TORONTO — TORONTO (AP) — The way writer-director Derek Cianfrance goes to great lengths to create immersive environments for his actors has become something of a legend. After creating the impromptu doomed romance Blue Valentine (2010) by Michelle Williams said she would have to remind herself that she was never actually married to Ryan Gosling.
Cianfrance's last feature film, 2016. “The Light Between Oceans” was almost entirely shot dead at a remote New Zealand lighthouse. Making this film really brought together its stars, Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander. Cianfrance did the same. “The place Beyond the Pines,” with Gosling and Eva Mendes. The filmmaking method can produce real results.
But Cianfrance's ways have a purpose. He wants his actors to live in the movies as much as possible. For his latest film “Krysheknik” in the title role Channing Tatum and Kirsten Dunst, this approach was especially important because the story was so far-fetched.
“I wanted to bring the whole cast into this story because it’s a crazy story,” Cianfrance said in an interview. “Jeff's actions are just incredible. I felt like just for me, to suspend disbelief, I needed to be there. I think that's why I go into that dive a lot, because I need to believe in it. I need to believe that it's really happening.”
In “Rooftop,” which Paramount Pictures will release in theaters Friday, Tatum plays Jeffrey Manchester, a U.S. Army veteran who finds civilian life difficult. In 1998, he began robbing McDonald's by sawing through the roofs. He is believed to have robbed more than 40 stores. Both his new entry point and his cordial attitude toward his employees made “The Bloodman” an intriguing figure on local television news.
In 2000, Manchester was caught in North Carolina and later sentenced to 45 years in prison. But in 2004, he escaped and hid in a Charlotte Toys “R” Us store to elude authorities. He lived there secretly for several months, eating what was on the shelves and, most daringly, trying to live a seemingly normal life outside the store. He attended a local church and dated a woman named Leigh Wainscott (played by Dunst).
For the most part, the events of “The Roof” happened as they were portrayed. But how do you make a story stranger than fiction believable? For the filmmakers of Rooftop, this meant going to extreme lengths to give authenticity to a real-life, made-for-Hollywood story. At a time when major studios rarely release original films with stars, let alone extremely realistic films shot on location, “The Roof” modest-sized production co-produced with a number of companies including Miramax, FilmNation and Limelight – has effectively made its way to the big screen.
“A lot of producers said to me, 'Why don't you film it in South Africa? You'll have twice as many days,'” says Cianfrance, citing the appeal of tax breaks. “I said, 'Well, because there are no people here and no ghosts of the story.'
Cianfrance wanted to shoot at the Toys “R” Us where Manchester was hiding, but couldn't. The toy store chain went bust in 2017, and the one where Manchester slept has now become a mega-church. So he turned an abandoned Toys “R” Us store in Pineville, North Carolina into one that was almost fully functional. The facility replaced the electrical system, added plumbing, installed new fluorescent lighting and stocked 40,000 square feet of shelves with truckloads of period-appropriate toys.
“It was mine “Fitzcarraldo” Let's take a steamboat over the mountain, build a Toys 'R' Us,” Cianfrance chuckles.
This gave Tatum, who Cianfrance had originally sought out as the Blue Valentine, a sandbox in which to play. In his opinion, the greatest gift Cianfrance could give Tatum was to “unleash him in a toy store.”
“It was 360 degrees,” says Tatum, performing alongside Dunst. “This is not a film with a huge budget. It said something like, “There aren't even enough toys in the world from this era to fill this space.” And Derek kept walking. “I promised Chan that he would have a fully operational store where he could do whatever he wanted.” He put it on me!”
Dunst was particularly drawn to the Cianfrance process. “What Derek likes,” Dunst says, “is what I like: it doesn’t feel like a game.”
That's not to say that their director's commitment to realism didn't sometimes seem borderline absurd to the actors.
“I remember someone put a fake ice cube in my drink because of the sound,” Dunst laughs.
“And he lost it,” Tatum adds. “He shook it. “It doesn’t look like ice!”
However, much of the most extensive work to give The Lid Man its veracity lay beneath the surface. Manchester is currently serving his sentence at Central Prison in Raleigh, North Carolina. He can only make outgoing calls, but Cianfrance estimates he's spoken to him more than a hundred times. This gave Cianfrance insight into Manchester's motives and mistakes and turned The Roof into a comic but tender study of misguided materialism.
“Jeff wrote a crazy movie for himself and lived it,” says Cianfrance. “What ultimately made me realize what this movie was about was that Jeff – he was just trying to figure out how to be a father. He was doing it all for the family.”
Tatum also spoke frequently with Manchester on the phone. Manchester, among other things, expressed approval for the film's poster, which shows Tatum with a teddy bear on his shoulders, an inflatable ring around his waist and a gun in his right hand. Tatum says they became close by talking about their children and hopes for the future. Manchester is scheduled to be liberated in 2036.
“I received more than I could convey. I just found that he almost held me, cared for me,” Tatum says. “I didn't grow up bad. But I'm definitely a few bad decisions away from hopefully not being in prison for 45 years. But I think we're all one or two bad decisions away from having a completely different life. Jeff told me, 'I've gotten greedy.'
In preparing the film, Cianfrance interviewed everyone he could who was involved with Manchester's escape. He usually gave them the details. Wainscott plays a crossing guard in the film. The pastor of the church Manchester attends, Ron Smith plays the owner of a pawn shop. Dunst is questioned by the police who were actually questioning Wainscott.
Cianfrance chose Tatum and Dunst in part because they are each parents themselves, he said. Dunst spent time with the actors who play her daughters, going shopping and cooking together.
“It creates layers that people feel when they watch the film,” Dunst says.
Some things, like being a parent, you can't fake.
“I don't know if I could have done this movie without my daughter and, in particular, without me traveling with her. I miss her so much,” Tatum says. “That loneliness and longing for it was something built in there. I didn't have to create it.”
