Even though you’ve built up this relationship with Sean Penn, this is still the first film you’ve directed. Once you got behind the camera with Penn in front of it, was that intimidating?
I would say this: it’s certainly daunting thinking about it, and daunting thinking about it over time. I mentioned that we had this four years to get to know each other. You can’t underestimate how important something like that is in making a film together. We ultimately did a lot of our work together without our getting together ostensively being about doing work. We’d get together to have a drink to talk about the latest round of financing falling through. We’d end up, inevitably, somewhere along the course of the evening, talking about the script, the character, etc. so we were able to get into it slowly.
I will say this, I think if you talk with any actor who’s worked with Sean, I would bet most of them would tell you that Sean’s an extremely generous actor. Meaning that if you’re shooting in Sean’s direction, he’s giving it everything. If you’re shooting in the other actor’s direction, Sean’s off camera giving it everything so they’re working off of everything that he has to give.
I would say from a first time feature director’s standpoint Sean’s a generous director to another director. He wanted to make me comfortable. He said to me once that he wanted to make me comfortable by the time I started directing. He said to me at one point, “Niels, you wrote the material. Feel free to push me if you’re not getting what you want, even if I seem exhausted on the set or whatever. Just push me if you haven’t gotten everything that you want.” He said, “Give me a line reading. I’ll take whatever.” I mean how many actors of Sean’s [status] would say that? Which, by the way, I never gave Sean Penn a line reading. Never. No need. But again, he’s a good soul, a generous director to another director. He said, “By the time we start shooting, I want it to feel like this is the second film we’re making together. Like we’ve already done one together.” How many people in Sean’s position of prominence as an actor would say that? He’s a good, good man.
When you wrote the script, did you have specific actors in mind? Did your dream cast include Sean Penn?
No. I really, for other writers, I always recommend against it because how many people, for a very good reason, are writing scripts across the globe right now that they would love Sean Penn to do? (Laughing) He’s not going to be able to do them all. He’s got one life to live, at least this time around, and he’s not going to be able to do them. I wouldn’t have allowed myself to dream of Sean doing it. That said, once Sean said yes to it and I got to know him a bit, if something had happened and he couldn’t have done it or whatever, I wouldn’t have wanted to make the film anymore because I didn’t think there was anybody else to play this part after I met Sean.
You really would have passed on the whole project?
I’m fairly certain I would have done that. Some people would say I’m that stupid, but I think it would have broken my heart not to make it with Sean after I got to know him. I just knew what he was going to do with this role. But then again, you never speak for exactly what you would do in situations you don’t encounter. But I kind of think I wouldn’t have made the film.
Did you write “The Assassination of Richard Nixon” with the intention of directing it?
Yeah. When Kevin Kennedy and I sat down to outline this together… I brought in Kevin after I’d found all this material. I said, “Look at what I started. Write this with me,” because Kevin was my favorite writer, and still is my favorite writer, that came out of UCLA film school when I was there. I had a pretty impressive group of people I came out with and I always loved Kevin’s writing. When we outlined this, we decided we were going to be on from start to finish. Again, another thing where we said the film won’t get made without it was we said I’d direct it and Kevin would be a producer on it.
Do you consider yourself a writer who directs, or a director who writes?
I always was writing to be able to direct my own material, so I would say directing was always the goal. It’s just writing became my bread and butter for a number of years. That’s as far as I could get. I directed some TV but that’s sort of an exclusive club that if you don’t continue to have the right contacts, it’s tough to stay in. So I didn’t continue to stay in that. I wrote to survive and wrote to create something that I could get finally the opportunity to direct with. But really, writing, directing and editing – you tie them all together and it’s like part of one process if you want to be, at least, an author of a film.
