E-mail a friendMatthew Ryan Hoge
original airdate March 31, 2004
Matthew Ryan Hoge wrote The United States of Leland after spending two years teaching in the Los Angeles juvenile hall system. Judged the best film of Sundance in 2003, the psychological drama about the after effects of a brutal murder is Hoge's first big-studio release. He previously wrote, directed and produced the indie comedy Self Storage, about two friends forced to live in a storage unit.
Tavis: I am pleased to have 3 of the key players from the new movie the 'United States of Leland' with us tonight. From my left to right, pleased to have the film's writer and director Matthew Ryan Hoge. up next is actor Ryan Gosling, a Sundance Grand Jury prize-winner for his role in 'The Believer.' And finally you might recognize this guy, two-time Academy Award-winner Kevin Spacey, who's on both sides of this film as producer and star.
The film opens this Friday in New York and Los Angeles exploring the complicated aftermath of a violent crime. Here's a scene from the 'United States of Leland.'
It's always there. Even when stuff looks good. When kids are playing, couples are kissing and junk. Seen all of that stuff, but mostly people just look right through it.
What's the 'it'? I mean, what don't they see?
Just how everything's always slipping away.
Tavis: Hmm. Kevin, Ryan, Matthew, nice to see you all.
Kevin Spacey: Thank you for having us.
Tavis: My pleasure. Let me start with you, Kevin, and ask what, since this is your production company and I appreciate the fact, although it made me jump through--actually my staff, made my staff jump through gyrations trying to adjust this set. This is the first time we've had 3 people on this set at one time.
Kevin: I'm glad to see that you're advancing. I think this is... This might mean that next year you have an audience.
Tavis: Yeah. Ha ha ha! Yeah. Be careful what you ask for around here. I want to start with you to ask what it is that drew you to a picture like this? I appreciate the fact that you are exposing other people whose work deserves to be talked about. But what drew you to the project?
Kevin: Well, Trigger Street Productions is my production company. And, you know, you go through in a year's time a lot of screenplays that you read, a lot of plays that you read, a lot of books that might turn into films. And I think you're lucky and fortunate if you come up with 5 in a year that are really worth pursuing and trying to get made.
And this script was brought to me and I just thought it was remarkably self-assured. It was complex. Although it may have read on the page as dark, I didn't see it as a dark film. I actually thought that it was a film with hope, and that once I met with Matt and he articulated his vision of the film quite well, I just felt that he was the right guy. And he also wanted to direct the movie.
And we then set about a year or so of knocking on doors to try to raise the money to do the movie. 'Cause it's not easy to raise money for a movie anyway, but when you have a first-time writer, first-time director, it makes it even more difficult. But we were fortunate that thousand words stepped up and gave us the first initial money to do it.
Tavis: I'm gonna take a liberty here, Matt. If Kevin Spacey can call you Matt, I can call you Matt, too. So I'm gonna call you Matt. You call me Tavis. I'll call you Matt. How about that?
I've struggled trying to figure out how to explain what this is. I was terribly moved by it when I got a chance to check it out, but I had difficulty trying to figure out how to explain what the story is without giving the story away. So, why don't I let you do that?
Matthew Ryan Hoge: I will do the best that I can.
Tavis: Well, you're the writer. If you can't do it, it can't be done.
Matt: Sometimes it's trickier to tell it in 4 sentences than it is to tell it over an hour and a half.
Tavis: OK, so I'll give you 6 seconds--I mean, 6 sentences. Go ahead.
Matt: It's about a kid named Leland Fitzgerald, played by Ryan Gosling, who commits a crime that shocks his community. Nobody can understand why this happened, what the motivations would be.
And it follows Leland as he enters the juvenile hall system, where he meets up with Pearl Madison, who's a teacher there--also an aspiring writer-- played by Don Cheadle. And Pearl sees in Leland a chance for a great book and wants to sit down, wants to get at the 'why,' wants to try to understand this crime. So at the same time we're having--the heart of the film are conversations between Pearl and Leland trying to get at this 'why,' and we're also looking at the ripple effect of a single act of violence and how it affects parents, how it affects boyfriends, girlfriends, friends--how it affects all these different people in the community.
Tavis: It's a great piece of work, as I said earlier, but I suspect that something must've happened to you or for you or around you for you to hone in on a story like this and want to write something like this. So what's the story of how you came to write the project?
