Walt Disney Pictures' Secretariat takes us from the horse's birth through Secretariat's crowning achievement, capturing the Triple Crown title, while also revealing just how intelligent, courageous, and determined his owner was at a time when it was unheard of to have a woman in charge of a racehorse. It's an inspirational story about two exceptional characters, and director Wallace believes audiences are ready for a film that will lift their spirits.
My one-on-one with Randall Wallace took place at the end of a full day of interviews, but the Oscar-nominated filmmaker could not have been more enthusiastic and engaging. Wallace spoke passionately about working on the film and working with his cast, providing an interesting look behind the scenes at the making of Secretariat.
Exclusive Director Randall Wallace Interview
The preview audience I watched this movie clapped after every single race, but the film's not just about the horse racing. What first caught your eye about the script?Randall Wallace: "All of the movies that I've dealt with previously, Braveheart, We Were Soldiers, Man in the Iron Mask, Pearl Harbor, celebrate heroism of one form or another. This movie celebrated it, first of all through an animal and then a woman, and this showed the glory of it, the victory of it. And the other films, they are mingled with a sense of loss. But in this movie, you come out celebrating. You come out with a sense of just unmitigated joy. And I was ready to tell a story like that, and I thought the audience needed a story like that."
There's nothing really uplifting out there in theaters any more.
Randall Wallace: "Yeah. I don't want to get into the business of criticizing other filmmakers, but when it comes to Oscar and we've expanded to 10 movies - and I understand why the Academy's done that - but I thought, you know, I'm hard-pressed at the end of the year to know one or two movies that I want to call friends and say, 'You have got to see this movie.'"
"I think of movies like a tribe of people sitting around a campfire telling stories that convey to everyone who they are supposed to be and who they are. I remember when I was a teenager growing up and I would go to the movies, sometimes alone, and certain films made me walk out with the thought that my life is never going to be the same because of what I'd just experienced. And I wanted people to experience this story, not just sit back like observers. But to know not what it was like to watch Secretariat, but what it was like to be Secretariat, to feel his heart beating in his chest and his lungs thundering as they sucked air and his hoofbeats, and the speed of the track, the dirt of the track flying by, the dirt flying in your face. I wanted people to experience all of that."
How difficult was that for you to capture?
Randall Wallace: "Actually it was a rather bold concept that necessitated some choices that could make people uncomfortable. One of the things I had to do, because I wanted to shoot the movie that way, was I had to cast real jockeys. These are people who had never had any acting experience whatsoever who are going to have to step in and do scenes with John Malkovich and Diane Lane."
Talk about intimidating.
Randall Wallace: "Exactly. But you know only guys, I think, who could climb on a thousand pounds plus of just primordial fury and stay totally calm in doing it, could walk in and do something like that. The guy that I cast for Ronnie Turcotte, my casting director, Sheila Jaffe, called me and said, 'I think I've found just the guy.' He drove down to Kentucky to see us - he was racing up north at the time - and 5' tall, steely blue eyes, and he came walking in. He stood up in front of me and he exuded the aura of a giant. He looked me right in the eyes and he grinned and he said, 'Hi, I'm Otto.' And I thought, 'He's exactly it. I've found Ronnie Turcotte.' Otto had never acted even in a school play, and I was confident that I could direct him. I knew I could get out of him what I wanted."
"When I was first doing Braveheart and I'd written that script and I'd even intended to direct it myself, but when Mel Gibson said he wanted to directed it, it was a no-brainer. I could have gotten $7 and he could get $70 million. But I felt like my father felt on my sister's wedding day. My father looked at me and he said, 'She's got another shoulder to cry on now.' And I felt that way. I felt this was my movie and now I'm handing it off to someone else to direct. And he understood what I was feeling and he looked at me one night - we were out at dinner - and he said, 'You know, Randy, I know what you're thinking. But the truth is writers write and actors act and directors direct from their essence as human beings.' He said, 'This script is all you. It's your heart. It's exactly the way you are. And I'm going to cast people who are in their essence the characters that I would like them to play.' That's what effectively I did in this. Diane was the perfect Penny. I wrote a letter to the studio saying, 'This is who I want to cast and here's why.' She has a steel character and yet she is warm and tender and approachable. And if she weren't, you wouldn't like this character much because she's too tough."
"John Malkovich, I knew that John could be volcanic. He's been that in so many things, but for him to be so funny and so warm. The tenderness when he's at the Belmont Ball... John and Diane have a scene together in which his character tells her character she's the best owner he ever saw. It is so honest and warm and tender, and I don't think we've seen John Malkovich like that. I think people are going recognize this as one of his really noteworthy roles."
Being a writer, how much did you end up finessing this script?
Randall Wallace: "I don't in any sense want to take away from the great contribution of Mike Rich, the original writer. I did do some work on the script. What I looked for when I was going through it was, the original script was meticulously researched and accurate in its journalistic precision. But I wanted to know what the characters did when they were alone. I wanted to know what it felt like even when you were alone in a crowd. Two of the most moving scenes to me are when Secretariat is moving through the tunnel and we're with him. We hear his hoofbeats as he's walking. We see the crowd. We see the world from Secretariat's point of view. We see Penny when she's alone at the Belmont Ball, surrounded by people but watching her family reconstituted. The family that she felt she had a choice - it was either her family or her work. It had to feel like it was tearing her apart. She made a courageous choice to try and have both, and there they were all woven in together. It was a moment of victory and a further moment of being alone."
"When Penny's father dies, when Penny can't make it to the play and she's in her room, I wrote all of that. They are scenes that move me every time I see it. One of my favorites is when Eddie the groom realizes Secretariat's eaten his breakfast. He steps out onto the track at Kentucky and screams out, 'Hey Kentucky, you're about to see something like you've never seen before,' and that gave me goosebumps. My only compass as a director is my own heart. If it doesn't make me feel, if it doesn't make me want to shout something from the rooftops, how is it going to make anybody else feel that?"
