E-mail a friendNeil LaBute
airdate September 19, 2008
Neil LaBute is an acclaimed playwright, film director and screenwriter whose work primarily deals with the dark side of human relationships. His plays include Bash: Latter-Day Plays, The Mercy Seat and Some Girl(s). LaBute gained notoriety for his films, and won several awards, with the low-budget In the Company of Men, where his two main characters plan to emotionally destroy a vulnerable woman. His upcoming film, Lakeview Terrace, once again features his trademark portrayal of human interactions.
Noted playwright-director offers his opinion on how Hollywood is doing in answering the race question both on and off the set. (1:26)
Full interview. (9:26)
Neil LaBute
Tavis: Neil LaBute is a talented playwright and filmmaker whose credits include "In the Company of Men" and "Nurse Betty." His latest project is the racially charged drama, "Lakeview Terrace." The film stars Samuel L. Jackson and Kerry Washington and opened around the country today. Here now a scene from "Lakeview Terrace."
[Clip]
Tavis: I don't care what the story line is. Telling Samuel L. Jackson to back off is not a good thing (laughter).
Neil LaBute: I don't think at any point in life. It's probably your first move.
Tavis: Yeah, it's not a good thing to ever tell Samuel L. Jackson in any movie. Nice to have you on the program.
LaBute: Thank you. Nice to be here.
Tavis: The story line here is?
LaBute: Well, it's a neighborhood outside of Los Angeles. A police officer living with his two children, widowed, who has become kind of the sheriff. You know, in a sense it's almost a Wild West feel to it. You know, when he's off-duty, he walks around in his shorts with a gun tucked in his belt and he takes care of the place. A young interracial couple moves into the neighborhood and he takes a kind of instant dislike to them and begins a campaign to move them out.
Tavis: And what's his problem with the interracial couple?
LaBute: Well, it's the mystery at the center of the film. You know, it was one of the things that we worked on. We felt that's something that I think most people would have difficulty believing the policeman in 2008 in Los Angeles is gonna have just a standard issue "I have a problem with that." He doesn't.
It harks back to what happened to him and his wife. I think at the center of this mystery is something that would bother a policeman for all of his life, which is what happened to his wife, something he can't answer, so they remind him of that.
Tavis: As a filmmaker, as a director here, what's the value - unpack for me the value of the importance of having that racial angle at the center of the story line even if it's not the center of his rage. How does that impact the story? Does it have to be there? Is it essential to making the movie work? Tell me about that race angle.
LaBute: Well, I think race has been on the table in this country for how many years? I don't think that it's very well represented in popular culture. We say it's an issue and yet we don't talk about it a great deal. So I think it doesn't - in a case of it being a genre picture, a thriller at its heart, it doesn't have the weight of carrying the discussion of race throughout the movie.
It's there simply by who you cast and in the mechanics of the story. You know, who's living across from each other? So I think you are able to talk about something without having to really talk about it. You know, there's no scene where they sit down and say, "Let's discuss race." It becomes the mechanics of how people live with each other.
There's much more at play there. I think there's age and there's class. There's a socioeconomic, you know, framework there as well. But race is there because of who you cast and it's a dynamic that I think is exciting and lifts the thing from just being a thriller to something having a social commentary.
Tavis: To your point now, I'm glad you went there, Neil, about social commentary. Is there a certain responsibility then that you feel as a director on a project like this where that social commentary is concerned?
Because there are a bunch of people who clearly see that race or sex or whatever the issue might be plays well to an American movie-going audience. They put it in there; it is what it is, but there's no particular responsibility felt towards social commentary with those tricky and thorny and volatile social issues.
LaBute: Well, from my point of view, you know, that is the job, to raise questions. It's always to be asking questions, you know. And any institution, any individual, should be able to stand up to those questions. So I feel the responsibility every time out. So that's the part of the story that spoke to me. They didn't hire me just because of all the thrillers I've done, which accumulate to exactly none at that point, you know.
Tavis: (Laughter).
LaBute: They felt that I would bring something to the dramatic side, to the gender politics, to the racial implications. I'd written a play about race. You know, I'd been interested in another film about it, so it was a world that interested me in how that could fashion in being brought into the thriller.
