Bad Education - Festivals and Awards Watch

[jo]

[jo]

Virtual ceremony for the EMMYs?

www.etonline.com/what-the-nominees-think-about-the-2020-emmys-going-virtual-exclusive-150738

[jo]

The PrimeTime EMMY ceremonies will be held over a number of days, presumably because of the sheer number of awards and because this will be a digital presentation.

Here are also the specific awards to be given on each day from September 15 to September 20.


deadline.com/2020/08/emmys-television-academy-spreads-72nd-awards-presentations-over-six-nights-in-september-1203006269/



*Television Movie will be announced on September 19

*Acting Honors for the combined category of Limited Series/TV Movie will be announced on September 20.




Btw, I didn't know there is an award for "OUTSTANDING CASTING FOR A LIMITED SERIES MOVIE OR SPECIAL". Unexplainable how Bad Education did not get a nomination!



The membership profile of who votes for EMMY honors is not well-known. The AMPAS announces its new members every year and they come from each of the performing or creative or technical branches. I understand that some of the members of the movie press are EMMY voters ( I read from Pete Hammond of Deadline.com that he himself is a voting member).

Jo

[jo]

Hmm... I wonder if that latest photo of him out in the yard with his laptop, supposedly for a meeting, is for this one, taking place a few days before?

[jo]

Registration requirements if you want to watch it at actual time of discussions --

www.webeventpro.com/dl0816201

[jo]

It looks like the DEADLINE EMMY CONTENDERS show is going to be a whole-day event with about 75 speakers set to participate!

deadline.com/2020/08/deadlines-the-contenders-television-phase-two-nominees-1203009202/#comments


Jo

[jo]

Probably to promote BAD EDUCATION, too -- or is it for something else?


Jo

[jo]

I came across an article on Variety - interview with one of the producers of BAD EDUCATION who is now predicting the death of indies, as we know it.

variety.com/2020/film/news/oren-moverman-movies-future-independent-cinema-1234717450/


Let me just cite the aspects on Bad Education --

You were already ahead of this curve in terms of what happened with “Bad Education,” which you produced. Last year, I wrote that the idea of a movie of that quality, pedigree, and acclaim going straight to HBO felt like a revolutionary change. Do you think that’s accurate?

Yeah, that’s what it felt like. I actually experienced that a couple of years before with “The Tale,” which is another movie I produced that also sold to HBO. The feeling was: You need a home — a home that supports these movies. And that’s not an easy thing anymore. With both these movies, HBO came and really talked a good game and delivered on it. The kind of support and infrastructure that they can provide a film that was made independently is almost shocking in its efficiency, and its potential.


“Bad Education” felt like the kind of movie that, potentially, could have made a splash in theaters. Did you have that thought? Did you think, “We’re going to be missing that?”

Yeah! It was one of those classic middle-of-the-night, people coming into the hotel room to talk about why they should be distributing the film situations. And I think one of the things we’re dealing with now is letting go of some of these expectations of theatrical distribution. I don’t mean to say that it should go away completely. It shouldn’t. There’s room for it and there’s a need for it. But I also feel like you have to question yourself: Why do you want theatrical? Is it about the nostalgic element of it, the romantic element of it, the sort of dreamy aspect of it — which I can say personally, that was my dream. My dream was to make films and have them in movie theaters, and that was kind of it, you know? But you also have to measure that against the reality of where things are going, and whether you’re resisting change because change is hard and change is uncomfortable and change demands a lot of self-reflection. Or are you going to start embracing change and seeing the opportunities that come with it, and seeing what is good about it?

Ha - I bet he has been chided about the producers's greed to get their money back without giving the movie a chance to be appreciated in its proper venue.

At the time that he sold Bad Education to HBO, there was no whiff of a pandemic yet! 

He is simply justifying his action which has probably been met with major disappointment. The creatives and cast delivered a very well-received movie ( even at TIFF, it was already the surprise hit) but it seems his previous dealings with HBO was his primary objective all along. I hope Hugh never gets to work with the likes of him ever!! He strikes me as someone who is more inclined to look only at the monetary return and not prodded on by equal artistic motives.


