that both said ‘E.’ [laughs] And then T-Bone got up and played ‘That’s All Right’ with Tyler, and he was phenomenal. And Waylon Payne actually came in hoping to play Waylon Jennings, and I saw a tape of him playing Jerry Lee Lewis–he’s incredible. I was looking for that energy from these people. I really felt their connections to their instruments was everything.”
