“We've been doing this for a while,” Channing Tatum laughs, “and every once in a while something new comes out that I haven't heard.”
Tatum responds to the latest revelation from the press tour for his new movie “Roofman”: director Derek Cianfrance's claim that he was the fastest inspector in Walmart history. (“They gave you a raise if you got 18 rings a minute,” says Cianfrance. “I averaged 350.”)
The point, for Cianfrance, is that the central characters of “Roofman” – good-hearted thief and unauthorized Toys “R” Us tenant Jeffrey Manchester (Tatum) and working mother Leigh (Kirsten Dunst) – are his kind of people.
And “Roofman,” which in its themes of personal responsibility, community and acceptance has a lot in common with the work of Frank Capra, is its kind of movie. The director of the 1946 Christmas classic “It's a Wonderful Life” was present in Cianfrance's film from the beginning. “As we were selling this movie, trying to finance it, it was being pitched to everyone as a Capra movie and what I kept hearing was, 'We don't make those movies anymore.'”
Cianfrance always knew he wanted “Roofman” to be a Christmas movie, which often features characters rediscovering themselves in a small town and magical occurrences like, as he puts it, “a fish with wings appears.” Or, in this case, that Manchester, on the run after escaping from prison, ends up falling in love with Leigh and being embraced by his family and community.
Tatum as Jeffrey Manchester in “Roofman.”
(Davi Russo/Paramount Pictures)
“I love the populist filmmaker who makes films about normal people,” says Cianfrance. “You never feel like Capra is judging people, or being snobbish about the people he makes movies about. He makes movies about the people who go to the movies.” And while the film's true story is certainly stranger than fiction, Cianfrance avoided turning “Roofman” into Hollywood escapism. Instead, he says, he wanted to illustrate his respect for workers' dreams and aspirations: “What transformed everything for me was when Leigh told me that Jeff was the greatest adventure of his life and that he didn't regret a thing.”
With that in mind, he urged the cast to live the lives of their characters in suburban North Carolina. He encouraged actor Peter Dinklage, who plays the Toys “R” Us store manager, to manage the store. Leigh de Dunst, a new employee, received a real job interview with Dinklage himself. “He didn't give me an inch in that interview,” Dunst says. “I respect him a lot as an actor, I think I was also intimidated by him.”
Cianfrance calls the set “an aquarium for actors,” a place where, to cite another Christmas reference he mentions, everyone was Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer on the Island of Misfit Toys. Actors like Emory Cohen and Juno Temple expanded their characters beyond the page. Cohen, who plays harassed employee Otis, evoked his character's love of peanut M&Ms, while Temple, who plays the girlfriend of one of Manchester's friends, saw her character as a hairdresser.
Even a scene in which Toys “R” Us is decorated for Thanksgiving gave Cianfrance and production designer Inbal Weinberg the opportunity to debate where to place Dunst an inflatable turkey. “I thought, Let's let the actors decide. Kirsten came to the set. She picked up the turkey. And she started deciding where it went and put it where my production designer wanted it,” says Cianfrance. “And Peter Dinklage came out and said, 'No, the turkey goes here.'”
“As we were selling this movie, trying to get financing, it was being pitched to everyone as a Capra movie and what I kept hearing was, 'We don't make those movies anymore,'” says “Roofman” director Derek Cianfrance.
(The Tyler Twins / For The Times)
Dunst had wanted to work with the director since she auditioned (unsuccessfully, the two joke) for his 2016 feature “The Light Between Oceans.” “I would have made this movie without reading any script,” he says. “How you make a set: you want to capture all the nuances and things that make us humans interesting.”
Tatum agrees. He knew immediately that the role would challenge him as a performer. The actor had heard stories of how Cianfrance worked with artists to get authentic answers, such as giving Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams, who play a married couple in the 2010 drama “Blue Valentine,” contrasting information in scenes to heighten tension.
Dunst recalls a similar moment in “Roofman,” where Jeff scares Leigh by driving a car too fast with her and her daughters inside. “Derek grabbed my arms and said, 'Push me as hard as you can,'” she says. “I did that and he stood his ground and then we went into the scene right after. It brought back the emotion of being trapped and the feeling that everything was out of control… but that really helped me a lot.”
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“I just said [Cianfrance] “At no point,” Tatum says, “and that's when I wanted him to sing.” That might surprise viewers considering Tatum has an extended nude sequence where Jeff tries to escape Dinklage's Mitch — the first time Dinklage and Tatum met, as it happens.
“[Derek] “He always jokes, 'You read the script,'” Tatum says. “I say, 'Yes, I know I read the script. I just assumed you had a plan… a blocking plan.' The scene itself, in which Tatum ran through the toy store and jumped onto a small roof, required 15 takes in almost eight hours. Tatum, Dunst and Cianfrance laugh at how the director approached the issue of maintaining good taste in Tatum's nudity. “He says, 'Do you want me to do it?' Did I blur it?'” says Tatum. “I say, 'Don't blur it. That's even stranger.'”
As Dunst, Tatum and Cianfrance discuss the production, the conversation seems to revolve as much about the memories they made on set as it does about the making of a film, underscoring Cianfrance's directing approach.
“I have always tried to make sure [the actors] have environments… so they can have these accidents and surprises. Moments can happen that you can't replicate and they become the moment you look at forever. They are immortalized for that.”
It's enough to make Frank Capra smile.
