“All the Way” airs exclusively on HBO on this /PT.
The Knockturnal was on the red carpet for the movie adaption of the Tony award winning play All The Way, which tells the story of Lyndon B. Johnson’s tumultuous first year in office after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The riveting film explores Johnson’s battle to get the Civil Rights Act approved, while juggling Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s moral imperative and the expectations of the southern Democratic Party leaders who brought him to power.
“We’re very proud of this project. I mean the play was incredible. Steven Spielberg saw the play, we talked about it, we optioned it for Spielberg and Amblin to produce. We just thought it was an incredible examination of character, especially in Bryan’s performance of Lyndon Johnson. It really spoke about the different ways people exercise leadership and the partnership between Johnson and Dr. Martin Luther King. Anthony Mackie plays King. People dealt with leadership in their own ways. They both had factions and their own sides to deal with. Johnson with the Dixiecrats, Dr. King with different factions that he was dealing with in terms of people wanting more of a radicalized approach. There was a lot of polarity at that time, but these two leaders figured out a way to pass meaningful legislation and I think we need more of that today. That attracted us to the project. Not just the sheer entertainment value and the crazy character of Lyndon Johnson in terms of so many aspects to his personality because there’s a lot of things that are funny, there are a lot of things that are deep and heartbreaking in a way. There’s just a lot of angles to the character. And so it made it entertaining on top of all that, so that’s why we loved it,” President of HBO Films Len Amato, told us on the red carpet.
The evening’s moderator Michael Eric Dyson shared, “It’s an incredible piece of work. It explores an incredible time in our nation’s history where a president and a civil rights leader had to engage each other in order to make social change occur. I’m excited to see that this incredible piece of work exists to give a a deeper insight into both President Johnson, but also into Dr. King in terms of what they had to undergo in order to make change happen. Bryan Cranston as LBJ is incredibly amazing. The Martin Luther King, Jr. part by Brother Mackie … Melissa Leo who played, of course, Lady Bird Johnson gives us a sense of the extraordinary range and depth of the feeling and emotion that was alive then. And these actors bring it to the surface and bring it to the screen with remarkable lucidity.”
Dyson reflected on the unique relationship between Dr. King and President Johnson. “A lot of people romanticize Dr. King and think it was all about speeches in the street and him negotiating from a position of power outside of the halls of power, but he also stepped inside them. And he negotiated, and sometimes he won, and sometimes he didn’t. Sometimes he looked good, and sometimes he didn’t. It reveals from his perspective the negotiations that when we look at present day leaders like present day Jesse Jackson or Reverend Al Sharpton, we say, “Dr. King was so much more superior. Didn’t have to do that.” Well, no. He had to do the sausage making, too. On the other hand, you see LBJ twisting the arms of people in Congress to try to get them to do the right thing and seeing his own flaws and imperfections and seeing how they were magnified during certain periods of distress, but ultimately he and Dr. King and many of the other leaders came together to forge a connection that really transformed the landscape of American culture.”
Director Jay Roach spoke about what attracted him to the project. “I saw the play when we were working on Trumbo Bryan Cranston and I had no idea I would be up to direct it, but I loved it. I was excited to do Trumbo with him and then HBO and Spielberg came and said ‘would you also do an adaption?’ I said yes. I’d never said yes instantly on anything and then I thought, oh man I hope Trumbo works out because it’s going to be awkward if we’re doing two films together but I love the story, I love the character and the way Schenkkan, who did our screenplay, too compared and contrasted the way Dr. King and LBJ where each navigating their own leadership and then trying to figure out how to compromise within their factions against all the different forces and then came together to try to figure out if they could trust each other enough to join up and try to get the Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed and all of that while he’s trying to figure out if the South is going to abandon him and make it nearly impossible for him to win re-election and that willingness to take on something so important even risking his election. As he said, ‘if I can’t do things like this, what’s the presidency for?’ and that really meant something to me.”
On watching Anthony Mackie transform into Martin Luther King Jr., Roach added, “Anthony is so charismatic himself, his voice is so rich, he’s just a compelling figure, but he was nervous about doing Dr. King, he’d been asked before. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is such an iconic figure in our lives, in America’s history, so to take that on and all the expectations that go with that, it was daunting but he made a choice and that was very good, we talked a lot about it together rather than trying to impersonate Dr. King or physically match him, to just try to soak up what mattered to Dr. King, what worried him, what drove him and present and channel, the essence of that struggle to get things done, to be as good a person as you can possibly be and not a saint, that’s one of the great things about the screenplay — just a man, yet he did extraordinary things and I thought Anthony has some of that in him too so the overlap would be really interesting to watch.”
