Exclusive Interview with "Mr and Mrs Smith" Producer, Akiva Goldsman
Goldsman on Casting Angelina Jolie, Onscreen Chemistry, and Producing Duties
On Casting Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt as Husband and Wife in "Mr and Mrs Smith:" Producer Akiva Goldsman admits he had absolutely no idea if Jolie and Pitt would generate sparks onscreen. “No, we didn’t. The movie originally was Brad and Nicole Kidman. Then ‘Stepford Wives’ promised to shoot well into the next century and so Nicole jumped ship. And so we cast Angie pretty quickly thereafter. But I don’t think they’d met until our first sort of sit down and look at the scenes together. It was a dice roll,” said Goldsman.
Taking the Chance the Two Sexy Stars Would Create Some Heat: “Like so many things in moviemaking, it doesn’t seem perilous at the time. You’re sort of proceeding as wisely as you can in a sort of poppy field of unknowns. So all those moves now of course seem intensely hazardous but didn’t then.”
On Angelina Jolie Replacing Nicole Kidman: Goldsman said getting Angelina Jolie to take on the project wasn’t exactly a hard sell. “Look, here’s where we were at that moment. We had Doug Liman, who was at that point 3 for 3. In my opinion he’s now 4 for 4. And his movies are undeniably both commercial and interesting. So we had Doug Liman. We had this really good script and we had Brad Pitt in the lead. Suffice it to say there was no shortage of women who were available for the part,” recalled Goldsman.
Akiva Goldsman on how the Rumors of an Offscreen Romance Between Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt Might Affect “Mr and Mrs Smith” at the Box Office: “I think it’s irrelevant. I think it’s not fun for the human beings involved but I don’t think it has anything to do with the movie. Movies are movies. People like them or don’t like them. I think it’s based entirely on what the experience of seeing the movie is. And everything else is just deckchairs on the Titanic or the Queen Elizabeth. None of it matters.”
Akiva Goldsman’s Role as a Producer: The Academy Award-winning screenwriter (“A Beautiful Mind”) says that whether he’s on a movie as the screenwriter or as a producer doesn’t make much of a difference as far as his day-to-day commitment to the project. He’s on the set each and every day. Goldsman loves that part of the process, even though at times it’s been a bit of a struggle.
“I’ve been really lucky because as a writer I’ve been on set almost every day of every film I’ve written, which is how I ended up becoming a producer. I discovered that I found the process congenial and I was not useless at it. So it was sort of interesting that I evolved to producer, or stepped to producer, when a lot of my friends stepped to director. And I like it. I really enjoy it. I mean, this got a little complicated because respective pushes of two movies had ‘Cinderella Man’ and ‘Mr and Mrs Smith’ shooting at the same time. So I was commuting almost at some points every three days between Los Angeles and Toronto, which is not an experience I’d like to replicate. But I really enjoy being on set. I love movie sets,” explained Goldsman, adding that traveling between the two films did take its toll. “I wouldn’t do it again and it was not for the whole movie. It was basically a month of overlap where it was grim. There was a lot of napping on couches.”
The “Mr and Mrs Smith” Pitch from Then College Student Simon Kinberg:
“He’s a lovely kid. We have a little company here at Warner Bros – Weed Road – and Simon was in grad school and he came and pitched this idea. We loved it and we took it to every studio and they all passed. Nobody cared at all. And we got Summit Entertainment to pay for one draft of the script and then we sent the script out and everybody passed. The collective skyrocketing intelligence that is our studio system… And finally Regency, which is a company that has its output deal at Fox, bought it. And then we were suddenly a Doug Liman/Nicole Kidman/Brad Pitt movie. We all looked like geniuses. But only seconds before, literally, no one could have been less interested.”
