HIDDEN FIGURES is the incredible untold story of Katherine G. Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monae)—brilliant African-American women working at NASA, who served as the brains behind one of the greatest operations in history: the launch of astronaut John Glenn into orbit, a stunning achievement that restored the nation’s confidence, turned around the Space Race, and galvanized the world. The visionary trio crossed all gender and race lines to inspire generations to dream big.
The Knockturnal was on the red carpet for the film’s New York premiere. Check out our exclusive interviews below:
You’ve never been afraid to do a sensitive story or talk about sensitive topics. Talk about why you chose this script, and why it was important for you to be a part of it.
Kevin Costner: Well, I was surprised by it. I felt that it qualified as entertainment, but it also qualified as an honest look back at where we were. We can be surprised, we can be embarrassed. We can even be a little bit ashamed of that, and understand that there are people that participated in one of the great achievements in America, and had a lot to do with it. We can also finish the movie, be thrilled with it, and then look to put up a mirror in front of us as quickly as possible, and see where we’re at now, and that’s a heavy place.
Hidden Figures is based on the book by Margot Lee Shetterly.
Talk about bringing this amazing story to a book and what was that process like, and why you decided to do that.
Margot Lee S.: Well, the thing about it is I knew the women growing up. My dad, he’s a research scientist. He worked his whole career at NASA Langley, where the movie takes place. I grew up in Hampton, Virginia, so this was part of my childhood. It seemed totally normal that there were a lot of scientists, and a lot of them were black, and a lot of them were women. Very fortunate to grow up that way. It was really my husband, who’s here tonight, who … we were home almost exactly six years ago, and Christmas, visiting my parents, we ran into a woman who was a former Sunday school teacher, who happened to be a former computer. My dad was like, “Yeah, Ms. Land, she was a computer, XYZ was a computer, these other people were computers. Katherine Johnson, she calculated the launch window for the astronauts.”
My husband was like, “Wait, wait, wait. We’re here in Hampton, Virginia and you’re telling me all these stories about this amazing thing that happened, and I have never heard of it. Why is that?” For me it was like, “Well, I know the women, but do I know the story?” I didn’t know the story. I knew Katherine Johnson, what she did, but why was she there? Why were there black women at NASA and who was there before her? She was the first one who told me about Dorothy Vaughan, and she said, “Dorothy Vaughan was the smartest person I ever met.” I was like, “Well, if Katherine Johnson is saying that, I’m going to sit up and take notes.” It was really one step at a time, discovering this story, until I was like, “My god, this is one of the most amazing things, and it was right here in my backyard the whole time.” It’s amazing.
Tell me, what was the film process like? Who contacted who, and what’s the process been like?
Margot Lee S.: Right. Well, what happened is my agent, my literary agent, a young woman named Mackenzie Brady Watson, she got my book proposal to a publisher, HarperCollins, which agreed to publish it. Then, she also got it into the hands of the movie people. These fancy people. The movie people meant very specifically, a woman named Donna Gigliotti, who I’m sure she’s here and you’ll talk to her tonight. Yeah, she’s amazing and she’s a genius, okay? She picked up the phone and she said to me, “We’re going to make a movie,” right? I was just like, “Okay, there is no book. You’re calling me, and we’re going to make a movie?” You know, I tell you what. That was two and a half years ago, I think, something like that. Everything that she has said … Very, lighting fast. Unheard of. Everything that she has said has come true. We’re standing here tonight at a movie, largely because she said, “We are doing this.” Every project needs a champion. I think that’s one of the stories of this movie, people championing other people, and she was a real champion for Hidden Figures. I have to just say thanks to her, and she assembled more champions. She got Allison Schroeder, and Ted Melfi, and Wynn Thomas who did the production design. Amazing, such that my mom … My parents saw the movie last week, and my mom was like, “Wait a minute, was that Katherine Johnson’s house?” All the people, the people in Hampton, Virginia screened it last week, and the word that kept coming up was authenticity.
