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The Artistic License Taken in The Pursuit of Happyness: In real life Chris Gardner’s son was 2 when the events depicted in the film took place. The film ages him to 5-years-old, and Gardner’s fine with that decision. “I understood that. You've got to give these guys some license. My son was 2 years-old when we were going through this. Did we have dialogue? Yeah. But there's obviously more you can do when the child is a little older. Give them some license.
I’ve got to tell you I saw one scene last night where my son says something to me that is probably the most important thing he's ever said to me in his life when he says, ‘Papa, you're a good papa.’ In the book, I had a chance to talk about where I was emotionally, how frightened I was. To have this boy at 2 years-old stand up and say you're a good papa, and have that incorporated into the script and the movie, that was the big thing for me.”
Racism Isn’t an Issue in the Film: ”When and if you read the book, and I encourage you to do it, I did have some experiences of that nature. They're unavoidable. This is where we are and it's real. What's important, the biggest ‘ism’ I had to deal with wasn't racism, it was ‘place-ism’. When I was trying to pursue my career on Wall Street, in the book I had an opportunity to talk about place-ism. I'm not from a politically connected family. I hadn't gone to college. I had no money of my own. Who's going to do business with you? That's place-ism, that's not racism. That's the biggest ‘ism’ I had to deal with and that's an ‘ism’ that can affect anybody in this room. The racism thing was secondary. My love for what I had an opportunity to do, and my love for my child, and my commitment minimized everything else.”
Chris Gardner on America’s Homeless: “The truth is the situation might be worse than anyone in this room realizes. 12% of all the homeless people in this country have jobs and go to work every day. Some communities that number is as high as 30% - and that number [isn’t] all black. They've got jobs and go to work every day.
A couple of things I’ve got to share: Will and I went for a series of walks prior to filming. I took him late at night, no security, just he and I, and I showed him all the places where we used to have to sleep. I took him to the bathrooms, the train stations and the parks. One of the first things he said to me was, ‘You know, a lot of these people are dressed to go someplace.’ A lot of them were dressed to go to work.
One of the coolest things happened on filming of Pursuit. This was a big-budget film. I don't know what the final number was, but one day we hired 250 homeless people to be themselves for scenes at Glide. A day's work for a day's pay. Two days. A couple comes up to me on the set and said, ‘We're both working. We've been trying to get off the streets for six months. We've saved everything. All we needed was another $500 to get a house, and we made that $500 working on this movie.’ That, for me, was the coolest thing in the world. What do you think: $50-60 million gets spent and $500 gets a family off the street? That's a big deal.”
