It took acclaimed filmmaker Paul Schrader, the screenwriter of Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and The Last Temptation of Christ and writer/director of American Gigolo, almost seven years to bring The Walker to the big screen. Schrader updated the story twice during the seven year period and says he was constantly squeezing in different funny lines he picked up over the years wherever appropriate.
The Walker is set in Washington, D.C., and follows Carter Page (Woody Harrelson) a popular escort to some of the capitol’s well-heeled women. Carter’s life as a companion to the town’s socialites comes crashing down around him when he becomes immersed in a homicide investigation after trying to help out one of his favorite ladies (Kristin Scott Thomas).
What was it about the story and these characters that made you keep at it all these years?
“I don’t know. I knew that no one else would do it. I always knew I had to direct it because no one else would hang in there as long. I felt I wanted to finish this character off in some ways, because if the character in Taxi Driver was in the front seat, then the character in Light Sleeper was in the backseat, so those were bookends. Then I had Gigolo and I wanted to do the bookend to him. So if he’s straight, then the bookend is gay. I felt if I did that there would be some sense of completion and I would have that. I would have done it. I guess that’s what kept me at this, this fear that I wouldn’t have rounded this off.”
What’s your opinion of Washington, D.C.?
“Well, my opinion is pretty much the same as everybody else’s. The consensus is in. The script, I first wrote it in the last year of the Clinton administration and it really isn’t a political film now and it was even less of a political film then. It was really a character study. I set it in Washington because the character became more interesting in Washington, because there’s really only two cities left where sexual hypocrisy is mandated and I didn’t want to make it in Salt Lake so I did it in Washington. He became more interesting. ‘Why is he still there? Why didn’t he leave?’ But I still didn’t think of it as a political film.
Then as the years went by, I had to update the script a couple times and each time I looked back at Washington, it was a more vindictive, more mean spirited place. In order to retain some verisimilitude I had to make the script a little more political, but I don’t see it as a political film and I don’t really see it as a thriller or plot film. I see it really as a character study, as one of a series of character studies I’ve done. All you really want from a plot at that point is something that will put pressure on a character so you can see the character mutate and move in response to that pressure. But in terms of whodunit and when, I don’t give a damn.”
How did you get the cast involved?
“Obviously the most unlikely one is Woody. I was going to do it with another actor and I lost that actor so we went out to replace him. Woody’s agent called me up and said, ‘Have you thought of Woody?’ I said, ‘Why would I? He’s never done anything like this. That’s not who he is.’ And he said, ‘Well, I was talking to Woody and W is of a mind to do something quite different, a real change of pace. Would you like to meet him?’
I knew he was a good actor and when a good actor wants to meet you, you’re a fool not to take that meeting. So we met and he was real keen to do it, and off we went. The rest was not that hard because after a certain age there’s not a great deal of work for women after 40. So when you have nice roles for women over 40, it’s like going into an orchard and every tree is ripe. It’s just a question of which one is going to fall into your hands.”
Can you talk a little bit about how you decided on the production and costume designs for this film? They both seem to play pivotal roles in defining your characters.
“This is a guy who uses superficiality as a protective armor in the same way as three-piece suits are. He likes to think of himself as superficial and somehow that protects himself. I remember talking to Woody before we were shooting, because Woody is a very casual guy and he wears these hemp shirts and beat up shoes. I kept saying, ‘Woody, you’ve got to put those suits on. You won’t know who this character is until you put those suits on.’ It’s also a world of surfaces, so you pay a little extra attention to the production design so that it has the kind of glittering surface to it. You hope that gets through to the audience, the viewer, that this apple may look very delicious on the outside but believe me it’s full of worms.”
Your career as a screenwriter’s full of landmark films. Have you been able to have the directing career you wanted?
“I don’t know. Look, when you get lucky in life, hopefully, and the wind of the zeitgeist changes direction and hits you square in the face and when that happens to you all, you can really do is be grateful and move on because there’s no reason that will ever happen again. You know Coppola makes The Godfather - right film, right time, right place, right everything. People have said to me, you know, ‘How’s it feel to be involved with such a famous film?’ And then everything afterward sort of seems like a decline. Well, I take the opposite point of view. To get validation that early in life and in your career takes an enormous pressure off of you because I know people my own age who have never had that validation and probably will never get it in their own lifetime. I got it young. I was free to move on, make films, some better than others, some more successful than others.
I’m thankful for Taxi Driver and obviously when you direct films, you would like more people to see them. On the other hand, when you make a film like The Walker, you know you’re making kind of a boutique film anyway. It’s kind of a chamber piece. It’s a character study. It’s a lot easier to finance and sell a movie about a 20 year old with a gun, Travis Bickle, than it is a 50 year old with a lavender kerchief in his pocket.”
