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American Morning
Look at "The Laramie Project" an HBO Movie About Bigotry, Tolerance, Hate and Hope
Aired March 08, 2002 - 09:42 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: And we're going to move on now to a story out of Laramie, Wyoming that is equally disturbing. This one, though, we've had more time to get used to. Laramie was a place you kind of associated with the Old West and the pioneer spirit that flowed out of this place. But since 1998, Laramie has been remembered for something completely different, the brutal murder of Matthew Shepard, a gay college student. Shepard's death focused national attention on crimes of hate, and moved a New York theater group to explore the crime and the town where it happened.
The result was "The Laramie Project," a play, and now an HBO movie about bigotry and tolerance, hate and hope.
Let's take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When I got to fence, I seen what appeared to be a young man. He was bound to the bottom of the pole.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In Laramie, Wyoming a young gay man is in a deep coma from a savage beating.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This could be any main drag in America.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZAHN: "The Laramie Project" premieres this Saturday night on HBO, and the film's director, Moises Kaufman, joins us now from Los Angeles.
Good morning. Thanks for being with us this morning.
MOISES KAUFMAN, DIRECTOR, "THE LARAMIE PROJECT": Good morning.
ZAHN: You had the challenge of not only directing this play, but turning it into this movie. Walk us through what you were concerned about as you had to make that transformation?
KAUFMAN: Well, it was interesting. As you know, when a month after Matthew was murdered, I took my theater company to Laramie. And for the next year, we conducted interviews with people of the town. From those interviews, we constructed the play called "The Laramie Project." And we run that play in Denver, and then we moved it to New York. And then from that play, we made this movie, "The Laramie Project."
It was interesting. You know, theater is a very different medium from film. Theater Relies more on words. Film relies more on imagery. But I think it was a wonderful opportunity to kind of get the story out to many more people.
ZAHN: Well, you certainly didn't have any problem attracting some big stars to this. Tell us a little bit about who's going be involved, and what the allure of the project was for them?
KAUFMAN: Well, the list of the actors is really magnificent. It's a great group of actors. We have Amy Madigan, and Peter Fonda, and Christina Ricci, and Steve Buscemi, and on and on. It's a really, really wonderful group of actors.
We were very fortunate, because the play had been running for a while by the time we decided to make the movie. So many of these actors had the opportunity to see the play and hear about it. So when news got out they were making the movie, several of them contacted us to say we wanted to be involved in this. So that was really wonderful, and the other two things I think has to deal with the fact that Good Machine (ph) was making the film, which is, as you know, one of the best independent film-making companies and HBO. So we had a really, really wonderful time of casting the movie.
ZAHN: I wanted to share with the audience a particular emotional scene where Christina Ricci, who plays a gay character, actually confronts someone who is anti-gay, who is a protester. Let's all listen in.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRISTINA RICCI, ACTRESS: We're planning an event. We're calling it "Angel Action." This 21-year-old little lesbian is going to walk the line.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You lift up your voice like a trumpet! And you show my people their transgressions!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You are sending the message of God!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: God's anger is pure.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZAHN: There's a lot of scenes like this that kind of go straight to the heart. What do you think will be the overarching message of the movie?
KAUFMAN: Well, it's so interesting, because over the past two weeks, we've been doing screenings around the country. And so many people who see the movie saying this like, oh, you know, this reminds me so much of my town, you know, we recognize so many of the people in the movie. And perhaps that is the most important thing about the film, is that it makes people think about their towns, and what are there attitudes and how do they think and feel about what is happening; not only in relationship to homosexuality, but in relationship to all people who are different from them.
ZAHN: Hate to close with this, but I really need to ask you a business question. Quite odd at a time you were going to put on the air, NBC was also going to air a Matthew Shepard special. Because of this, you moved the air date up to this weekend. Take us behind the scenes, what was going on? Was this an attempt by NBC to try to make it very difficult for you to get any audience at all?
KAUFMAN: Well, I think there several things. I think that -- as you know, we opened the Sundance Film Festival, and then we went to the Berlin Festival, and there was a certain momentum. But I must say that it was very shocking when I found out that they had scheduled it for the same night as us. But having said that, I think that it's something that is in the consciousness of the country right now. And I think that is it for the better. The more work that is done about this, the more it will encourage dialogue.
ZAHN: We are going to leave it there this morning.
Moises Kaufman, good luck with the debut on television, at least this weekend. Appreciate your joining us this morning. And I look forward to seeing it myself, being a new HBO subscriber.
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