Not many filmmakers know what they`re going to be doing in the year 2011. Phil Joanu is as certain as fate allows.
He`ll be finishing an American version of ”28 Up,” the widely acclaimed English documentary series in which Michael Apted tracked a group of youngsters, looking in on their lives, in films beginning when they were 7 and returning when they were 14, 21 and 28.
But the 28-year-old Joanu has more than ”28 Up” to keep him occupied.
First, there is ”State of Grace,” starring Sean Penn, Gary Oldman, Ed Harris, Robin Wright and John Turturro in a story based on the Westies, the murderous Irish-American gang in Hell`s Kitchen in Manhattan.
By early next year, Joanu, whose other films include the feature ”Three O`Clock High” and the documentary ”U2 Rattle and Hum,” expects to be turning the cameras on a film version of the Don DeLillo novel ”Libra,”
about the progression of events that might have led Lee Harvey Oswald to assassinate President Kennedy.
Discussing ”State of Grace,” Joanu said he had been following accounts of the trial of some of the Westies and thinking: ”Someone`s got to make a film about these guys. There hasn`t been a great Irish gangster movie since the days of Cagney.”
That was before he met early last year with Marc Platt, Orion Pictures`
president of production, who asked him what he was interested in doing next.
Joanu said he replied: ”I`d like to make a movie about these guys the Westies. Have you heard of them?” And, Joanu said, Platt answered: ”Have we heard of them! We`ve got a project on the Westies in development.”
The upshot was ”State of Grace,” based on a screenplay by Dennis McIntyre, the off-Broadway playwright who died Feb. 1 at age 47, with uncredited contributions by David Rabe.
As for the ”28 Up” series, Joanu said he would start filming on Oct. 15 with Apted as the producer, studying about 25 7-year-olds from different backgrounds and ethnic groups from five regions of the United States, New York City representing the East, Chicago the North, Atlanta the South, Los Angeles the West and Lincoln, Neb., the center of America.
– Actor Jeremy Irons` next film takes him to Prague, teaming up with Steven Soderbergh, the director of ”sex, lies, and videotape,” as the star of ”Kafka.”
”Well, the title `Kafka` is somewhat misleading because it`s a thriller set in 1916, during Kafka`s lifetime,” said Irons, who is soon to be seen as Claus von Bulow in the film ”Reversal of Fortune.” ”And it deals with a fictional occurrence that might have happened to Kafka in his lifetime.”
Irons, whose credits include ”Dead Ringers,” ”The French Lieutenant`s Woman,” ”Betrayal,” ”Moonlighting” and ”The Mission,” recalled that when he saw Soderbergh`s first film last year, he said: ” `There is a man I must work with.` There was something so refreshingly direct about that movie, beautiful performances and a very original story, and I thought it was a very spare movie. It wasn`t full of unnecessaries.”
He said Soderbergh must have heard his comment, because in April the script of ”Kafka” arrived.
”This was a good story,” Irons said, ”somewhat bizarre, and a very intricate character for me to play. But I knew it wasn`t going to be a piece of cake, and that I always find very attractive.”
For another example of that sort of thinking, there is Irons` decision to portray Von Bulow in Barbet Schroeder`s ”Reversal of Fortune,” based on the book by Alan M. Dershowitz, a Harvard law professor.
It concerns Dershowitz`s involvement in Von Bulow`s appeal of his conviction on charges of assault with intent to murder his wife, Martha
(Sunny) von Bulow, in their mansion in Newport, R.I.
Irons, who stars in the film with Ron Silver as Dershowitz and Glenn Close as Sunny von Bulow, said that when he first read the script, he suggested that other actors might be better in the role of Von Bulow.
”I`m not at all like him,” Irons said. ”He`s a much bigger man, and he`s a lot older.”
But, he said, he was unable to dissuade anyone. And after Dick Smith, the makeup artist who worked with Marlon Brando in ”The Godfather,” had performed some magic and filled him out, he decided he`d play the role.
Irons said he had never met Von Bulow. ”I didn`t want to meet him,” the actor said. ”I felt I had to have free rein to create my Claus, which I hoped would somehow capture his essence.”
– Not to be overlooked when it comes to interesting characters is John Turturro, who will be very much on display when Joel and Ethan Coen`s Prohibition-era drama of crime, politics and love, ”Miller`s Crossing,”
opens the New York Film Festival Friday. (Related story, Page 13A.)
Now on screen as a tough nightclub owner in Spike Lee`s ”Mo` Better Blues” and as an undercover police officer in ”State of Grace,” Turturro portrays the weaselly Bernie Bernbaum in the Coen brothers` movie.
”It`s a superbly structured role,” Turturro said of the devious figure who sets the plot in motion and makes a delayed entrance. ”This character is so central to the story that you`re almost waiting for him. He lives by his wits basically. He tries to survive.”
Turturro has spent most of the summer starring with John Goodman, Jody Davis and John Mahoney in another Coen brothers film, ”Barton Fink.”
”He`s a successful New York playwright in the `30s who goes out to Hollywood, is bought by Hollywood basically,” Turturro said of the title character. ”The film is sort of about his journey through Hollywood and what happens to him-a bizarre sequence of events-and all the people he meets. He`s an idealistic young guy, sort of a socialist leftist.”
Coming up is ”Men of Respect,” a modern version of ”Macbeth” set in New York`s underworld, in which Turturro stars opposite his wife, Katherine Horowitz, in a cast that includes Rod Steiger, Dennis Farina and Peter Boyle. And Turturro is also working once more with Spike Lee in Lee`s ”Jungle Fever.”
”It`s about race, sex and class,” Turturro said.
In the spring he hopes to direct a short film for cable TV from a screenplay he`s been writing with Brandon Cole. And he`s been thinking about returning to the stage in the winter in a new production of Brecht`s ”Arturo Ui.”
”Everything is good,” Turturro said.