Jo

[jo]

LA Times predictions favor Bad Education and Hugh Jackman --

www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2020-08-12/emmys-2020-predictions-limited-series-movie-watchmen

[jo]

Hugh media appearances --

GMA - August 18
Tonight(Fallon) - August 18
Deadline contenders discussions - August 16


Primetime EMMYs schedule --

August 21
Final-round voting begins

August 31, 10:00 PM
Final-round voting ends

[jo]

Another reviewer is surprised how well Hugh has developed as an actor.

If they had seen Erskinville Kings early on...or maybe even some episodes from Correlli... then they would not be so suprised. Hugh did train in dramatic theatre, including classical theatre, so it is not surprising that he can deliver in any dramatic forte.

howesfilmandtv.video.blog/2020/08/16/bad-education-2020-tv-review/


Jo

[jo]

Thankfully, Hugh's segment of the DEADLINE CONTENDERS Forum was the very first one ( it is a day-long event).

*Hugh was interviewed by Pete Hammond who is the editor of Deadline's Awards Section.

*It lasted about 15-18 minutes.

*They showed the trailer w/ Tassone and the school board confronting Pam Gluckin ( the movie's first trailer).

Some details that I caught --

*Hugh looked handsome but unshaven, in a black t-shirt, at his West Village home.

*He joked about how surprised he was to get a nomination for hosting the TONYs...and to win the EMMY itself! He joked that maybe this time, while not saying he thinks he is going to win, he will be a bit more prepared

*Some discussion about the original intention for the movie - that it was originally meant as a movie for theatrical distribution, went to Toronto for public premiere, but found itself being snagged by HBO. It was prescient because of the catastrophic turn of events caused by the health crisis.

On a related matter, Hugh observed that film distribution has now been blurred by the landscape, with streaming becoming a major force. This was related to the observation by Pete H that it is amazing how The Greatest Showman is back as a major attraction during lockdowns! Being streamed...and also being shown in other acceptable venues.

*Hugh says he is open to acting in all kinds of environment, whether the movie is shown in the theaters, streamed, or on TV ( Jo's note: that is what I thought I heard). I think he also observed how TV has become a greater force in providing entertainment due to the evolution of TV content material.

*Re Bad Education - he talked of how impressed he was with Cory Finley, his co-stars ( esp Allison), writer Mike Makowsky ( whose house they used to shoot scenes in the film) who was a student at Roslyn. He also discussed with Pete H how the timing of the school admissions scandal broke out while they were filming the movie.

*He said be accepted the role because he felt that it was a true cautionary tale.

*Can't remember the other details...but I fully remembered this --


When Pete Hammond mentioned his forthcoming return to Broadway --

Hugh raised his crossed fingers - and said he hopes it will open ( for previews) in April and officially open in May!


Jo

[jo]

Thanks to JackmansLanding --

[jo]

Hugh Jackman is certainly a great favorite at Deadline and with Pete Hammond!

He gets coverage of the interview right away


deadline.com/2020/08/hugh-jackman-bad-education-hbo-contenders-tv-watch-1203013960/

‘Bad Education’s Hugh Jackman On “Cautionary Tale” Of A Massive Fraud – Contenders TV

By Pete Hammond

Pete Hammond
Awards Columnist/Chief Film Critic
@deadlinepete

Contenders Television: The Nominees Underway With Hugh Jackman, Jennifer Aniston, Regina King, Jon Favreau, Billy Porter & More
Deadline’s The Contenders Television Phase 2 Virtual Event Set For Sunday; 75 Actors/BTS Nominees Set To Participate
Notes On The Season: Oscars Nix Screenings; Emmy Controversy?; Drive In Campaigning; Nominees Stay Home
VIEW ALL

August 16, 2020 8:50am

Hugh Jackman
Deadline

The first time Hugh Jackman won an Emmy was for hosting the Tonys. He says he didn’t even know there was a category for that, and was so convinced he wouldn’t win he didn’t prepare a speech. In fact he did win, and based on that experience he says he will at least have something ready in case he does grab the Emmy this time for a richly acclaimed performance in HBO’s Bad Education, for which he has his first acting Emmy nom as Outstanding Actor in a Limited Series or Movie.

Jackman had no idea this film would take him to the Emmys when he was making it but is pleased now that it landed on television, as he told me during an interview during Deadline’s Contenders Television: The Nominees all-day event.


