Kiwi link to a movie legend’s swansong
David Lowery quickly screwed up his first draft of the script that would eventually become The Old Man and the Gun.
He loved the idea of bringing gentleman serial bank robber Forrest Tucker’s story to life, but his ‘‘nuts-and-bolts true crime story’’ approach just wasn’t working. Plus, he was ignoring the project’s biggest asset – its star, Robert Redford.
‘‘I discovered it just wasn’t within my skill set to do justice to the true story,’’ Lowery told Stuff on his recent visit to Auckland for the annual Big Screen Symposium.
‘‘What I realised I could do was do justice to the myth behind it, and remembered why I wanted to do the movie in the first place – craft a role for one of the great, enduring icons of the big screen and make a quintessential Robert Redford movie.’’
But what the Pete’s Dragon and A Ghost Story writerdirector wasn’t to know when he signed up was that it would be the Hollywood legend’s swansong.
‘‘He had mentioned it [that this would be his final film] in an interview a few weeks before we started prep, but we never talked about it personally until earlier this [northern] summer,’’ Lowery recalls.
‘‘Even though his publicist walked his original comments back and said, ‘oh no, he’s not retiring’, I know it was something he was thinking about. And yes, I felt pressure instantly.
‘‘It was impossible not to, but it was important for me not to let that change the movie we were making. I didn’t want it to suddenly become this heavy reflection on Robert Redford. It was already going to be that because he was in it. Had I been thinking about it as his final role, I think I would have put more weight into everything and I think I would have sunk the film.’’
Lowery also revealed that it was he who persuaded the Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid star to come to New Zealand to film Pete’s Dragon in early 2015.
‘‘I actually met Disney and him on the same day – February 5, 2013 – to discuss both projects. And when Dragon emerged as the frontrunner for my next movie, I made him aware of that fact, but what he didn’t know was that I had these secret designs to cast him in that as well.’’
Grateful that Redford even considered his request, let alone agreed to follow him to the other side of the planet, Lowery says their shared experience in New Zealand was vital to the success of Old Man and the Gun.
‘‘It enabled me to craft the role of Forrest Tucker specifically for him in a way I wouldn’t have been able to otherwise. It wasn’t so much having a particular conversation, either. It was just a sense of watching him and the way he acts.
‘‘The early version of Forrest I wrote was a real chatterbox – he was talking all the time. But what I realised on Pete’s Dragon is that Redford does great with very little.
‘‘He can communicate an entire paragraph’s worth of sentiment in just a look. So one of the things I did was take out dialogue and what I was left with I felt like I had a better sense of the rhythm of his voice and the cadence with which he spoke.’’
Lowery’s version of Tucker also reflected Redford’s ‘‘playfulness’’.
‘‘If you ever have a conversation with Bob, he is really engaging with you in a way that makes you feel like you are the centre of attention even when, of course, it’s all about him.’’
The Old Man and the Gun (M) will open in cinemas on Thursday.