Matt: I completely stumbled into it. I stumbled into a job teaching in the juvenile hall system in Los Angeles because I needed to pay the rent, and I also felt like it would be a chance to interact with people I wouldn't meet any other way. But I really didn't know what I was getting into. I didn't think I was--I wasn't hunting for fodder for a film or anything like that--just the experience that I had had just such a profound impact on me, of meeting kids who I think have been written off, generally.
The kids that you hear about only, you know, based on the one act that's sort of defining their lives now when you read the paper: You hear about Kip Kinkle in Oregon or you hear about the kids at Columbine or a gang, you know, drive-by shooting that ended with a 4-year-old being shot to death. And the kids who perpetrate these crimes are dismissed as monsters, and they're just completely written off. And I had a chance to sort of get past the headlines and actually interact with these kids and see that there's so much more there to them--and sort of posing that question, 'Can you really define a life based on one action?'
Tavis: You know, one of the things that kind of tripped me up here--when I got to the end of the film--again, I'm gonna do this without giving it away--but when I got to the end--how can I put this? There were so many unanswered questions. There were any number of ways I thought you could've taken this close, and I was surprised by the way--or let's just say the way you didn't close the film, the way you could have and chose not to. There were some things that I felt at the end of this--that as a viewer, I had to figure out for myself or assess for myself. Was that intentional? Did you intend to leave me hangin' like that? 'Cause if you did, it worked.
Matt: Good. I hope you're not mad at me.
Tavis: No, I'm not mad at you, but you left me hangin'.
Matt: Well, to me it was really important not to end--this wasn't a mystery story that was going to end with sort of the easy answer or the 'why' that films like this typically sort of drive towards. And it was really important that I didn't have sort of the finger of blame pointing in one direction, that this crime didn't happen because of Leland's absent father. It didn't happen because of the music he listens to or the books he's read or his girlfriend who broke his heart. It wasn't one thing, and I think that that's more true when you actually look at these cases, that it doesn't boil down to one thing. It's much more complicated than that. So I wanted to leave people at a place where they could start talking about it.
Tavis: 'Complicated''s a good word. Ryan, 'complicated' is a good word in terms of describing this role and like your friend Kevin Spacey, I'm starting to see that you're attracted to roles that have complexity of character, that are complicated, that are complex. What about this project interested you, because, again, you've done a couple of these now, with your Sundance honor, but you're blowin' up playing these characters that are not easy characters to play, I suspect.
Ryan Gosling: Um...um, uh, yeah. I don't--so, how did I--what did I--
Tavis: Yeah, exactly. What drew you to the character? 'Cause it's a difficult character to play, I would think.
Ryan: Yeah. Um, well, first of all, I mean, it had, like, Don Cheadle, Jenna Malone--Kevin's producing it, you know, Matt's writing it. The script was amazing. So it felt like a pretty obvious choice, you know.
Tavis: Not a bad group to hang out with.
Ryan: Yeah, it was pretty... I felt pretty lucky to be associated with these guys, but, um, also, you know, the script--it's rare that you read something that has even its own voice, let alone a script where each character in the film feels like they have their own unique voice, you know? It's just a very well-written, well-crafted script. It's very beautiful and a piece of art in its own right, and it was, um--I was just drawn to that, you know?
Tavis: Kevin, I wonder when you look at--to your earlier point, you look at some of these scripts that come across your desk at Trigger Street all the time, and you make assessments about what you want to do and what you don't want to do. Was there something about this film you thought would be--I'm trying to find the right word here--instructive in any sort of way, or as a filmmaker is that not what you're trying to do? You're trying to pick a good film, but not trying to send a message, not trying to make a statement, not trying to be instructive, or is it a little bit of both?
Kevin: Well, I think that film can be both, and I think that I, like Matt when he walked into that juvenile detention center and taught those kids, you know, I had a view of things as we receive that information. Where do we receive that information? Mostly from newspapers and television. And I think that in this particular case, you know, we've all sort of stood around saying, 'God, how do these kids do this horrible thing?' And we find ourselves lost in the--it's incomprehensible to us.
And what I thought was great about this subject and the way in which Matt approached it was that it challenges your own views. It makes you suddenly stop and say, 'Well, OK, would I be saying the same things about this child if it was my kid?' Because the natural assumption that somebody makes in their head is, 'Well, my kid wouldn't do that.'