Hugh Jackman Lands Acting Emmy Nom For 'Bad Education' After Being Recognized For Oscar & Tony Hosting Gigs


“I love there is an equal playing field. When we were making it I thought it was a film, but when we went to the Toronto Film Festival, it wound up being picked up by a very enthusiastic HBO,” he said. “In the end you just want whoever is putting the movie out to believe in it. I think the way it turned out in the end has been amazing — lot more people have seen it,“ he added, noting the large audience Bad Education has drawn as people are quarantined because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Jackman said when he read the script — all based on the true story of the largest school scandal in U.S. history, and in which he plays a Long Island superintendent Frank Tassone, who went to prison for embezzlement — he thought no one would believe it if it hadn’t really happened.

“You’ve got a very successful, very well-liked person doing something that doesn’t make sense,” he said. “How does it escalate? How do 26 people in this school end up getting charged for the biggest scandal in public school history? It is a cautionary tale on how we can convince ourselves something is right just because it suits us,” he said.

Check back for a video of the panel soon.

[jo]

He also referenced the interview on social media --

[jo]

On a related development --

Warner Media has been heavily reorganizing and letting go of top executives.

One of them oversees HBO Films, etc --


www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/len-amato-exits-as-hbo-films-cinemax-miniseries-president-1307527

Excerpts --

The move is the latest major executive change to take place at WarnerMedia.
HBO is losing another key executive.

HBO Films, Cinemax and miniseries president Len Amato is exiting the WarnerMedia-owned premium cable network after a 13-year run.

Sources say that while Amato is the latest executive to be consolidated out of the company, his departure comes as the business continues to change. HBO Films has scaled down its originals output in favor of more acquired content and after Cinemax exited the scripted business...

Amato leaves behind a slate that includes The White House Plumbers, directed by David Mandel and starring Woody Harrelson and Justin Theroux; and Landscapeers, from helmer Alexander Payne and toplined by Olivia Colman. He most recently oversaw David Simon's limited series The Plot Against America and played a key role in acquiring Emmy-nominated pic Bad Education, starring Hugh Jackman.

Was he faulted for the pricey acquisition or praised for acquiring such quality content for HBO's slate?


Jo

[jo]

Debruge wrote one of the best reviews for Bad Education in Variety, including fulsome praise for Hugh's performance.


Jo

[jo]

Another late review for Bad Education --

www.thefilmagazine.com/bad-education-hughjackman-movie-review/

[jo]

The Television Academy is the equivalent of the AMPAS for TV shows.

In case anyone wants to add more words of support


Jo

[jo]

No "For Your Consideration Ads" ( for his role in Bad Education) that I have seen --

But on national TV! In Good Morning America!


And covered by a feature on People.com!


EMMY VOTERS -- DO YOUR THING! Vote for the Best Actor this season - Hugh Jackman!!




people.com/movies/hugh-jackman-wolverine-20-years-ryan-reynolds-cant-replace/?utm_campaign=peoplemagazine&utm_content=new&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_term=5f3be760165c7300012d36cd



The clip on GMA is found within the People.com article.

[jo]

[jo]

From the GoldDerby team --

Great interview with Hugh! Not like run-of-the-mill interviews...but one where the interviewer chose his topics and manner of asking questions really well. It gave Hugh a chance to talk deeper into each subject - quite insightful!

www.goldderby.com/article/2020/hugh-jackman-bad-education-hbo-emmy-video-interview/


The following is the writeup -- but I suggest that you watch the whole clip first.

Hugh Jackman (‘Bad Education’) on portraying ‘the worst part’ of someone’s life [EXCLUSIVE VIDEO INTERVIEW]

Chris Beachum
TV August 19, 2020 9:30AM
“When you know that person is going to see the movie, and you know you’re portraying the worst part of their life, there is an added responsibility,” explains Hugh Jackman about his true life role in the HBO film “Bad Education.” He joined Gold Derby for an exclusive webchat (watch the video above) to celebrate his first Emmy Awards nomination since 2015, this time as Best Movie/Limited Actor.

Nominated for Best TV Movie, the true life HBO story is about Dr. Frank Tassone, a Long Island school district superintendent who lived a high class lifestyle. He and several staff members were convicted of stealing several million dollars in 2002. The charming man was one of the top paid education officials in the country at the time and was sent to prison for several years.