Read what the film and play’s writer Robert Schenkkan had to say about All The Way.
Robert: Well, from the very beginning when Steven Spielberg and I started talking about this I really wanted to make this a complete cinematic re-imagining of this story. I wouldn’t just shoot the play, because there were things that I felt that I didn’t quite get in the play. There never are. And then there are opportunities that film affords me that the stage does not. I really, really wanted to embrace that, so both the epic big-screen possibilities, but also the intimacy of the close up and the ability to just let Bryan Cranston’s face do my talking for me. That was the goal right from the beginning, and we were all very much in agreement with that. Then we surrounded him with this amazing cast. I mean, oh my God. What a fantastic group of people.
And speak about collaborating with Jay.
Robert: Jay’s a phenomenal director, and such a generous collaborator, really. I’ve never worked with a director who was so open. I’m an executive producer on this, along with Steven, and Bryan, and Jay, but I learned an enormous amount.
Speak about watching Anthony bring this to life.
Robert: Well I think this is going to be a surprise for Anthony’s fans. It’s a very different side of the actor than I think he’s had a chance to display before. I’ll tell you, when we first were pursuing Anthony, and we pursued Anthony very aggressively, when he signed on and we talked about the script, and his thoughts on the script I thought were so smart, and so to the point. I like smart actors. He had a good sense of where the character was, and some good ideas about things, and really we pursued all of those ideas pretty aggressively.
Speak about the relationship and dynamic between Dr. King and President Johnson.
Robert: I think what’s different about this presentation, and this performance of Dr. King … When Americans think of Dr. King they typically think of the orator or the martyr. You know, nobody pays any attention to the politician. To me this is really an extraordinary part of his achievement, and his success. The movement was not monolithic, it was very fractured, and fractious. A lot of groups led by, typically, very high powered, very opinionated individuals and it was a tribute to his gifts that he was able to get all these different people, and different groups, working together as long as he did, but just like LBJ, he had many different factions that he had to manage. That’s one of the things they had in common. They were both, I would say, wary of each other, and understandably so at the beginning, and they certainly didn’t always agree on the tactics and the timing, but they did agree on where the country needed to be headed and by working together the way in which they did, they achieved greatness in the 1964 Civil Rights Bill. It’s the end of Jim Crow, it’s the birth of a new country, and an extraordinary chance. It’s good lesson for us today at a time when many people, are determined that government not work for tactical reasons. To see what government can do for people, how government can make your life better, and that’s certainly what Dr. King and LBJ did.
Speak a little bit about your passion for writing.
Robert: It’s my DNA. I love storytelling and stories, and always have. There’s something about writing, and the act of writing and crafting a story that takes you to a place that you didn’t expect to go, but when you arrive feels entirely right, is a profound pleasure that is childlike. I don’t know anything else in my life that quite reaches that, so I feel very fortunate to do what I do, and to be able to do it with people like Jay Roach and Bryan Cranston, Steven Spielberg and Anthony Mackie.
What’s next for you?
Robert: I am writing a film for Robert Redford about the Manhattan Project. I’m pitching a pilot at the end of the month for Gil Netter in Los Angeles, and I have a couple of play commissions here in New York at the Public Theater, Denver Theater Center, the Geffen Theater in Los Angeles. I have a very full plate right now.
Robert Redford is legend!
Robert: Oh my gosh. Bob is so great. He’s a very down to earth guy, and very focused. Really shrewd. Very smart guy. It’s a pleasure. He and I have been trying to work together for a very long time, and we’re both so pleased that this is the project on which it finally happens.
Anything else you would like to add?
I have a movie coming up. Hacksaw Ridge, November 4th, directed by Mel Gibson and starring Andrew Garfield. It is going to be fantastic. It’s about the first conscientious objector to win the Medal of Honor. So it’s a war story unlike any war story you’ve ever seen.
This sounds like an Oscar film.
Robert: It is maybe … Certainly for Andrew Garfield I think.
For more information visit www.hbo.com/movies/all-