Listen To Or Read Roundtable Interview: Director Tate Taylor And Novelist Kathryn Stockett Talk THE HELP

Special thanks to DreamWorks, I got to participate in the press roundtable interview with screenwriter/director Tate Taylor and novelist Kathryn Stockett whose book was adapted into feature film THE HELP which opens this weekend.
I got to ask Taylor about his directing style and I got to ask Stockett if she’s ok about the changes that the film did in comparison to the book.
DreamWorks sent me transcript from the roundtable session with Taylor & Stockett that happened with other press members but I’ve also uploaded the audio from the roundtable session that I was a part of. So you have those two options after this jump..

Audio From Taylor & Stockett Roundtable That I Participated In

DreamWorks’ Transcript Of Taylor & Stockett Roundtable That I Didn’t Participate In

Q : What kind of nerve did it take for you to insist that you direct this film?

[00:00:37]
TT : I don’t think it’s that so much as just, as Kathryn has mentioned, just being protective of a friend’s book. And the story, and then also being from the south and seeing outsiders depict the south and you’re just rolling your eyes. And I’ve worked on the movies, what, that’s not how it is, and I was mainly just being a Mississippi guy from Mississippi telling Mississippi stories, like please, let us tell it exactly from two people who are from there and know it. And, uh, and, uh, honestly and Steven Spielberg is not an intimidating person, he’s a great man. And he likes movies. And so we just found ourselves talking about movies. And, and just said, this is why I have to do it.

Q : Talk about how the film shows the institutionalized racism of that time, and was that difficult to depict?

[00:02:06]
TT : Well, I think the key to the, one of the keys to the success of your novel which I realize would be important for the adaptation is the relationship of Minny and Celia. Let’s not make it just be about the differences and what’s wrong, let’s show when two people get rid of the fear and societal, uh, constrictions and just take care of each other. As friends, and love each other and, and help each other. You know, Minny’s the one who’s resistant and you have this doughy, pie faced, naïve woman who’s so impoverished she doesn’t even know, she’s like beneath any level of understanding of the social, uh, of the social ramifications of what she’s suggesting. And I thought that was just really powerful. To me that really showed how all that behavior is learned and when someone doesn’t know it, even if it’s an adult, it’s like, what are you talking about? She’s like, why won’t you eat with me, and that’s just so, it’s so true. I just wanted to home in on that stuff and more the negative and, white bad, you know, black, you know, it’s just [UNINTELLIGIBLE] we’ve seen before.

[00:03:18]
Q : Talk about the relationship between white people and black people in the south during this time, in particular the idea that black people raised white people as housekeepers.
[00:03:56]
KS : It was just such a sacred intimacy. And almost hard to define the relationship. Of course that I had, you know, as a little white girl with our family maid Dmitri. I mean, she had, Dmitri worked for my grandmother for 32 years. She started working for my great-great-great aunt Carrie before that. And it was just, she had such a different relationship with my grandmother who was very, you know, rigid and, and, and spoke the King’s English. Than she did with the children. And it’s not something that I think can last forever.

[00:04:29]
I’ve heard black women say that when, after a child, a southern, you know, child reaches the age of 12, you know, all that magic disappears. I don’t know if that’s true or not. But I think it is, it’s something that you don’t see everywhere in the world. The intimacy between a young, you know, a white child and a black woman. Uh, you know, at the same time, I’m asked this question and it always kinda makes me freeze up is, you know, why do you think so many people took to the help. And Tate actually brought up a good point, he said, you know, there was like maybe one last facet to this story of sou–, the southern civil rights that hadn’t been told.

[00:05:15]
And that was from the perspective of the black women. And now look, I’m the first one to say, I’m a white woman, I know that I’ll never truly understand what it must have felt like to be a black woman working in the south. But my gosh, no one had, it seems like no one had even tried to show that perspective. And I think–.

TT : And it’s the most obvious one. I know it sounds so funny, but I was reading her book–.

KS : And maybe the most important one.

