By Gregg Shapiro

Contributing writer

There is much to admire about Married Life, the new film from gay director Ira Sachs. The cast, for one, includes Patricia Clarkson, Chris Cooper, Pierce Brosnan and Rachel McAdams, all of whom bring some of their best work to their roles as unfaithful husband and wife (Clarkson and Cooper), mistress (McAdams), and roguish bachelor (Brosnan). The recreation of the late 1940s era, in costume and set, is visually spectacular. And the noir quality of the story, which moves beyond infidelity to the threat of murder, is handled in virtual Hitchcock style. Director Sachs and actor Cooper met with me at the Peninsula Hotel in Chicago to talk about the film.

Gregg Shapiro: Ira, I want to begin by asking you to say something about what it was that attracted you to making a movie version of John Bingham’s novel “Five Roundabouts to Heaven?”

Ira Sachs: I was watching a lot of Joan Crawford movies, to tell you the truth, very simply. I had discovered that there was something about Joan that was both entertaining on a sort of camp level, but also there was something else going on that I was struck by, which was that below the surface there was a metaphoric integrity to those movies. They were over the top, the situations were bigger than life, and yet something about them resonated for me on a personal level. A lot of the movies at that time, not just Crawford movies, but the noir movies, the Bette Davis films, this level of seeing life—imitation of life, in a way. It was not life itself, but like life. And I had also been reading a lot of Patricia Highsmith in the years before. So the concept of using mystery as a way to talk about domestic situations was interesting to me. It also seemed to be more accessible than some of my previous work, in certain ways. So I found this book, which I found from the beginning to be a real page-turner.

GS: I’m glad that you mentioned your previous work, because “The Delta” and “Forty Shades of Blue” were both original screenplays and “Married Life” is an adaptation. Would you say that you now have a preference for original screenplays over adaptations or vice versa?

IS: Adaptation to me feels from the moment you start like directing. The writing process is already the filmmaking process, because you’re seeing it more visually from the first step. In truth, that is what I am, is a filmmaker, more than a screenwriter. I also think there are only a certain number of plots in the world. I saw “The Delta” recently, which I hadn’t seen in a decade, and I was struck by the fact that it is an original script, meaning that no one else could have written it. There was something about that, which is very specific, which I like about that film.

GS: Chris, had you seen Ira’s previous films before doing “Married Life?”

Chris Cooper: I think the steps went that the script was sent to me and I just trust my intuitions, and that’s usually how I make my decisions. It was a script that I was very interested in. I found myself wondering, imagining about these characters more and more, and that’s really the selling point for me. If I find myself thinking about these people, there’s something that’s hooked me. After getting word to Ira that I had interest in this, then he sent me “Forty Shades of Blue” and he set up a screening for me in Boston. I met Ira after the screening and I think I committed at that time.

GS: What was it about the character of Harry Allen that made you want to play him in “Married Life?”

CC: I saw parallels in him. Looking back on that period, which would have been my grandparents’. My grandfather would have been in his 50s in ’49. And there were similarities that I observed in my mother’s and father’s relationship. A man who is so immersed in work that the marriage sort of falls flat. This (Harry) is a man who is married to, to my eyes, a rather modern woman. She has a different take on romance and affection and what a married life means to her. Provided some background that Ira gave me, it was even more interesting to justify what this man felt he lacked. It’s not in the film, but we learn that this begins at childhood when he loses his parents at a very young age.

GS: With “Married Life” and his portrayal of the queer hired killer in “The Matador,” Pierce Brosnan continues to put some creative distance between himself and James Bond. Chris, what was it like working with Pierce?

CC: Like working with most actors that I have great respect for, a bit intimidating (smiles).

IS: That’s interesting, because he (Brosnan) was definitely, “Wow, I’m stepping up to Chris Cooper.” That was a big issue for him.

CC: I have to say that Ira had some brilliant strategies. People may assume that actors hang out with each other and socialize and open their lives to each other. That’s usually not the case. You just don’t have the time to do that. But there were little one-on-one dinners that Ira was wise enough to set up for Pierce and me, and then a couple of days later with Rachel.

IS: It was rehearsals without me.

GS: Had you done that with your other movies as well?

IS: No, it just suddenly seemed right

CC: It was brilliant. And Patty (Clarkson) and I have known each other for about 14 years, so we were very cool with each other. Pierce and I revealed a lot over that dinner. And a few days later we were shooting that opening scene of the film, the rather lengthy luncheon scene, and it was a great help.

