Exclusive Cary Fukunaga Interview
Where did the idea of focusing on this type of story come from?Cary Fukunaga: "Well, I was in my second year, actually my first year at summer school, and I had to do my second year film and I wanted to do something that had some kind of social conscience bent to it. So I was looking for a story and when I heard about what happened in this trailer in Texas, I wanted to make a story about that because I thought it was not only a terrible tragedy, but I thought it was something that would fit the short film format. Before that I had never really considered doing a film about immigration."
Basically, it was a refrigerated trailer that was transporting about 90 immigrants from the border deeper into Texas, and about 19 of the immigrants had died from heat exhaustion and asphyxiation. It was national news when I read about it. So I started doing research for that to make the film and while doing the research on immigration, I learned about what Central Americans were doing to cross the border, and that was riding these freight trains across Mexico. It was extremely dangerous and they were going through all kinds of violence in facing off bandits and the gangs as well as being robbed and shaken down by corrupt police, so it was just sort of like the Wild West. I’d never even heard of that or considered that could be part of the immigrant story. It didn’t really fit into my short film but I thought that one day if there was an opportunity to tell it in somewhat of a feature film, then I would focus on that. And that's how I stumbled on the subject."
How tough is it to walk away from it now that you've finished the film and it's heading into theaters? You learned a lot and it affected you and now you're moving on, and yet these people are still going through what they're going through.
Cary Fukunaga: "They are, absolutely. I mean, even making the film it wasn't easy knowing that often times when I did research and I traveled with immigrants, that I could just get off the train and I could take a flight back to New York and live my life. No, absolutely, it’s not easy and that was actually the hardest part. The hardest part wasn’t facing the dangers and often times people want to hear about the crazy things that happened on a trip, but that wasn’t the hardest part. The hardest part was leaving everyone else behind."
How willing were these guys who were trying to immigrate to the United States to talk to you? Did it take some encouragement to get them to open up?
Cary Fukunaga: "No, like they were quite willing. In fact I had to field more questions from them more than anything."
Really?
Cary Fukunaga: "Yes. I mean they were just really curious what the hell a guy like me was doing there. I mean they weren’t being cheesy at all, they were just being, you know, they were just being sincere when they said, you know, they thought they were really lucky to be on a train car with a gringo. They were like, 'In all the trains in Mexico you're probably the only gringo on a train car right now.'"
So what were they picking your brain about?
Cary Fukunaga: "They just wanted to know like what life… They just wanted me to tell them about everything, you know? Any kind of topic they talked about, they wanted to know what I thought about it."
Were they looking for clues as to how to kind of fit in in America?
Cary Fukunaga: "Not at all. They weren’t asking for pointers on how to find work or anything like that. It was just more like if we were talking about bean farming they’d ask me what I thought about bean farming. I don't know anything about bean farming."
How much did what you learned from these people you rode the trains with influence how you wrote your central characters, or did you already have an idea in mind of who they were going to be?
Cary Fukunaga: "I kind of had in mind the archetype of the characters I wanted, but I didn’t know exactly what kind of people they'd be. I had an idea of certain images. But, you know, a lot of these guys actually had a lot of humor and sincerity that I kind of wanted to put like in the Orlando character, but that character didn't have much to do in the story so it kind of goes like taking away from the central thread of the story whenever I went to those other characters, where like Sayra and Casper and the specific things they're going through."
And you actually met with members of the gang?
Cary Fukunaga: "Yes, for a year and a half."
Was your family worried about you?
Cary Fukunaga: "They had no idea I was doing this. I’d been living in New York for years at that point and I don’t talk to my family that much. When I was down there doing the research they didn’t know what I was doing."
