John Patrick Shanley Talks Doubt

7 months ago 30th Jun 09:00

John Patrick Shanley shot to fame when he penned the script for Moonstruck in 1987, which won him a Best original Screenplay Oscar.

He made his directorial debut in 1990 with Joe Versus the Volcano and, after a ninteen year hiatus he returns to the director's chair with Doubt.

The movie brings together a highly talented cast of Philip Seymour Hoffman, Meryl Streep and Amy Adams and was nominated for Best Picture at this year's Oscars.

Mr. Shanley, you directed your first movie in 1990 (Joe Versus the Volcano) and after a long hiatus you returned with Doubt last year. Why so long? In the meanwhile, did you prefer working on theatre? 

After the long shoot of Joe vs. the Volcano I just wanted to go home and get back to my roots as a playwright. I adopted two children, which took much of my time, and dealt with advanced glaucoma in both eyes, which caused intermittent blindness and required multiple surgeries.

The play Doubt was a phenomenon and there was the opportunity to turn it into the film, with Scott Rudin, so we went with that.

Where did you get the idea for "Doubt"?

I wrote Doubt during the invasion of Iraq, and I was listening to a lot of people on television sounding very certain about the way things were, and I felt oppressed. And when I put a name to the oppression I felt, I was that I had doubts.

When I named the feeling of oppression, it reminded me of another period of my life, in the 60's, when I was feeling oppression and I had doubts.

Considering that the movie is based on a play, what were the challenges of staging something that had already been staged? 

The first great challenge was turning the play into a screenplay, because the play only had 4 characters. Turning modern plays into films is quite challenging. Much has changed since the days of Inherit the Wind.

What at first seemed a difficulty, with the paucity of characters, turned out to be the answer, which was that it was unnatural to leave so many characters out.  As a film it made sense to include the children they were arguing about, the congregation and the working class neighborhood.

I’m quite interested in the way a playwriter works his own work and tries to give it a cinematical treatment. Where did you look for ideas? Which is the scene in the film, new and not in the play, you’re more proud of? 

There are a number of scenes not in the play--there are only four characters in the play.   All the scenes with the children are new. Scenes in the rectory or convent or classroom were not in the play.

The film is sculpted around the performance of the actors. Rather than the actors having to conform to a set notion of how a scene should be shot, Roger Deakins and I worked around the performances. That seemed to be the way to tell the story.

The subject dealt with in the film (and the play) is quite relevant to our time. Why did you choose to place it in the 1960's?

I wrote the play during the invasion of Iraq. There were a lot of people on television speaking with great certainty about the "weapons of mass destruction," and I had a feeling of oppression. I realized the feeling that I was experiencing was doubt.