Jackman now has his fifth career Emmy nomination but the first in an acting category. He won for hosting the 58th annual Tony Awards in 2005. That award along with a Tony for “The Boy from Oz” (2004) and a Grammy for “The Greatest Showman” (2019) place him just an Oscar away from EGOT status. He was nominated for an Academy Award for the 2012 film “Les Miserables.”


Of that EGOT possibility, he says, “It would mean a lot; there’s no doubt. I grew up in Sydney, Australia, watching the Oscars. I’ve been an actor now for 25 to 30 years. Awards — I don’t try to live my life by them — that’s probably a road that’s not going to bring much joy or necessarily good work, either. But I would be lying if I said it wouldn’t mean a lot to me… If you said that to me 30 years ago, I would have laughed.”

In our interview, we also discuss his one time hosting the Academy Awards (and why he hasn’t done it again), his first awards show in America being host of the Tonys, working with Allison Janney on “Bad Education” and facing off against Mark Ruffalo at this year’s Emmys (Wolverine vs. The Hulk!).

*Hugh is always so generous. Either he is praising the work of co-stars ( Janney) or his director (Finley) and always emphasizing how his work is always a cooperative effort with other members of the team. Likewise, he took time to praise co-nominee Paul Mescal and talked lengthily about him ( although I hoped he wouldn't do that too much - he might convince Emmy voters to vote for Paul instead ).

*He is also very candid about getting the interloper feeling (Hollywood star taking a Broadway theatre role) when he was first asked to do the TONYs. I did wonder if he still gets that feeling from some members of the community even if he has been a member of the Broadway community since 2003 ( Tonys and Boy from Oz(.

*He is also so honest with his attitudes and feelings - saying that winning an award may not always bring in better roles or more ... but that it would mean a lot to him if he did get his OSCAR and an EGOT stature.

*He did talk about what The Music Man meant to him, shared that we could expect a superb production and that it has drawn more meaning to him ( it is not just a typical story...but a story of belief).


*Listened very carefully to each question and replies - because each one seemed refreshing to me, given the many other interviewers's quality of interviews lately.


Again, do watch the clip first!


Jo

[jo]

To be honest -- I didn't expect much when I first saw this. Glad I pursued looking at the clip.

Jo

[jo]

Excellent interview with Mike Makowsky...including a glimpse of the kind of acting preparation Hugh does for a role.


tv.avclub.com/writer-mike-makowsky-on-hugh-jackman-and-how-the-2016-e-1844863275

INTERVIEW
Writer Mike Makowsky on Hugh Jackman and how the 2016 election shaped Bad Education

Danette Chavez
Today 12:00PM
•

A lot has happened in the 11 months since Bad Education premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, where Hugh Jackman’s bravura performance first bowled over critics. But screenwriter Mike Makowsky’s dark comedy has lost none of its edge in that time; his incisive commentary on the private interests that regularly interfere with the public school system remains just as pertinent now, as we watch educators and families grapple with determining the best (and safest) way to keep classes going in the midst of a pandemic.

Bad Education retells the story of embezzlement that rocked Roslyn, Long Island (Makowsky’s hometown) in 2004 and captured the nation’s attention. For a young Makowsky, this story was a cautionary tale or urban legend, which would make Frank Tassone, the former superintendent who stole millions from the school district, a kind of boogeyman. But in adapting the events for his film, Makowsky never lost sight of the humanity of the victims—or the perpetrators. Along with Cory Finley’s conscientious direction, Makowsky added layers to all his characters, even the man he recognizes is the villain of the piece. With Bad Education in the running for Outstanding TV Movie (and Jackman nominated for Outstanding Lead Actor In A Limited Series Or Movie), The A.V. Club spoke to Makowsky about avoiding sensationalism, how journalism and the 2016 election influenced his narrative, and why he views Hugh Jackman yelling “Accelerate!” at a table read as an honor.



AVC: You were in middle school or junior high when the news first broke of the embezzlement and Frank Tassone’s arrest. Do you recall being aware of the scandal as a kid? Did any of your memories from that time inform your script?

