CS Weekly Archive > From the Trenches > 6/13/09

By the Numbers:
Pelham 1 2 3's Brian Helgeland

BY JENELLE RILEY

A New York City transit dispatcher (Denzel Washington) finds himself matching wits with a criminal mastermind (John Travolta) who takes a subway car hostage, threatening to shoot a passenger every minute his demands aren't met.

The 1995 Sylvester Stallone vehicle Assassins was the most notable credit on Brian Helgeland's resume when he pulled off the seemingly impossible: adapting James Ellroy's dense, intricate crime story L.A. Confidential to the big screen. For that impressive feat, he and co-writer/director Curtis Hanson won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, and Helgeland soon became one of the industry's most sought-after screenwriters. As a director, he is probably best known for the 2001 medieval romp A Knight's Tale, which found Heath Ledger jousting to the tune of Queen's "We Will Rock You."

A favorite of directors, he's worked twice with Richard Donner (Conspiracy Theory, Assassins), Clint Eastwood (Blood Work, Mystic River, which earned him a second Oscar nomination), and Tony Scott, who he first teamed up with for Man on Fire and now reunites with for the new film, The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3. Based on the novel by John Godley, Pelham was already adapted into a 1974 film starring Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw. This version finds New York City subway dispatcher Walter Garber (Denzel Washington) as an unlikely negotiator when a group of hijackers led by a man known only as Ryder (John Travolta) take a subway car and its inhabitants hostage. In addition to reuniting with Scott and their Man on Fire star Washington, Helgeland jokes that, in many ways, this assignment was destiny. "You know, I got my Oscar from Walter Matthau, he was the presenter," he notes. "Maybe that's why I did this movie."

Pelham is another script from you that pits a criminal against a lone man of authority. What draws you to cops and robbers?
I don't know. In my 20s, I started reading a lot of crime stuff and I always liked cop shows on TV. I'm fascinated more with the criminal side of it—or cops, if they're crooked. It's just an interesting world because it's characters that are exposed to extreme things but have to have a normal life in there somewhere. They're immediately fun characters to write about. I love those movies in the 1970s that would have the character's name as the title: Cool Hand Luke and Mr. Majestic and Bullitt. Because the strength of the movie is the character, rather than something like monsters running around.

Do you ever write with particular actors in mind?
I write for dead actors. Robert Mitchum, Lee Marvin, Burt Lancaster; I write for those guys.

With this, who were you thinking of?
I don't remember with this one. A little Lee Marvin, probably. Unless it's a circumstance where there's already somebody involved, then you write for them. Normally I don't write for anyone. I did write Chaucer for Paul [Bettany]. I met him on a movie I tried to get started but it collapsed. When I was writing A Knights' Tale, I wrote it for him because I knew he could pull it off. And it was a tricky role. He came in and they wouldn't cast him. So we practiced for two days, just the two of us, to get his audition perfect.

You've worked with Tony Scott before in Man on Fire. Did he bring the Pelham project to you?
I actually brought it to Tony. It started with the producer, Todd Black, who was the producer on A Knight's Tale. I went to Tony because I thought we had similar sensibilities. We both think any single moment in a movie can be scary and funny and happy and sad, all at the same time. It's hard to find someone who thinks that. So, I wouldn't say I wrote the script for any actor, but I'd say I wrote it for a director.

At what point did you know the leads would be Washington and Travolta, and did you then adapt the roles to fit them?
Tony read it and said it would be good for Denzel. Of course, I agreed. Then it just became who would be the villain. When I found out it was John, I was very happy. He actually called me up; I was at my son's school and the phone rang and he wanted to talk to me about it. He would call me at oddball hours, which I liked. It didn't have to all be arranged by people. The phone would ring and he'd go, "Hey man, I was thinking on page 30…" I'd be in the car trying to think what that page was. He'd talk and I'd be writing notes. If someone has a good idea, I'm not defensive at all. I would feed off his enthusiasm and the detail he was going into. A lot of it evolved out of him taking what was there and wanting to run with it. It was a nice collaboration. He didn't show up on set and say, "I'm changing all the lines." He wanted to work together.

Was Denzel's character originally written African-American?
No. I never put that in one way or the other. Why limit yourself?

