Interview: Tony Gilroy

With Duplicity still in some theaters and State of Play debuting this weekend, it's fitting to feature a couple of interviews with writer-director Tony Gilroy. In addition to writing and directing Duplicity and co-writing the screenplay for State of Play, Gilroy's credits include The Cutting Edge (1992), Dolores Clairborne (1995), The Bourne Identity (2002), The Bourne Supremacy (2004), The Bourne Ultimatum (2007), and Michael Clayton (2007), which he wrote and directed.

In this interview, Gilroy discusses how he procured the actors for Duplicity:

When you read a script like this and you have to shop it around and get people involved, do you give them a preface by saying, “This is about corporate investment, or this is about this”? Or, do they want you to uncover it?
Gilroy: You mean in trying to set the script up?

Yeah, in setting the script up.
Gilroy: It was only pitched once. We pitched it to Universal. We went in and it was a pretty elaborate pitch at that point. It was a pretty clearly elaborate pitch and it was a business that Universal wanted to be in. I mean, at that point Steven was gonna be in it. So it was a pretty easy pitch.

No, I mean in getting the actors involved.
Gilroy: The actors involved I gave them the script. I’m just giving them the script. But this was written what, seven years ago, so it had a long life and when I wrote it I wasn’t a director. About halfway through shooting “Clayton” I was like, “Wow I would really like to do this again and maybe they’ll let me do it again and what would I do?” I knew that “Duplicity” was sitting there and it was kinda cold at the moment and I was really hoping that it was not gonna get picked up by anybody or that someone else was gonna do a corporate espionage film. That was my bigger fear.

"I'm just giving them the script." That's how Gilroy secured the talent for the movie. Based on his script. Which means that he wrote a script with a compelling plot and multi-dimensional characters with which actors could resonate. It's part of what a 'selling script' is about: You're also trying to 'sell' to actors.

It's an interesting interview with Gilroy, who has moved from screenwriter to hyphenate. A really smart writer. Here's another interview where Gilroy touches on his work with State of Play -- involving being stuck on the first floor of his place for three months recuperating from a "bad taxi accident."