Seeing Something in “Mr and Mrs Smith” the Studios Didn’t: “Well, at first they were saying that it’s ‘execution dependent’, which is just like saying we should have food for dinner. I mean, literally it’s a non-sentence which means that they don’t want to buy something speculatively. Then when they had the script, I think what they were scared of was that it was really, really, really - as you said and you’ve seen – it’s tonally very delicate. We’re walking this tightrope. We’re trying this tightrope of comedy and melodrama, which in the wrong hands could have been bad. So they weren’t exactly crazy nor were they exactly inspired.”
Akiva Goldsman on What Drew Him to “Mr and Mrs Smith:” “It was the metaphor. Simon [Kinberg] was really clear about this idea that in a relationship, sometimes conflict and the need to clear out the trappings is that which allows people to see each other. That was such a fantastically true idea. All of us who are married in all the meetings, we’d sit around and just nod, you know? And God knows who hasn’t wanted to kill their spouse dead, dead, dead. And so the metaphor abides. It’s such a strong, smart place to start a movie, an idea for a movie.”
Why Doug Liman was Perfect to Direct “Mr and Mrs Smith: Akiva Goldsman said it was Liman’s work on “The Bourne Identity” that sold him on the idea Liman was the right man to direct “Mr and Mrs Smith.” “Absolutely, because Doug’s filmmaking popped up in scale on ‘Bourne.’ I mean, the other movies are fantastic but they’re smaller.
And ‘Bourne’ has that kind of action grabber weaved in.”
Akiva Goldsman on the Possibility of a Sequel to “Mr and Mrs Smith:” I’m pretty sure Akiva Goldsman has made up his mind about a “Mr and Mrs Smith” sequel. Before I’d finished the question, Goldsman answered with, “No. No, no, no. Oh no. No and then no. And also no. And then no. We just want to get it out there and see if people like it.”
On Writing vs. Producing vs. Directing: Though he’s one of the most respected writers in Hollywood, Goldsman refrains from tweaking the work of others if he’s not hired onto a project as a screenwriter. Simon Kinberg was the writer on “Mr and Mrs Smith” and Goldsman told me he didn’t do any work on the script himself. “I try to keep the jobs separate. I don’t usually write what I produce. I have, but generally... Look, as a writer I certainly wouldn’t want my producer rewriting me.”
While Goldsman has a good point, writers don’t normally have the opportunity to work with a producer who has earned a best adapted screenplay Oscar. As a screenwriter, if Goldsman were given the opportunity to have a producer/writer of his caliber help tweak a script, would he allow it? “I still wouldn’t want him to be rewriting me. I want to be rewriting myself. I want to be making my writing better. We only work because we write. We only get better because we keep doing it. You know, despite the fact that Hollywood seems to think that writers are pretty expendable, I don’t. I’ve been really lucky in my set participation and I really believe the writer is an important part of the filmmaking process. In the case of ‘Mr and Mrs Smith,’ Simon was on set every day. And sometimes when there were other writers, which there were, Simon was there working with them. And that was important to me because words need their own department, just like everything else on a movie.”
Akiva Goldsman on the Process of Adapting a Script: “It probably takes me three or four months of writing. Hard to say how much rubber band pulling back there is before that. I almost never jump into something when I get it. I almost always find a reason that I can’t start for a while. I think what’s happening is my brain is sort of revving up. But once I sit down, it’s three or four months. Three months probably, and it’s pretty constant. It’s long writing days.”
Goldsman on Writing with Specific Actors in Mind: “No, not usually. I mean it varies. I wasn’t on ‘Da Vinci Code.’ I wasn’t on ‘A Beautiful Mind.’ Russell brought ‘Cinderella Man’ to Ron [Howard] and I so I knew he was [in it]. But I still tried to write Jim Braddock, not Russell Crowe.”
Tweaking Scripts Based on Actors Who are Cast: “In Russell’s case no because Russell can do anything. You know what I mean? There’s not the beat when you’re writing for Russell where you go, ‘Oh, that’s going to be a stretch.’ I haven’t found a thing he can’t do.”
