A Conversation with “Interstate 60” Writer/Director/Producer Bob Gale
IDP Distribution, the company responsible for releasing the upcoming film Interstate 60, recently spoke with Bob Gale about his feature film directorial debut:
Q. How would you describe the storyline of Interstate 60?
A. Interstate 60 is a film about a man who is searching for answers, and finds himself on a highway that doesn't exist on any map, where the reality of our world is turned up to about 15 or 20. He meets all kinds of interesting characters and goes to very interesting and weird towns and places that help him figure out who he is. On a very simple level, it is the story of a young man who is hired to deliver a package of mysterious contents, while on another level, it is about someone who keeps seeing the image of a beautiful girl on billboards and is trying to find her, thinking that if he travels along this highway, he will find her. So there are a number of things going on here. Plus, there's a wonderful character called O.W. Grant. The "O.W." stands for "One Wish", and he will grant one wish for everybody. It usually happens when they've made a wish unconsciously, without even thinking about it, and depending on
what mood he's in, he'll either play it straight or pull a trick on you.
Q. Describe the journey that the central character, Neal Oliver, takes.
A. Neal Oliver is a character who has a very hard time making decisions. He has a hard time trying to figure out who he is in a world in which everyone seems to be pulling at him, and everyone seems to think they have an answer. And they all do have an answer, but the question is, are those the right answers for him. And Neal makes a wish, and his wish is very simply that he find an answer for himself. He ends up taking a trip along a highway that doesn't exist on any map, and that presumably is where he is going to find his answer. But before he can find his own answer he meets up with a lot of wild and different characters who have their own answers, and their answers help him figure out which answers are right for him.
Q. Did you intend for Neal Oliver to be seen as an Everyman?
A. That is what I hope. I hope that everyone sees himself in Neal Oliver. So far, the script has gotten such a wonderful response from everybody, male and female, young and old. Everyone who reads it finds something in it that they are able to connect with through the character of Neal Oliver. Jimmy Marsden, who plays Neal Oliver, has such a wonderful quality himself, such a great sense of humor, and such tremendous likeability, that you just like the guy, which of course is very important because the audience is going to go on this trip through his eyes and if they don't like the guy they're going on this trip with, we're in big trouble.
Q. What was it about James Marsden that made you think that he might be right for the role of Neal Oliver?
A. He came into the audition and just blew me away. His reading was great, he took direction terrifically, and his intrinsic understanding of who the character was and what the script was about was right there. I just felt I was communicating with him. I could see that he "got it", and I was just totally blown away by what he did in the casting session. Two days later, our casting director handed me an envelope, and James had actually sent me a note telling me how much he loved the script and how this was the type of movie he had come to Hollywood to do, and that whether or not he got the part or not, he was glad that somebody was out there trying to make a movie like this.
Q. How might you compare the journey that Neal takes in this movie to a famous literary journey, such as "Gulliver's Travels", or your own previous film, Back to the Future?
A. While I wouldn't presume to compare myself with Jonathan Swift, I do remember reading Gulliver's Travels in seventh grade because I had seen one of the movies about it, and I thought it was just this fantasy adventure story. Later on, when I had gotten a better education, I read it again and discovered that Swift was making all kinds of social comments and parodies and social satire. It's wonderful when someone can create something that does that that works on several levels. We had a great experience with audiences with Back to the Future because adults were laughing at certain things in the movie and kids were laughing at other things, so there was something in there that everybody could catch onto and things were working on different levels for different audiences. If Interstate 60 works the way I hope it will, the same thing will be happening there.
Q. How much of Marty McFly and Neal Oliver is there in you?
A. There's a lot of me in those characters, but there's a lot of me in all of my characters because you always draw on your personal experiences in your work to make characters real. Both Back to the Future and Interstate 60 deal with a son's relationship with his father, and if you talk to almost most guys, you'll find that they have issues with their father, which are very important to them, and there's some of that going on with me. But there's also a lot of Bob Cody and O.W. Grant in me too.
Q. Neal Oliver's journey is both an external and an internal one. What does he discover about the world and about himself along the way?