Mike Makowsky: Oh, I was totally aware of it. It was probably the biggest news story that ever happened in my hometown. I was a 13-year-old at Roslyn Middle School. I was in seventh grade at the time, but I had grown up in the school district and would graduate five years later out of Roslyn High School. It kind of instantly became this overnight crazy story; it was the only thing that anyone in my town was talking about, whether it was teachers, kids’ parents, my parents. Every day, it seemed like there was some new sensational detail that was being uncovered, firstly, by Hilltop Beacon, our school newspaper, but then by Newsday, The New York Times, the New York Post, and all these other outlets that kind of really seized on the story. I think it was just because it was stranger than fiction in so many ways. And we couldn’t believe that this man, Frank Tassone, who the whole community loved and trusted and had done so many positive things for the students that are in our town, could be implicated in such an egregious way. It was kind of just beyond all belief.



AVC: When I first saw Bad Education, it reminded me of this 2000 HBO movie called Cheaters, starring Jeff Daniels and Jena Malone, that’s actually based on an academic decathlon scandal that happened in Chicago when I was in high school. It’s just so weird to watch that movie and see my public high school be treated as the Goliath in this David and Goliath story. For as many TV shows and movies that are ripped from the headlines or based on real-life event, it’s still really strange to see something pulled from your childhood or adolescence on TV.

MM: Totally. I have to track down Cheaters, although I imagine that it’s probably not available on HBO Max because they’ve done a notoriously bad job of inventorying their old TV movies. That’s not to blame the people that we worked with on the film, I don’t really know what their situation is, but there was one TV movie I was trying to track down with Holly Hunter—that “murdering cheerleader-housewife” movie. I’ve been told that tonally our film bears a very similar resemblance to that one, but I have no way of watching it currently.


AVC: There is always a concern when you adapt real-life events that you can end up unintentionally sensationalizing them. I know you did a lot of research and you made sure to speak with former staff and some of Frank Tassone’s neighbors. Ultimately, you decided not to involve anyone or not to consult with anyone who was involved in the embezzlement out of respect for the people of Roslyn. Can you talk about that decision?

MM: Sure. I specifically did not speak to any of the perpetrators of the embezzlement scandal, but did speak with a lot of other people that were tangentially first-person observers to what had gone down, whether they were faculty and staff of the school or parents who had had close working relationships with Tassone through various initiatives. I think in not electing not to speak to Tassone and to [Tassone accomplice] Pam Gluckin specifically, that was just a decision that was born out of mostly this notion that these two people had really victimized my community. There were these deep-seated wounds that are still strongly felt by people whom I care about quite deeply in my town. And it felt wrong to give them any agency to shape the narrative and participate in a story that was well-publicized at the time. It felt morally like a kind of catch-22 that I preferred not to wade into, at least the short term. And by then Pam Gluckin was deceased, so that decision was kind of made for us.



AVC: You grew up in Roslyn, which means you know what colloquialisms fit, what signifiers would make the movie look and feel like home. Is there a particularly obscure or deep-cut reference you’re proud to have worked into the script?

MM: That’s like my favorite question I’ve ever gotten about the movie. [Laughs] Let me think. There’s a handful of things, right? Because we shot the majority of the film in and around my hometown on Long Island. And we did an entire day that was just going around and getting establishing shots of different kind of Roslyn iconography. The downtown clock tower and Kitchen Kabaret, which is this kind of famous local eatery off exit 39 that if you’re not from the immediate area, might not mean so much to you, but visually, for anyone that’s grown up on Long Island and Roslyn, it means a great deal.

But in terms of specifics in the dialogue, there’s all these reference points to different developments within Roslyn, like country estates. There are certain teachers who I did cite by name. And I named a lot of the composite characters that were not directly depicting real subjects after friends of mine from high school, which was really fun and was also a clearance nightmare. But fortunately my friends were really game to sign waivers and kind of be memorialized in that way. Like Rachel Bhargava [Geraldine Viswanathan’s character] is named after my best friend from high school, Shema Bhargava.


AVC: Rachel is one of those composite characters, because there was a whole team of students who worked at the student paper who discovered the embezzlement. How did you go about creating that character? Because she’s as much of a lead character as Frank Tassone is.

MM: Yeah. It was kind of, at least from a literary perspective, very difficult for me to resist the idea of grounding the stories through the perspective of a high school journalist, because I also worked at that school paper years later, which, in a large way, defined my high school experience. But also just on a more general note, when I was writing the script, journalism at large felt like it was really on the verge of a complete and total de-legitimization. It was right in the middle of the 2016 election. And the idea of centering the story around this character, so we could see the events unfold through her eyes in real time, was very attractive to me. And insofar as her backstory and crafting an identity for her, I think we just wanted to depict a character who had a real emotional investment and not just a tangential investment in how the scandal ultimately plays out—someone who would have a strong kind of moral perspective on these crimes that are being committed under everyone’s noses.