Developing a Shorthand with Director Ron Howard: Akiva Goldsman and Ron Howard found success together on “A Beautiful Mind” and have since teamed up on “Cinderella Man” starring Russell Crowe and Renee Zellweger, and “The Da Vinci Code,” which is currently in production. “It makes it so much fun. Oh God yes. I love it. It’s my favorite job. Of all my jobs, it’s my favorite job,” enthused Goldsman.
What exactly does Ron Howard do that allows Goldsman to derive so much pleasure from working on Howard’s films? “I don’t know. He’s just kind of amazing. He is so confident and so collaborative. He’s really gifted and I just enjoy working with him so much. He’s such a good, decent, smart, talented human. He has no right to be considering the fact that he basically grew up on television. He should be a whack job and he’s so not. He’s so lovely. Really my favorite job,” said Goldsman.
Akiva Goldsman on Why America Forgot About Jim Braddock, the Heavyweight Champion Who Inspired “Cinderella Man:” “Oh boy I don’t know. You ever have a trauma and sometimes you can’t remember things around it? The Depression was a trauma. It was cultural psychological wound as well as a practical and economic one. You know, I think people tend to put pain behind them. I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of great stories didn’t get lost in that.”
The Obvious Comparisons to “Seabiscuit:” “Look. I like to think ‘Cinderella Man’ is ‘Cinderella Man.’ But the one thing you learn quickly is you can never do anything about what other people say.”
Akiva Goldsman on Adapting Dan Brown’s Popular Novel, “The Da Vinci Code:” “We’re trying to be [true] to the book.
We hope to give you the experience of reading the book. That’s our outcome goal. You know, we want you to think you just saw the book. That’s what we’re trying to do.”
Will the Movie Be as Dialogue-Driven as the Book?: “I’m so not telling! [Laughing] I’m so not giving away my smoke and mirrors of how we’re doing it.”
Will There be Major Changes to the Story: “No.”
Hollywood beauty Angelina Jolie has topped the list of the world's 100 most beautiful women.
Aishwarya Rai is ranked #9 in the list
"Mr. & Mrs. Smith" Director Doug Liman fears the sex scenes between Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie in new movie are so realistic, fans of Pitt's estranged wife Jennifer Aniston will boycott the film. Pitt and Jolie have repeatedly denied reports they started an affair on the movie's set, causing the Brad Pitt's high-profile split from Aniston in January reports imdb.com. According to Liman, "producer Dave Matalon said, 'I don't want to lose that audience of people who are huge Jennifer Aniston fans, who are going to hate Angelina Jolie because the sex scene's too sexy. People will see the sex scene and say, 'Oh that's how Angie did it'. It'll be like , 'She used her wiles to seduce him'." 
FOR the second time in two months, Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie has traveled to Kenya, visiting a United Nations-backed poverty-eradication project in the east African country.
LIMAN: 'JOLIE SHOCKED ME WITH HER SEXUALITY' 
Angelina Jolie sexy photo shoot
BRAD Pitt and Angelina Jolie are avoiding each other while they promote, "Mr. and Mrs. Smith." Pitt will be interviewed by Diane Sawyer on "Good Morning America," while Jolie is set for "Today." A PageSix.com sources say Jolie did not want to be interviewed by Katie Couric or Matt Lauer - so Ann Curry is doing the honors instead. A rep for "Today" said: "[Ann] has a long-standing relationship with Angelina." 
But Liman is terrified Aniston's loyal admirers will see the graphic onscreen love-making and presume he has captured their moment of betrayal on film.
ANGELINA JOLIE is convinced her mother's decision to allow her to live with her first boyfriend when she was just 14 helped cement their close bond.
"My own father cheated on my mother, it is not something I could forgive. I could not, could not, look at myself in the morning if I did that," Jolie has said.
For months, speculation has swirled around the world that Pitt, 41, the star of movies like "Ocean's Twelve" and "Troy," and Jolie, 30, are having a romantic affair since filming "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" last year. The talk seemed to have some weight when Pitt and his wife, actress Jennifer Aniston, separated in January after more than four years of marriage. 