A. Without wanting to give too much away, I would say that sometimes you see yourself better when you see other people wrestling with the same things that you have to wrestle with. And that's one of the things that happens to Neal. Another of the major themes is, as one of the characters, Bob Cody says, "Say what you mean and mean what you say." And that is the place where Neal finally ends up. When he's able to do that then the right things start to happen.
Q. Another central theme in the film seems to be "Be careful what you wish for because you might get it".
A. If you wish for something it may happen, but not in the way you might expect. Every cloud has a silver lining, and every silver lining is a cloud. We've all been there. We've all said, "If I could just have that car, everything in my life would be great," and then you get the car and it's in the shop half the time, and it doesn't run right and the radio doesn't work. We buy into an image, we buy into what we think we want and then when we get there, sometimes what we thought it was isn't what it really is.
Q. In creating a "bizarre" world as you have in this film, everything becomes possible. What guides your choices for creating characters and events?
A. If a character has a certain philosophy or focus and stays true to that focus, people will buy the character, and if the character truly believes in what he's doing, people will like the character, even if it's the bad guy. We all like Darth Vader even though he's despicable, but he's so good at being despicable that we love him for that. Character, for me, is everything. The story of this film can be looked at as a rather simple one, but it's the characters that make it into something more. And that's what audiences respond to most. They respond to human beings. For me, the best part of planning a movie is the casting process. I just love meeting actors. I love watching them play with the parts I write and seeing what they bring to it. It helps me to discover a lot more about those characters, about my writing and about the script. So, for me, it's about creating characters that the audience loves, and I couldn't ask for a better cast than I had in this movie. They all brought so
much to each of their parts. Every one of these characters, even some of the ones that only had a couple of lines, were able to do something with it to make the film stand out.
At the same time, events in the real world have also inspired Interstate 60. There are all kinds of little stories that I've come across that have stuck in my head. For example, there's a lawyer in California who makes his living just suing people. That's all he does. People have to pay him off to go away. Well, what if every lawyer was like that? That's what I thought about, and I created the town of Morlaw, and there it is. Let's really turn the volume all the way up on that and let's see what happens.
Q. The role of the enigmatic O.W. Grant is played by British actor Gary Oldman. What was it like to work with him?
A. I first saw Gary Oldman in Sid and Nancy, and I was just blown away by him. A couple of years later, I saw him in a movie called State of Grace, in which he did a flawless American accent, and I realized that he was a consummate actor. In my opinion, he is one of the greatest actors in the world. And, while people think of him as very intense, Gary Oldman has an absolutely wonderful sense of humor. He's a real joker with a whole lot of O.W. Grant in him. He just "got" the movie immediately and working with him was just a joy.
Q. You have also brought in some old friends like Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd and Kurt Russell. How did that come about?
A. When you're making a movie, the first thing you do is call up all your friends and say, "Will you be in it?" So I called up Christopher Lloyd, and he said yes, and I called up Kurt Russell and he said yes, and I called up Michael J. Fox and he said, "Bob, if you're directing, I'll come to the set and serve coffee." In the past, even when I was producing and writing but not directing, I was always talking to the actors. I wanted to understand their problems. I think it's a testament to that communication that people that I had made movies with in the past, I just called up, and they're here, and they want to work with me again, and I want to work with them too.
Q. How did the role of Bob Cody go to Chris Cooper?
A. It was such a coup to get Chris Cooper because every movie that Chris Cooper has ever done, it has taken him three tries before he would say yes. But he read this script and he said yes after one read, so obviously he connected with the script and with the character. It was just wonderful to work with him. He has several rather substantial speeches in the picture, and he brought so much credibility to the dialogue. I had no idea that these things would sound so good until Chris Cooper said them.
Q. And you cast Amy Smart as the girl that Neal pursues throughout the film.
A. There were a number of actresses who came in and did terrific reads, and, of course, Amy was one of them. She had just been in a hit movie called Road Trip, and that was what tilted the scales in her favor initially because she was a name that was more recognizable than some of the others. And Amy was totally into it. She was a joy to work with. She really did her homework well and she was great. It turned out that she and Jimmy Marsden had done a movie together about five years ago, and they remembered each other and liked each other and there was a great chemistry there that just happened. And, while I've been raving about how great my U.S. cast has been, the Canadian cast has been equally terrific. I couldn't have cast this movie better out of Los Angeles than I did here in Toronto. There is just terrific talent here and I can't say enough about all of the great Canadian actors and actresses who contributed to this film.
