This was also the first time that I had worked in television, although I didn't experience any of the... There was nothing television-y about it, from my point of view, but the financing was coming from HBO, the channel. And it's indicative that this film, this script, which easily could've been a theatrical feature, it didn't elicit any interest from the normal studios because, who knows? They're interested in masked superheroes. And... but HBO was very interested in it, and they came up with the financing. Of course, the budget was low, and the time frame that we had to make the film was restricted. We started shooting in March of 2011, and the film was finished by the end of September. So, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, so seven months.
And for a feature film – and it was long, it was two hours and 45 minutes, or something along that line – you know, to do all of that and all of the visual effects that were necessary to insert these characters into this archival footage, and, you know, make... Come to all of the decisions about the overall length and how we're going to tell the story, it was challenging in a very good way. There wasn't much time to sit back and think about it because of that schedule. The film was never previewed. We never showed it to an audience. I think that was part of the appeal for Phil [Kaufman], because he doesn't like previews, and just the way this was constructed.
There were screenings for the studio, and they weighed in, and they gave us notes about what they thought should happen. But Phil, I think, had final cut, or something very close to final cut. It never came to any big dissension within the creative process of making the film. It... There were high-profile actors. Nicole Kidman played Martha Gellhorn, Clive Owen played Hemingway, and other very well-known actors were in the film. It was a film that actors responded to, because it was an interesting script, and, you know, interesting situations for actors to get their teeth into.