What in particular did you like about the casting of Travolta?
It's hard to find a guy who will just go for it as a villain. Especially when they also play leading men, they get caught up in what their image is as a leading man and a good guy. To have a guy who will just jump in and be as bad as you want him to be and yet still have him be likable is hard. And he's a good actor. I know he's had some misses in his career, but all actors are handcuffed by their material. Actors can affect it to a degree, but they're usually the last people to come on and it is what it is, so they can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

Are you saying your script was a sow's ear?
No. It was a…silk sow's ear.

You actually tend to write some very likable villains.
I like villains who are not completely villainous. It's a movie, so he's murdering people and we're not cheering for him, but we kind of like him. Which is a great thing about the manipulative quality that movies can have. All Alfred Hitchcock movies, you're rooting for the villain on some level. It's fun to watch him. Nowadays, villains just have to be evil and bad and it makes them boring. You're glad they're dead, because they're so boring.

Did you draw at all from the original book or movie in writing the script?
I knew the original movie, which I think is really good, and I read the book, which has a lot of great stuff in it. The book was a huge bestseller, but it doesn't really have a main character. There are about 20 characters, and for three paragraphs you'll be with a sniper, then a hostage, then a villain, then you're back with the sniper, then you're with Ryder, then Garber. You could argue the Ryder character has the most in the book. But it was trying to take characters on each side and bringing in different elements and then adding my own stuff to it.

Did you spend much time on set rewriting? And do you enjoy being on sets?
I've been lucky as far as that goes. Almost all the directors I've worked with have had me on set, starting with Dick Donner, who I did two films with. Curtis let me be on set during L.A. Confidential. It's fun to be there if there's something to do. If they're rehearsing and something doesn't quite work, it's nice to be there to help and throw your two cents in. But if there's nothing to do, it's kind of boring. I was on this set maybe three weeks and pretty much everything had been ironed out ahead of time. After a week of that, it got to be boring just sitting around. When we were doing Conspiracy Theory, Julia Roberts had a speech to make. She said, "You know, I feel like I'm just telling the audience because they need to know. It's nothing I would really say." Dick said, "What can we do instead?" And everyone's staring at me. So I came up with one line Patrick Stewart could have that took the place of the whole big speech and Patrick was like, "I rather like that!" It's fun because it's like a pop quiz. If you can't solve it, it's not fun.

You haven't directed a film since The Order in 2003. Any plans to direct in the future?
Honestly, I was away from home so much that I didn't recognize my kids at a certain point, and I semi-retired because writing scripts is sort of retiring after directing. But right now I'm writing something I'm going to direct at Sony, so I'm coming out of retirement. It's a cop movie about a cop who's gotten out of prison and teams up with another cop to solve a crime. They have to keep it quiet because a convicted felon can't be running around doing police work. This is a bad pitch; I'm not really doing it justice.

You won a Razzie Award for Worst Screenplay for The Postman the same year you won your Oscar for L.A. Confidential. Is it true you actually showed up to accept your Razzie?
Yes. I worked on The Postman for four years, and it was such a surreal experience that by the time it was over and I won the Razzie for it, I was kind of pleased. At least it wasn't for nothing. I knew I was nominated and I said, "I'll take it if I get it." I have it at home. It's a Styrofoam raspberry with sequins stuck in it, painted gold.

Is it really next to your Oscar?
Yes. Because, honestly, I didn't take the Oscar any more seriously than I took the Raspberry. Awards are strange; I mean, A Knight's Tale is my favorite movie I ever did, and I didn't win anything for it.

Just my heart.
Ah, then it was worth it.



Jenelle Riley has been weighed, she has been measured, and she has been found wanting.



The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 courtesy Columbia Pictures

From the Trenches
Working screenwriters discuss in their own words a particular aspect of screenwriting, from the mechanics of writing to the personal and professional impact that writing has had on their lives. > VIEW ARCHIVE

The Big Picture

Features that cover all aspects of screenwriting, from our "Seven Best" lists to analysis of old favorites and new classics. > VIEW ARCHIVE

Weekend Read
Film, book, web site and technology reviews from a writer’s perspective. How can these items help a writer on his or her journey, or make that journey more enjoyable? > VIEW ARCHIVE

DVD Review of the Day
DVD reviews from a writer’s point of view. What aspects of this script and features of this DVD illuminate the writing, development, and storytelling process? > VIEW ARCHIVE