Q. The film is both an entertainment vehicle, and a social commentary. How do you keep a balance between the two?
A. It's always going to be entertainment first, because if you're not being entertained and you walk out of the theatre, then, what's the point? The first rule is always to make sure the audience is having a good time. But I like social comedies. I like comedies that have something more to them than just a funny line or a funny joke. And I put something of myself into my movies, so every Bob Gale pet peeve is in this movie. Plus, there's a lot of warped stuff in this movie, which I hope audiences will appreciate. Otherwise, they'll just scratch their heads and say, "Lock this director up, he's out of his mind."
Official synopsis of “I-60” revealed
Like most twenty-three year olds, Neal Oliver has more questions about his future than answers. Should he go to law school to please his father or follow his heart and become a painter? Is his girlfriend Sally his true soul mate, or should he pursue the mysterious woman who infiltrates his dreams and inspires his art? And is there something wrong with him for not wanting the red BMW convertible that his father gave him for his birthday?
While blowing out the candles at his birthday party, Neal wishes for the answers that will make his life's path clear, but, instead of being granted instant clarity, he is given the opportunity to take a journey along a highway that doesn't exist on any map, where the past, the present and the future, the "what-ifs", the "maybes" and the "roads not taken" merge, converge and get jumbled together. This unique adventure is presented to Neal by one O.W. Grant, (The "O.W." stands for "One Wish"), the immortal offspring of a leprechaun and a Cheyenne Indian, who is possessed of magical powers and the ability to grant wishes to those he favors. Those he doesn't, he simply messes with, for his own amusement.
During his travels, Neal will encounter a bizarre assortment of characters, many of whom are living out a unique destiny, shaped by a wish or dream. At the Blue Diamond café, he will meet William Tolbert, who travels around the country eating people out of house and home. Possessed of a bottomless pit for a stomach, Tolbert once wished to be able to eat anything he wants. His wish was granted, but he forgot to ask for the ability to enjoy it. Neal will also meet the sexy and salacious hitch-hiker Laura, who is doomed to endlessly pursue the perfect lover she wished for, and in Bob Cody, he will find a former advertising executive who has turned himself into a human bomb as part of his personal crusade for justice. Through these colorful characters, Neal will learn important lessons, such as "Be careful what you wish for, because you might get it", and "Say what you mean, and mean what you say."
Neal's trip will also take him to some very unusual places, including a town in which the world's most addictive drug has been legalized, and is used by law-abiding citizens to enslave the rest of the residents. In Morlaw, he will encounter a bizarre town in which everyone is a lawyer, and everyone's day is spent suing and being sued by everyone else. At the Museum of Art Fraud, he will be mistaken for a famous artist, and meet pretentious art critics who are unable to distinguish authentic masterpieces from worthless fakes.
In the course of his journey, Neal will be framed for murder, chased by police and thrown in jail. But he will never give up his pursuit of the girl of his dreams, the one who speaks to him from billboards, and, in another life, visited him in his sleep. And while his travels along the uncharted highway will take him to places unlike any he has ever seen, in the end, he will arrive somewhere that is very much like home, yet very different. He too, will be the same, only changed forever. Though he will not have aged, he will have gained invaluable life-experience and wisdom. He will be better prepared to find his own answers along the road of life.
A Fireworks/Seven Arts Production, Interstate 60 is the latest project from the imagination of Writer/Director Bob Gale, creator of the Back to the Future films. The film stars JAMES MARSDEN as Neal, GARY OLDMAN as O.W. Grant, AMY SMART as The Girl and AMY JO JOHNSON as Laura and includes supporting roles from stars such as CHRISTOPHER LLOYD, CHRIS COOPER and ANN-MARGRET and cameos by MICHAEL J. FOX and KURT RUSSELL.
A refreshing combination of humor, romance, magic and suspense, Interstate 60 is a "Gulliver's Travels" for the new millennium, about a young man's search for answers along a highway that leads to nowhere but the truth. Featuring a top-notch ensemble cast and a hot soundtrack, it is a movie that will appeal to all those who have ever wanted to fulfill their dreams.
— Stephen Clark
