Filmmaker Lawrence Kasdan talks about ‘Mumford’ and other achievements in a notable career

David Neil

Monday, Sept. 27, 1999 | 8:48 a.m.

In a span of 20 years, former ad-agency copywriter Lawrence Kasdan has had a prolific career as a writer and director of some of the most auspicious feature films of recent years.

He has scribed such blockbusters as "The Empire Strikes Back," "Raiders of the Lost Ark," "Return of the Jedi"and "The Bodyguard." He tapped into the baby boomers' generational outlook in his film "The Big Chill," earning him the first of his four Academy Award nominations. He has continuously showed his diversity as a filmmaker by jumping from one genre to the next, or as he describes it, he "simply enjoys making movies." He even went Western with "Silverado" and "Wyatt Earp."

His latest film is the highbrow comedy "Mumford," about a young, unconventional therapist who applies no-nonsense therapy to a small town that curiously shares his name. Kasdan's humble nature and positive demeanor showed in his enthusiasm when he eagerly sat down with the Sun.

Question: How did you pick the name Mumford as your title character?

Answer: I just liked the sound of it, because I thought it sounded like a friendly name. The town sort of embraces him and when you go into his office you feel embraced. Plus, I think there is something about "Mum" that deals with keeping secrets.

Q: What were your thoughts on casting such a fresh, unknown face in your lead star, Lorean Dean?

A: I thought that the guy who would play Mumford should be a bit of a mystery to the audience, the same way he is a mystery to the people of the town of Mumford. I did not want it to be someone who brought a lot of baggage from other roles. I didn't want people to say, "Oh, there is so-and-so." I wanted the audience to think, "Who is that guy?" I had seen Lorean off-Broadway and in the movie "Apollo 13," a little part that no one remembers really because he is one of many technicians dressed all the same, and I thought, "That guy is great." I needed someone whose face could be expressive without saying anything. It's a total reactive part. You know, most protagonists are very active because they jump in a car, pull out a gun and get the bad guy. This is a part where the protagonist is receptive.

Q: Where did the idea for "Mumford" originate?

A: All my life I've been a good listener. If you ask people just one follow-up question, they'll tell you their whole life. When they realize you're actually listening to them there is no limit to what they'll tell you. So it occurred to me if a guy was a good listener and had absolutely no training or credentials and just had common sense, how far could you get? I mean, how much worse could it be than actual professional help, which seems to me that their effects on people are limited too.

Q: What is your personal take on psychologists?

A: Just through my friends and people I know who have gone to professionals, it may be that they were getting what they needed ... part of it was as if they had to go, like working out. They had to go talk to people an hour a day or four hours a week. Who knows? Maybe that is working for them. What you don't see is people's lives transform that much. Part of the idea for "Mumford" is that maybe you need to find the person you can easily open up to, not the person with a degree. Now that person could be a friend or in my case it is my wife and my sons who have been very helpful for me. They are the ones who say the things that are helpful and see things very clearly where I just can't. And my sons don't have any degrees. I can't even get them to go to college. (Laughs.)

Q: You are one who enjoys rehearsing with the entire cast before production begins. How do you find that most beneficial?

A: You know, when you are actually making a movie, the budget is being spent so fast because you have a hundred people all being paid and there is enormous pressure to keep moving. In rehearsal, that's not happening. It's just you and the actors and you can sit around in the room and these actors may not even see each other again later because they always shoot at different times. Yet in the movie they are supposed to live a block apart. So you have a week when you can say, "Look, this is the community of the movie. This is the tone of the movie. This is the kind of comedy we're making."

The kind of comedies I make are not like a lot of Hollywood comedies. Normally in Hollywood comedies there is a comic as the center and they're the hippest guy and everyone in the movie makes fun of him. I make comedies where everyone is equal and everyone is human. So I have a week of time where we can all go over the material, see all the connections, and how it will all work in the final act.

Q: How much flexibility do you allow your actors to have?

A: The writing is so bad in most Hollywood movies. Directors are not writers so they don't know why the script is the way it is. So when an actor says, "I can't say this line, this is awkward for me," the directors then say, "Alright, what do you want to say?" And that is the beginning of the end. The whole movie will start to disintegrate. So you have these beautifully shot movies, beautifully produced, that are just not sensible. Now for me, I always claim that a script is innocent until proven guilty. That doesn't mean it can't be changed. It means you have to tell me why, and that is what happens in the rehearsal period. What I find is that if they learn to believe in the text, they don't change very much. They have to hear the director believe in the text, and they don't hear that on most movies.

Q: How did your relationship with two of today's Hollywood icons -- Steven Spielberg and George Lucas -- come into fruition?

A: Well ... the second script that I wrote and sold was called "Continental Divide," and Steven bought it. There was a bidding war for it and he bought it to produce. So as soon as he did I went out to meet him. He was on the back lot of Universal (Studios) where they were making "I Want To Hold Your Hand," which is (Robert) Zemeckis' first movie, and he said, "You know, I'm going to do this adventure movie with George Lucas and I want you to write it." (Re-enacting his excitement) And I said, "OK!" Then he told me how George was going to try to get me to write more, like "American Graffiti."

Now I had been struggling for seven years to get into the business and I wasn't about to argue with someone like Lucas (laughing). But in a matter of weeks we went to a meeting, and this is how these circles are so tight, because it was me, Steven and George, and Frank Marshall. Now Frank had never met George either, and they had sort of picked him out of the blue. We talked for about 20 minutes and George had said, "this is an adventure story. The hero is named after my dog, Indiana, and the guy has a whip, and (filmmaker) Phillip Kaufman gave us the McGuffin, which is the Lost Ark of the Covenant."

So George says, "What do you think, 'cause I think we should do it." Then he did something that I've never seen him do again, and I've known George for 20 years now. He jumps up and he comes out from behind his desk, and remember this is 20 minutes into the meeting, and he says, "Let's all shake hands, maybe this is an historic moment." He's not like a formal guy, he doesn't even do the polite thing most of the time. So we shook hands and Frank and I are like ... (laughing as he makes a bewildered face) clueless. They said "great and we'll talk to you soon," so Frank and I were ushered out. While walking across the lot at Universal, Frank turns to me and says, "Did we just get the job?" Neither of us really knew until they called our agency. Now Frank and I have been friends since that day.

Q: What is your relationship with Lucas today?

A: Very good. We went up to see "The Phantom Menace" when they were still cutting it. He has been nothing but good to me. He was the one who helped me get "Body Heat" (Kasdan's directorial debut) made and after I did that I went back and wrote "Return of the Jedi" for him. And I've never written anything else for anybody again. I just owed it to him.

Q: Years back we literally ran into Jeff Goldblum and asked him if there was any truth behind a sequel to "Silverado." He smiled and laid it all on you as to, he didn't know what you were really doing with the idea but how he'd love to get back together with such a fun cast (including Kevin Kline, Scott Glenn, Kevin Costner and Danny Glover). So, what is "the idea" behind a possible sequel?

A: At one time we considered the idea, but there will be no sequel. As funny as this may sound, I really don't like sequels.

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