But what we're finding in this country and around the world is that kids are doing things like this, and rather than doing what I think this film attempts to do, which is to grope for some kind of understanding of it, we put them away. We lock them up for 100 years, and they're the other, and they, as Matt has said often, they've crossed the line. And it isn't in any way, shape, or form, I don't think the film in any way, shape, or form sets out to excuse the act. The act is reprehensible. And it is a search for the 'why.' And I thought it was such a beautifully p...tic film.
Tavis: You know what strikes me as interesting, Kevin, is we live in a world where, while the numbers indicate... We had a conversation with Mark Wahlberg, who was involved in a project called 'Juvies,' who was here not long ago. And I think the audience learned in that conversation with regard to juvenile crime that the amount of crime perpetrated by young people is actually decreasing.
The Justice Department studies indicate that youth crime is actually on the way down. You juxtapose that against the point you made earlier, what we get from the media--youth crime is on the rise, and it's out of control, et cetera, et cetera. I wonder whether or not even a film done as good as this one, done as well, rather, as this one is done will get people's attention, cause people to think. I mean, it's one thing to do a film that you want to be instructive, but do people walk away and dismiss it as, 'That's a great film by Matthew and Ryan and Kevin,' and still don't connect the dots, so to speak, in the way you want them to?
Kevin: Well, I think, you know, all you can hope for is just that we're all on a journey in our life, and, you know, you don't necessarily set out thinking that one particular thing you're gonna do is gonna change people. But it might plant seeds. And maybe this film will plant a seed. And then some other filmmaker or somebody else will write a book or a p...m or a piece of music, something that affects you in a way and makes you start looking at the world and your outlook on the world and how you see people and whether there is hope in people, and whether there is hope in our society, and I think that that is to some degree the role of the artist, you know? To show us ourselves and make you think about yourself in a way that you haven't before.
Tavis: Matthew, having had the experience of not just working with these young people, but indeed, writing this project, let me ask you, to Kevin's point, whether or not you think there is hope. That seems to me to be--that's the ultimate question perhaps.
Matt: Hope in the film or hope beyond the film?
Tavis: Hope for this--hope that we can make some progress regarding the crisis that we are having with young people and violent crime.
Matt: Yeah. I feel the same way that Kevin does, really, is that all you can do is sort of hope that we're doing something with this film. And I do think that if there is going to be change about the way we handle crime, the way we talk about it, it has to start on an ideological level. I mean, clearly what we're doing isn't working, and even if the statistics say that crime is going down, I think the way we treat people who do commit these crimes is still inhumane.
Tavis: What do you think, first and foremost, we are doing wrong? If you were advising, you know, the head of the Justice Department on what needs to be done to turn this problem around, to turn the tide on the issue of youth violence in America, what's the one thing, given your experience now, that you've had that you think we are absolutely doing in the wrong way?
Matt: Something came up today. I was talking to someone else about this, and they were speaking of a program, and I can't cite the name of it, but where the goal was sort of to mediate between kids who commit the crimes and the victims, and to try to sort of mend that rift and to actually sit the kids down with the victims of their crimes and sort of talk through it and figure out ways for them to, in real tangible ways, try and give something back.
I think that's a great idea, and to me that makes so much more sense as far as if we're looking at prison as something that's going to rehabilitate people or actually try to make things better. That makes so much more sense than locking a kid up for 70 years because we're afraid of them, because we don't want to confront them, because we don't want to deal with them.
Kevin: You know, they've just been on a college tour, so I'm kind of curious about the kind of reaction that you got from college kids from that age group about how they reacted to the film, and what came up in the course of your conversations that you had with all those students.
Matt: It was really encouraging because kids wanted to talk about it and they wanted to stay in the theater for an hour talking about the ideas, and I think the response was really good, and I think kids were excited to see themselves portrayed in a manner in which they rarely are in films today, that it's not just, uh, you know, making sort of, uh, blue jokes and, you know, that it was actually--
Kevin: Or trying to get laid.
Matt: Yeah. With some complexity.
Tavis: I could do this for another 30 minutes. I'm not the, uh, the smartest guy on the planet, but I take cues very well. When a 2-time Academy-Award winner starts asking questions on your talk show, you gotta close the show. So that's it. The film is the 'United States of Leland.' It opens this Friday in New York and Los Angeles. I thank Matthew and Ryan and Kevin Spacey for coming by. All the best on the project.
Kevin: Thanks for having us. Thanks very much.
Back to March 31, 2004