Street: Why was it so important for you to use volunteer members of the homeless community as extras? Joe Wright: I felt I had no absolutely right to speak for them and just pick their lives without their involvement. I wanted to make the film not just about them but also with them.
Street: The last two films you directed, Pride and Prejudice and Atonement, were both period pieces. Was making a modern-day film different? JW: Actually, The Soloist is also a period film — it’s set in 2005. While it might not seem much, it’s quite important. Its very specific to that year. It s the year of Hurricane Katrina, the London bombings, and also the year Mayor Villaraigosa began his Safer City initiative, which is basically a policy of cleansing downtown of the homeless community. It was difficult to recreate a period so close to the present day because the differences are more subtle.
Street: How was filming the musical scenes in the movie? Did you need a musical stunt double or has Jamie Foxx been a secret virtuoso this whole time? JW: He’s miming to the playing of Ben Hong, who is one of the principal cellists from the LA philharmonic orchestra. We had playback and Jamie was miming to it, but he actually learned the cello, and he spent sometime perfecting the specialty of playing, which took a huge amount of work on his part.
Street: Why did you cast Jamie Foxx? JW: I cast Jamie because at first he seemed like the obvious choice — he was trained in classical music from a very early age, has extraordinary comic timing, which I felt was quite important for the kind of dialogue he was going to be required to speak. You know when you have an obvious choice, I often rebel against it, and think “well, that’s too obvious.” For a little while, maybe half an hour, I tried to divert myself from what was an obvious choice, but sometimes the obvious choice is the right choice. Jamie got on a plane and came to meet me in London so we could spend some time together and I found him to be an incredible, sensitive, intelligent and interested human being. He’s someone who’s on his own search and I felt he was the right person for the role, but not necessarily for the obvious reasons.
Street: Were there any challeneges adapting the novel into a major feature? JW: There was lots of challeneges. But the book hadn’t actually been written when we wrote the script — it was being written in parallel, which was a novel way to do it (excuse the pun). So chapters were being sent through and discussions were being had with Steve Lopez rather than what normaly happens. Usually, you get the book and you start on page one and start working out what you need to keep and what you need to let go of.
Street: Has this movie changed the way you view street musicians or the homeless population at large? JW: Yes, it has, and also it’s changed my view of mental illness quite a lot. Two-thirds of the people on skid row, two-thirds of the homeless community has been diagnosed with a mental illness, which was a quite shocking statistic when I discovered it. My reaction to the homeless community is very tied up with that. I think one of the commonly held misconceptions about those that have been diagnosed with a mental illness is that people confuse mental illness with mental stupidity, and nothing could be further from the truth.
