After directing two politically charged films back-to-back, Rob Reiner is ready for something a little different.
“I’ve always wanted to do a musical. I did Spinal Tap, but I wouldn’t call that a musical. I’ve always wanted to do an original musical, and they did one last year [with] La La Land,” Reiner told Gulf News tabloid! at the 14th Dubai International Film Festival.
The 70-year-old director last year got behind the camera for LBJ, which tells the story of US President Lyndon Baines Johnson, starring Woody Harrelson. He’s currently gearing up to release the newsroom drama Shock and Awe, also featuring Harrelson, about a group of reporters in 2003 sceptical of the Bush administration’s plan to invade of Iraq.
Reiner initially wanted Harrelson, “the greatest actor to work with and a terrific person,” for the role of Joe Galloway. It ended up going to Tommy Lee Jones, while Harrelson stepped in as Jonathan Landay. The film also stars Jessica Biel, Milla Jovovich, James Marsden and Reiner himself.
“I jumped in at the last second because Alec Baldwin dropped out of the movie two days before he was supposed to shoot, so for me I was just fumbling to figure out what I was doing. But these other actors, they’re great. Tommy Lee Jones is world class,” said Reiner.
It isn’t the first time he’s had to juggle his acting and directing roles. He put himself in front of the camera during the 1984 cult classic, This Is Spinal Tap.
“I don’t really like it, to be honest with you. I’ve done it a few times, like in Spinal Tap. I don’t like being in movies that I direct, because it’s a split focus. I’d rather do one or the other. I don’t like watching myself act,” he admitted.
(More recently, you would have spotted him as Bob Day, Jessica Day’s father, on the television sitcom New Girl.)
Reiner is versatile as a director, known for films such as When Harry Met Sally and A Few Good Men. He goes back to his 1986 Stephen King adaptation Stand By Me when asked which of his titles he holds dearest to his heart.
“Stand By Me means probably more to me than any other film I’ve made, because it was the first time I made a film that really captured my sensibility. It has a mixture of humour and melancholy and it kind of reflects my personality, in a way,” said Reiner.
“When Harry met Sally means a lot to me because I met my wife during the making of that film, and then Princess Bride because it’s gone through generations and people still love it.”
Reiner is also an outspoken political activist, and said the idea of his latest film came to him after 9/11, when the Bush administration was going after Saddam Hussein for allegedly having weapons of mass destruction.
“It became very clear to me that it was all based on propaganda and lies. Being of draft age during the Vietnam War, I thought there would never be another time where America enters into a war based on lies. And here, I saw it happening again,” said Reiner.
“I wanted to tell the story of how this horrible misbegotten foreign policy was able to occur. Initially, I had an idea to do it as a Dr. Strangelove, I’ll do it as a satire,” he added.
After struggling to find a satirical script he liked, he came across a documentary by Billy Moyers, former press secretary for Lyndon Johnson; Buying the War focused on a group of Knight Ridder journalists, who “had gotten the story right and couldn’t break through.”
“They weren’t listened to. They were overwhelmed not only by the Bush administration, but also the mainstream media which basically drank the Kool-Aid,” said Reiner.
He felt it timely to tell the story today, when “it’s like our whole media is under attack in America.
“We’re not going to have a harmonious world until people understand what really is true,” he said.
Shock and Awe premiered at Zurich Film Festival in September and screened at Diff on December 9. A wider release has yet to be set.
