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Ron Howard credits Robert De Niro’s intense preparation for Backdraft with inspiring his approach to directing The Paper
Howard immersed himself in newsroom culture to bring authenticity to The Paper, even involving actors in the research process
Glenn Close’s character in The Paper was originally written as a man before Howard suggested casting her in the role
Ron Howard was inspired by watching Robert De Niro work — so much so that it changed how he made the movie The Paper.
The Oscar-winning director sat down with Ben Mankiewicz for a conversation about his career and his work for the Talking Pictures podcast.
“On Backdraft, I learned a really interesting lesson, even though it was fiction, and I had never done anything really based on real events other than a couple of things, TV movies I’d acted in. But watching De Niro prepare for his role in Backdraft, which was just a four-week gig, he could have phoned it in,” Howard, 72, shared.
Mankiewicz shared that Howard remarked that Backdraft was a “money movie” for De Niro, but he “liked the script.”
Robert De Niro in Backdraft
Credit: Moviestore/Shutterstock
“This was four weeks, a million dollars a week, and we could have Robert De Niro in our movie. He dug so deep to try to understand the dynamics of fire. He was playing an investigator,” Howard shared.
“He was doing his own forensic dive, but on a human level, he met three different firefighters who were investigators, and he kept talking to them and getting them to read the script back to him and things like that, that I just didn’t fully understand what his program was,” Howard shared.
It all became known to director Howard when he saw how De Niro was performing the role.
“When we started shooting, I realized that, sure, this is Robert De Niro. This is a Robert De Niro performance. He’s not trying to be a chameleon, but he’s adopted one guy’s posture, and he’s got another guy’s cadences that he’s weaving in, and then there was another guy’s intensity and even anger. I thought, ‘None of that’s in the script.’ He’s not changing the script, but he’s breathing life into this, not out of his own imagination, not out of his interpretation of the words on the page, but this observation,” Howard shared.
Howard shared that he was “inspired by that.”
“I could feel that audiences really appreciated the authenticity that we achieved in Backdraft,” he continued.
Howard shared that when he wanted to make a movie about journalism, he did the same thing, hanging around Pete Hamill at the New York Post and The Daily News.
“All I was doing was trying to pick up on language, behaviors, expressions, tempo shifts, overlapping. And I took a lot of notes, and I got the actors to come down and hang around and watch as well,” Howard shared.
Michael Keaton in The Paper
Credit: Moviestore/Shutterstock
The Paper was a 1994 movie that starred Michael Keaton, Glenn Close, Marisa Tomei and Randy Quaid. The comedy focused on 24 hours in a newsroom of the fictional The New York Sun. In the podcast, Howard shared that originally, Close’s character was “written as a man.”
“I felt like it was a little bit of that sort of traditional oppositional character. And in the newsroom, I was observing a lot of really smart, dynamic, focused women in editorial positions. And I went to the Koepp brothers, and I said, ‘What if we didn’t change a word? What if we just change the name and cast a woman? You know, what about Glenn Close?’ They said, ‘Well, if you can get Glenn Close…’ And the studios felt the same way,” Howard shared.
When Close got the script, Howard shared that she was “giddy with the idea.”
“She said, ‘I get to fight? I get to fight somebody?’ I said, ‘Yeah, why not?’ She just killed it. She was great,” Howard shared.
Read the original article on People