Of course, I feel a responsibility, and could there have been other casting that would make it more palatable? Probably so. If you put Tommy Lee Jones in that part, you would see the same kind of movie except a movie that perhaps you've already seen. Put Sam Jackson in that part of Abel Turner, you have an entry into a world that perhaps is a bit fresher. So I think that makes it more interesting.
Tavis: To your point now, Neil, what makes this picture - because we've seen so many things about race and about interracial couples, marriages, etc., etc., what from your perspective makes this movie different than what we have seen before?
LaBute: I think the fairness with which we judge it, you know, that we put a state of being upon screen that exists and call it to task, to say what happens. You know, anybody can look at the situation and say, "I've had a neighbor that's giving me problems" and who's the first line of defense? We call the police.
So I think what's always interesting even beyond race for the producers and myself was the idea of, you know, how power can be misused. And to be fair, that can be misused in anyone's hands. So I think to say that Sam's character can go there and be, you know, taught to utilize that power.
It's the only job in America really that we put a gun in someone's hand and say, "Go out there and make these decisions." It's very hard for those people then to turn around and go back to normal life and just, you know. So I think that it approaches that from a unique point of view.
Tavis: To your earlier point, what has been your personal fascination or interest in writing about, directing pieces, that have to do with race matters in America?
LaBute: Well, I was born in Detroit and yet grew up primarily in Washington State in an area that had -
Tavis: - that's like night and day (laughter).
LaBute: Absolutely. You know, very -
Tavis: - Detroit, Washington State.
LaBute: Washington State is - you know, I went to school with probably maybe, you know, three minorities in my school.
Tavis: Wow. That many.
LaBute: That many, yeah. Yeah, it was packed (laughter). You know, I knew it was a concern in terms of our country and yet it wasn't something that I saw playing out. So I think in probably just growing up with that sense of being a writer from a young age, it makes you an observer.
So I was constantly watching how that was working in terms of the national atmosphere and how that was playing out in my world. So I've always been drawn to those issues, you know, that I was not a part of growing up, but found they were part of my world.
Tavis: I don't mean for you to speak for everybody in Hollywood or, for that matter, conversely to cast aspersion on all of Hollywood. How do you think Hollywood is doing with the race question onscreen or in front of the camera and behind this camera?
LaBute: That's a good question. I think they're doing like probably the rest of the country, better than they've done in the past and have a long way to go, that's it's - you know, it'll be interesting how the country goes with that question. With everything that's transpired, how will the country, you know, stand up to that question. I think Hollywood -
Tavis: - what's your sense? You say that like you have a sense of how this thing is gonna turn out in November.
LaBute: I do. I do have a sense and I don't think that America is ready to make that move. It'll be fascinating either way, but my worry is that, with everything that's gone on in, say, the last ten years, we still - our first, you know, reaction is to pull away rather than to reach out from things that seem different from ourselves.
Tavis: Nativist, yeah.
LaBute: I think so. So whether I'm right or not, I still sense that in the country as a whole.
Tavis: Obama, of course, hopes you're wrong about that (laughter).
LaBute: And I hope to be wrong myself.
Tavis: First movie you directed that you didn't write?
LaBute: It's the second, actually. "Nurse Betty" was the other one.
Tavis: That's right, that's right, okay. I was about to ask what the difference is - I could still ask the difference in directing something since you are a writer that you don't write versus what you do write. A particular challenge one way or the other?
LaBute: Yes. I think, you know, the job for me is to not try and, you know, ruin the thing. You know, there's something about it that attracted you to it even though it's not your own work and I think you become more the editor in a way. You know, you're able to look at it a little more dispassionately.
You didn't give birth to the thing and you can say, "This is what I think is good and what could use work." So in that saying what I did with that film, I was able to, you know, bring it to life without, you know, being so concerned about every little thing.
Tavis: So, Neil LaBute directs "Lakeview Terrace," stars one Samuel L. Jackson and Kerry Washington and produced by some guy named Will Smith. Anyway, Neil, nice to have you on.
LaBute: Pleasure.
Tavis: Enjoyed talking to you.
LaBute: Thank you.
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