TT : Oh, it is. No, when I was reading her book I know this sounds way out of the blue, but when I read your novel, I had the same reaction to when I saw the show THE WEST WING. I was like, how come nobody realized they should have done this before? This is the most obvious angle to look at politics and our country and no one’s done that. And when I read her book, I’m like, yes, why has no one, why hasn’t this been done before. I think that’s what she did.

[00:06:09]
KS : It’s a complicated topic. And it’s one that a lot of people are, are kind of afraid to, to approach.

Q : How important is it to have creative people behind a film like this?

[00:06:30]
TT : Oh, absolutely. It, it, it’s, I’ll say this, I mean, and I’ve tried to, don’t wanna say educate you, but when we were in this process, she does not, she’s not a fan of movies, last movie she saw was SEABISCUIT and I was trying to explain how it works. And the reason DreamWorks was such a great home and, and, and had a producer like Chris Columbus who’s a director is when you have film makers steering the ship, who know what I’m going through and know about the process of writing and they’re not suits, I mean, DreamWorks is, Stacey Snider is one of the most genius story people I’ve ever met in my life. As is Steven, so they’re all behind you. The suit factor just really was never there. And you’re right, that’s, that’s how the movie was able to become what it hopefully will be.

Q : What would have happened if you’d had suits over your shoulder?
[00:07:25]
TT : It, I don’t, I think if clowns, as you put it, were, were at the genesis of this, it would have not, it would have stopped. Honestly.

KS : You wouldn’t have been able to tell the story.

TT : It would have been, it would have eventually been mired down in fear and cliché, but when you had, you know, Chris and Spielberg and Stacey saying, we get what you guys are doing. We understand this family of friends that you’ve got, Octavia and Allison and we see. It was gutsy of them. I mean, I had no, really proof and they, but that’s what’s so great about this whole project, they go, go down there.

[00:08:09]
KS : But they stepped back and gave you all the room you needed.

Q : Did the actors have a sense that this was a great film as they were making it?

[00:08:33]
KS : Tate, wasn’t there a moment where you showed them a piece and they were like, holy cow.

TT : Yeah, well, but your question is–?

Q : Did you realize what you had during the process?

[00:09:09]
TT : I’ll tell you this, I, I write a scene, I’ll just tell you, I cry when I write often. And that’s a lot of times when I know it’s right, it may not be the reason I think. That I’m crying. But something has stirred in me, I’m adapting something now and I just boo-hooed yesterday. And I’m like, ok, then if it’s doing something to me, then maybe it’s kinda working. So when I was writing, a lot of that process was for me was a very private moment when I was adapting the novel alone without any, I mean, there was, we never knew this was gonna happen, I was just adapting the novel.

[00:09:43]
Hoping to do something one day. So a lot of that was in the process. For me, when I finished the adaptation I knew I was perfectly satisfied of what I knew to be the subject matter and then that’s when I was like, if I can just get someone to believe me that I think we’re telling it right. So were there days on set when I went, oh my gosh, this is great? Yes. Were there days when I went, oh no, this is gonna be a TV movie, of course, you just don’t know. Til you get in the editing room. But when I started working with Hughes, my editor, and we started putting stuff together, and, uh, you know, he won the Academy Award for CRASH and, and he’s a southern, I, I hired a lot of southerners on purpose.

[00:10:29]
Mark Ritter, southern, my production designer. Hughes Winborn, I hired him ‘cause he is from the south. His dad was a civil rights judge, had crosses burned in their yard. For years. ‘Cause he was, you know, a white man, you know, in favor of the civil rights movement. So when we started putting it together, and I would put some scenes together, and one time he looked at me and he goes, we’re gonna be all right, I’m going, ok, good, good. So then I was able to be on set knowing that people who had, as you said, lived it, had been a part of that were, were starting to jive. I felt good about it.

Q : Talk about having a man’s perspective when you’re writing female-based scenes.