AVC: That’s something I hadn’t really thought of while watching the movie, but I am struck by hearing you describe that idea of metabolizing something, of thinking about the things we were warned against that we’re no longer scared of as adults. We don’t often have a chance to really go back and process them.

MM: Yeah. It was certainly the most unique experience I’ve had so far as a screenwriter, but I can’t imagine that I’ll ever have an experience quite like it again. It was surreal in every definition of the word, but it was a real privilege. I’m still kind of just beyond myself that people care about what happens in my small town in 2004, and that now suddenly the name Roslyn is invoked in articles and interviews and on HBO, and that it’s kind of like a thing with capital. It’s very strange for me and very, very difficult to process for me and my family and my friends back home, my old teachers. It’s just something that we’re constantly talking about, and that’s really exciting.




AVC: Hugh Jackman is incredible as Frank Tassone. I’m sure you had no doubts about him filling that role, but was there a point during filming or when you’re watching dailies where you were just felt like it all clicked into place, where it just felt like he was really embodying the character?


MM: He really showed up from day one. We were at the table read, and for whatever reason, our casting director decided to seat me between Hugh and Allison [Janney]. And it was the first time I’d met either of them. And I got to play a small role in the table read, as the little kid who can’t pronounce the word “accelerate”, which was my favorite scene probably in my entire career. But I’m sitting there, and I hadn’t known that before he even got to the table read for that scene specifically, he had taken the time out of his day to already memorize it so he could come in and start rehearsing . And I’m playing Chad Schweitzer [laughs] and I’m going, “Assle-rate? Ackle-rate?” And he is sitting right next to me, and he’s also much taller than I am. He’s a very tall man, and he just sort of summons this energy and like stares down at me and starts screaming, “Accelerate, accelerate!” The rest of the table, nobody was expecting him to come in with that much pathos at a table read. And then immediately, it was just this thing, where I was getting lunch with Cory [Finley, director] right after, and we both just looked at each other and we were like, “Wow, this is going to be an insane process.” We were just so fortunate that he wanted to come and play with us and embody that role. It was totally unexpected. He’s never really done anything like this role before.




AVC: That’s one of my favorite scenes from the movie, and one where it feels like your sensibility and Cory’s really meld. I talked to Cory about it earlier this summer, because there’s a moment toward the end of that diatribe, where Frank says something about the parents viewing the school staff and faculty as almost like customer service. It reminded me of a moment in Thoroughbreds where one of the characters says something along those lines: “We’re all your maids.”

MM: Right. And Pam has a line similar to that in Bad Education even earlier, where she says something like, “We show up here every day because we want to help you, because we’re good people, because we want you to have a good education and succeed in life. And you’re going around, digging through files and stuff, trying to dig up dirt on us.” I never made that connection before, but I love Thoroughbreds, and I love Paul Sparks who plays the stepdad in Thoroughbreds. I said earlier that the “accelerate” thing was my favorite to write, not just because it’s a big sort of grand-standing moment, but because I was also able to air out a lot of the sentiments that I was feeling in going back to my high school, speaking with these old teachers and reconnecting with people that I hadn’t even really thought about for years and years since I graduated. But the sort of unexpected joy of that was that all of these teachers felt... I got to see them as adult humans for the first time in speaking to them on a more one-on-one level, not just as a teacher/student. But these were people that saw me through my worst, most formative years and were among the first ever encourage me to even pursue creative writing for the first time, who gave me notes and helped shape me as a writer and a person.

I feel like far too often, we think about high school and we just want to forget that whole experience, because it was so emotionally fraught for nearly every teenager in America. But for me to be able to go back and just thank some of these people for the first time and really acknowledge just the effect that they had on me was extremely meaningful. And I think I wanted to seed some of that into someone because that’s the thing—public school educators and teachers are so rarely ever properly acknowledged for the investment that they put into these kids. And how many of them actually come back and visit afterwards? As Rafael’s character says when [he and Frank] reconnect in Las Vegas, “I would have figured you would have forgotten about us the second that we walked out of the school.” And Frank, just being like, “No, we never forget. We don’t forget our students.”