IS: It’s kind of like sex in a movie. You can’t fake physical connection or intimacy. Something has to happen that is intimate. People think that when you film a physical scene that it’s not real, but it is, because there’s a body against a body. The same thing happens with a friendship. Something has to happen underneath.

GS: Rachel McAdams has also shown her range playing both comedic roles—as in “Mean Girls” and “The Wedding Crashers”—and dramatic parts—as in “Married Life” and “The Notebook”—with equal aplomb. Chris, what was it like having her play your other love interest?

CC: Intimidating (laughs). She’s a very smart girl and dedicated to what she chooses to do. It was great casting because we had to have this woman who could enchant these two men. Physically, she’s stunning. And hair and make-up and wardrobe did a brilliant job. You should have heard the little crowds of cast and crew when she made her entrance into the Sky Bar scene. It was pretty memorable.

IS: It was an interesting role to cast because you knew there was this one scene in which she has to enter a room and captivate the two leading actors, as well as the film audience. It’s not just beauty. There is also a level of mystery that Rachel has and something that is classically a movie star quality, and that is that she holds something back. There’s something held back that draws your interest, that Kim Novak quality. We played with that on some level. The most impressive thing for me about Rachel is how ambitious she is with the emotional honesty of each scene.

GS: I’m glad that you mentioned hair and make-up and wardrobe, because “Married Life” is a period piece. What are the challenges and rewards of doing a period piece?

IS: I think we tried to think of “period” as something that didn’t really exist, because whenever you make a film, you put together a series of sets and costumes and you create a world in which the actors inhabit. For me, we set the film in 1949, we were authentic to 1949, but once we did that for the actors, we didn’t talk about 1949 much. We also tried to put them in clothes that they would look good in today. We didn’t choose clothes that seemed to point you to ’49. Rachel could wear any of those dresses anywhere, as could Patty. Patty looks so contemporary in the film, yet it’s true to 1949. We wanted to play with the romanticism of the time without being fetishistic about it.


GS: Speaking of period pieces, Patricia Clarkson, who plays Harry’s wife Pat in “Married Life,” also appeared in the highly stylized period pieces “Far From Heaven” and “Good Night and Good Luck.” What do you think it is about Patricia that makes her such a good fit for period pieces?

IS: She says that people think she must have been born with a girdle (laughs). There’s something about her body that really works well with these clothes. I also think that she has a classic movie face. Something about her upbringing—she grew up in New Orleans. There’s a classy nature to her style visually. She’s very well mannered and there’s something about her which has a formality, and in this film it’s countered by this sexiness. She’s hot and she’s horny in the film. I think it’s what Patricia Clarkson fans have been waiting for—the sexpot Patricia Clarkson.

GS: She’s earned something of a following in the LGBT community through her roles in “High Art” and “Far From Heaven.” Ira, as a member of the community, are you aware of Patricia’s bond with the community and, if so, how would you describe it?

IS: I knew her through (“High Art” director) Lisa Cholodenko and I knew her during that time. I think gay directors are drawn to her because she’s so smart and so accessible. There’s something very present about her femininity and yet she also has a very specific strength, and it translates so well.

GS: Speaking of “Far From Heaven,” Oren Moverman, who co-wrote “I’m Not There” with Todd Haynes, co-wrote “Married Life” with you. How did you come to work with Oren?

IS: I kind of stalked Oren because I had seen “Jesus’ Son,” which he was a co-writer of, and I was so impressed with the cinematic translation that that film had of that material, which I knew quite well. We became friends four or five years before we started working together on this. When we started working on this, I remembered that that was the original reason I had met Oren, because I saw talent. I think that as a director, and it’s the same for an actor, you gravitate towards talent because it creates a community that allows you to make things.

GS: Finally, “Married Life” has a great tagline, which goes “Do you know what really goes on in the mind of the person with whom you sleep?” How is that for a concept to work with?

CC: I think it’s very reasonable. What we don’t tell our friends, I think we may even go farther in not telling our mates. Out of either learning not to go there, not to push those buttons, or you’re hiding something.

IS: I think that it’s significant that understanding that is not something that’s cynical to me. It’s something which is human and loving in understanding that there is a separation between you and the other person that you’re sleeping with, and getting to accept that. I think there is a level of transparency that is healthy in a relationship. And these two people, at the start of it, don’t have that. But, I think, significantly that Chris’s character, by the end of the film, knows really intimately who the people are around him, and he actually seems to have been reborn with that knowledge. Some people say that two halves make a whole, but you can also say that two wholes make a whole. And somehow these two characters are more whole by the end of the film. It’s a film that has an honesty about human relationships, but also a love for them.