[00:11:36]
TT : [OVERLAPS] Well I’ll tell you the truth, I, I have had friends who have suffered the great loss of a miscarriage. And, and I know what that, what, I know what loss is. I mean, my, my life has clearly not been Beaver Cleaver. So I’m very familiar with loss and pain and having something you love be taken away from you. And then when you think it’s never gonna happen again, it happens again. So I really got that and I really, I really understood what Kathryn did in the novel about having, just trying to be a part of these women.

[00:12:13]
And if I could just have a baby, that being said, when it came time to shoot it, uh, I was a little, I was out of my element. I’ve never had a miscarriage, I’ve never witnessed one. But a beautiful thing happened when I was blocking the scene, uh, three different female crew members all came up to me and pulled me aside. And they had all had a miscarriage. And we together, uh, ‘cause it was an issue of the blood and how much to show.

[00:12:44]
And all three of them said, it was exactly like that when it happened to them. And that was powerful and, ‘cause you know, I didn’t know, there was just, I had to ask, and that’s what you have to do as s director. And, and these women all came forward and they said, actually mine was worse, or yeah, that’s exactly what happened to me. So that’s, I had that support. And so did Jessica. ‘Cause she’s never had a miscarriage. So that’s, it, it took a team of people being really honest and truthful.

Q : Did you have to overcome any obstacles to tell this story?

[00:13:43]
KS : You know, I, uh, when I first started writing the book, for the first year, prob–, maybe even two years, uh, I had no intention of sending it out, so I didn’t think anybody was actually gonna read it. So, uh, I had no problem using Jackson, Mississippi because it was [LAUGHS] my own story sitting in a drawer.

TT : And you write what you know.

KS : You write what you know and, uh, and then, and then at some point I kind of thought about maybe changing some names, I thought about maybe not even putting my own name on it. And, uh, it all happened, once I finally got an agent, I mean, it all happened very, very quickly. And I didn’t really have the chance to, to do that.

Q : How did you come up with the Terrible Awful?

[00:14:32]
KS : [OVERLAPS] The Terrible Awful, how did I come up with that? Let me tell you, I’m sitting next to the biggest practical joker you’ve ever met. Tate Taylor. But you know, really, I kept thinking, what is the worst thing I could do to Hilly Holbrook? And the best thing I could come up with, as corny as it sounds is feed her a big bowl of Minny’s shit. Beep.

Q : Talk about choosing Cicely for the role.

[00:15:22]
TT : I don’t know who told you that, but she [OVERLAPPED CONVERSATION] Viola, not Cicely and I had a very constructive dialogue about, about the stuff, she and I changed up on each other all the time. She’s just such an efficient, smart, brilliant woman. She often, we, we would, like I told a story, we were rehearsing a scene, the scene, you know, the scene where she says, Miss Lepalt should not be having babies, write that down. Well I had written this kind of long monologue that she explains all that to Skeeter.

[00:15:53]
And we rehearsed it. And we finished and I looked at her and she looked at me and said, come here. She goes, it’s too much. I think you’re right. Said, what if you just cut all that out. And say this. And that’s what shows you what a brilliant actress she is, to have an actress cut out [LAUGHS] [OVERLAPS] a big speech.

KS : Yeah, but that speaks to you that you’d be so flexible on your screenplay.

TT : But you have to be.

KS : You’re a writer and director.

TT : Yeah, well no movie is ever gonna be worth its weight if everybody does not collaborate, there’s no bad ideas, I mean, there may be, but a good one’s gonna come out of it.

Q : Talk about using Octavia.

[00:16:37]
TT : Well it never, it never came down to having to use that, no, this whole movie, there’s never anything, never a moment where like, no, no, uh–.

KS : I mean, we put, he put our moms in there. My daughter plays young Skeeter with Cicely Tyson. Uh, Octavia, I mean, everybody [LAUGHS] everybody we know and love’s in the movie.

TT : But I said, I told Chris Columbus, way back, I said, Allison Janney and Octavia are in the movie, period. And he went, great. And then of course Octavia had to audition, ‘cause no one knew who she was. And I said, Octavia, you gotta audition, she’s like, oh gosh, and she did. And I showed her to DreamWorks and they went, done. So that’s–.