So it is a kind of profoundly one-sided relationship in a lot of ways in trying to diagnose the root of what about Tassone’s status as an educator felt less than totally satisfying: what he could have told himself at the beginning of this process, when he went to Columbia Teachers College, when he went and became a public school superintendent, that his expectations versus reality, I think, and getting to the root of what that really entailed was a really interesting rabbit hole to go down for all of us.




AVC: We do see Frank moving between worlds, both figuratively and literally. How did you coordinate with Cory to capture that feeling?

MM: I mean, it’s no secret that the details of Frank Tassone’s personal life were kind of grossly and unfairly conflated with the crimes that he committed in Roslyn. But I think just in base terms, like when you think of your old teachers and you really only ever knew them in one sphere, in the sphere of their careers and their workdays. And you kind of have to imagine to yourself, “What kind of person are they when they come home and they let their guard down and they see their significant other?” So to me, that was really interesting and something that we talked about with Meredith Lippincott, our production designer, who’s incredible in terms of even putting together the small details about each of these spaces that he’s inhabiting, whether it’s his ritzy apartment in New York City, or it’s the house that he buys in Henderson, Nevada with Kyle. Does he feel particularly at home at these education conferences in Las Vegas, or is there a different of himself that he’s showing when he’s sitting by himself ordering food at a bar at the hotel bar afterward? I think that’s something that Hugh and Cory in particular really worked to calibrate, but it was something that certainly I was trying to always be cognizant of in the script phase as well.



AVC: The movie is as much about Frank’s ascent as it is his descent—in the opening scene, we see him riding high, being greeted like a celebrity. I read that you initially thought to make him more of a straightforward villain. What changed your mind, and how did the character more generally change as you worked on the script?

MM: I think when I ultimately settled on the idea of potentially going back to Roslyn to adapt this story, my immediate sense was that Tassone was going to be a villain, because that’s how I had been conditioned to perceive him as a kid. From 13-years-old onward, he was the boogeyman of my childhood, of all of our childhoods. When his name was invoked in our town, it was in relation to it being some sort of cautionary tale or a blight on our community. All the positive contributions that he had made to our town had largely been erased or written out of history.

In going back to my high school and speaking with a bunch of my old teachers, I learned very quickly that he had kept a really top-notch education system while he was there. There was a reason why we were so highly ranked in the country as a public school system in the mid-2000s, because this was a man who really devoted his life to education. And going back and speaking to my old teachers, I realized you don’t become a public school educator because you intend to steal $12 million. [Laughs.] So it became far more interesting to me as a writer, and I’m sure to Cory and to Hugh and the rest of our crew, to kind of interrogate this idea that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. How do you take a man who really just wants to accomplish good things in society and see how he gets led astray? What are the factors that will pave that road for him?

It felt like a far deeper kind of character study that I kind of fell into accidentally, because I really thought he was going to be the villain. I learned that it was far more complicated than that, and I grew to empathize with him a lot more than I was expecting to throughout the research process.



AVC: Well, the expansion of the themes of the movie starts with Tassone, but it just keeps panning out from there, because you also have Ray Romano’s character, and you have the entitled people from the community who are all but saying, “Return on investment” to these educators. You eventually come to see the larger critique, especially once you start thinking about how property taxes affect the school resources. The people who have access to the best education are the people who already have everything.

MM: Mm-hmm, yeah. And it’s an awfully cynical portrait of my school district, but also one that I think hopefully is as objective as I could have possibly made it, because I think that it is a reality about a lot of public schools in America, certainly in privileged communities like the one I grew up in on Long Island. If you’ve seen season four of The Wire, you know that public schools, it’s not just about the education, it’s never just about the education. And again, that’s a really cynical viewpoint, but I think you have to sort of look at the different societal mechanisms at play that help guide some of the decisions that these administrators and the taxpayers make on behalf of the children. So to me, it was really interesting to kind of pull back the curtain on my own school experience and what it meant to grow up in a town like Roslyn.

Danette Chavez
Posts
TV Editor

[jo]

I almost missed reading this excellent interview until I read this tweet (about being screamed at by Hugh Jackman)--

And Mike Makowsky's reaction to the Chavez tweet --