Allison Schroeder co-wrote the screenplay!
How exciting is it to see this project on the big screen?
Allison S.: Amazing, I can’t believe it happened. This movie got made, what? What?
Talk to me about putting together this screenplay, and what was that like?
Allison S.: There was a lot. I grew up by NASA, I was a NASA baby. My grandparents worked there, I worked there, so that helped understanding the world, but then I thought, “How do I condense 40 years and this many amazing women into one film?” That was hard, but I think we did it. I think we hit on a good time period.
Tell me about the first time you heard the story of these women. What was that like?
Allison S.: I was like, “Of course these great women were behind these great men. Duh.” No, I mean it made sense, right? The guys didn’t want to do the math, so the women stepped up and crunched the numbers, and I thought, “We have to tell this story. We have to tell this story and change people’s stereotypes and change people’s mind, and reclaim the history that we’ve lost.”
How long did it take you to put the story together?
Allison S.: My producer, Donna, was a taskmaster, so I had four weeks for research and twelve weeks for first draft. It was fast. Really fast. We started at a much smaller movie, and then it gained more and more steam, so we’re lucky to be here. It was a fast process.
Did you go to the set at all, and see the build out?
Allison S.: It was like walking back in time. Wynn, the production designer, was amazing. I walk into a blank room and he’s like, “Tomorrow this will be the tracking room, mission control.” The next day, there it was. Then when Taraji walks into the tracking room, that’s when I started crying. I was like, “Oh god, this is going to be great, I hope.”
Wynn Thomas is the production designer on the film.
Wynn Thomas: The project came to me through Elizabeth Gabler at Fox. She was aware of my work from previous projects, and I think it was her name that pushed me forward towards the director and the producers of the film.
When you get approached for a film, how does it work? You read the script first, or do you have the director tell you about the project first?
Wynn Thomas: Well, you know, it’s helpful to know what you’re talking about when you go in for your first meeting with the director, so you always read the script. Usually, I come in with some ideas or I do a little bit of research before I see the director. I try and be as prepared as I can, because I want the job. I particularly wanted the job on this film because it’s such an important subject matter, and I was quite passionate about the script.
Were you aware of these ladies’ stories before you read the script?
Wynn Thomas: Absolutely not. I was shocked to know that there were women working at NASA. I was shocked to hear that there were black women working there, as mathematicians. You know, the great thing about this movie is that it’s telling the story about a bunch of ordinary folks doing extraordinary things. When I went in for the meeting, I really wanted the job, so I worked very hard to get it.
When you were doing your research for the project, the movie is set in the ’60s, what kind of things did you reference? What did you look at? Where did you go?
Wynn Thomas: Well, fortunately, there’s a lot of research on the NASA website. There was easy-to-find research about NASA and the astronauts and some of the workspaces. It’s more difficult when you’re starting to think about how each of these women lived, but this is a time period in films that I’ve designed a lot before. I did Malcolm X, for example. A lot of that took place in the ’60s. I already was familiar with the time period, in terms of the 1960s. What I had to do was figure out what Hampton, Virginia was like in the 1960s. That research was very specific.
Had you been to Hampton, Virginia?
Wynn Thomas: No, I just did a lot through books. Through some of it on the internet. I’m an old guy now, and I actually still go to the library. The library was very helpful. There’s a lot of stuff at the library.
There’s a good library scene in the film.
Wynn Thomas: Yes. There’s a lot of library stuff, the stuff that you can get at the library that you can’t get on the internet.
Release: Limited December 25, 2016; Wide January 6, 2017
Director: Theodore Melfi
Producers: Donna Gigliotti, Peter Chernin, Jenno Topping, Pharrell Williams, Theodore Melfi
Cast: Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monáe, Kevin Costner, Kirsten Dunst, Jim Parsons. Kimberly Quinn, Mahershala Ali, Aldis Hodge, Glen Powell
