FILM FESTIVAL-VENICE/BLACK MASS JUNKET 'Whitey' Bulger not a one-dimensional villain, says Black Mass director

Record ID: 141242

  • Title: FILM FESTIVAL-VENICE/BLACK MASS JUNKET 'Whitey' Bulger not a one-dimensional villain, says Black Mass director
  • Date: 4th September 2015
  • Summary: VENICE ITALY (SEPTEMBER 3, 2015) (REUTERS) SOUNDBITE (English) JOEL EDGERTON, ACTOR PLAYING FBI AGENT JOHN CONNOLLY, SAYING: "It wasn't so much a question of getting people to open up, it was a question of getting people to shut up. Because they came out of everywhere. Everybody knew somebody who knew something, or there was a guy who said 'My dad used to sell cars to Whitey Bulger'. It's just such a small world that everybody still has a connection to what happened in that period. Kevin Wiggs was running around. John Mannorano was around the corner having a drink from me at one point. You know, everybody was close. And it was like, even though twenty something or thirty something years have passed it seemed as no real time had passed at all"
  • Embargoed: 19th September 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA59A9RCDYNX00EEOCCZBGEZI07
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Having gained critical clam for "Crazy Heart" and "Out of the Furnace", director Scott Cooper takes on the challenge of bringing a more holistic view of one of America's most notorious gangsters, James "Whitey" Bulger in the film "Black Mass".
    Speaking ahead of the film's World premiere in Venice, Cooper told Reuters he "didn't want to see 'Whitey' Bulger as just a one dimensional villain that is too easy; I knew there was a much complex man lurking underneath that. But I did that in a way that I thought, and I hoped, would be humanistic and would perhaps separate it from other films in which gangsters are glamorised and romanticised. Because the victims and their families are always on the forefront of my mind as they were in Johnny's and we bore a lot of responsibility to get that right."
    Cooper said about Depp that his "biggest transformation, apart from his physical transformation, was his deep, wrench interior transformation because Johnny Depp is a very soulful man, a very kind and gentle man, and to see him transformed into a psychopathic monster was a sight to behold."
    Speaking at a press conference before the screening, Depp said he did not have to dig deep to tap into his evil side for his character. "I found the evil in myself a long time ago and I've accepted it and we're old friends," Depp said when asked how he had transformed himself from the whimsical Captain Jack Sparrow of "Pirates of the Caribbean" into the Boston gangster.
    Bulger, 86, who was captured in California in 2011 after 16 years on the run, is serving two life terms in prison for ordering or committing 11 murders during the 1970s and 80s.
    Side by side with Depp is Australian actor Joel Edgerton. Edgerton plays FBI agent John Connolly, a south Boston local who grew up with Bulger and agrees to make him an informant for the Bureau in exchange of information on the Italian Mob. But as the plot thickens, Edgerton's character gets increasing entangled with corruption.
    In the process of shooting the film, Edgerton made contact with south Boston locals, and said it was easy to get insight on the story, because "everybody knew somebody who knew something, or there was a guy who said 'My dad used to sell cars to Whitey Bulger'. It's just such a small world that everybody still has a connection to what happened in that period".
    Depp, who lost Sparrow's shaggy mane and used blue contacts to disguise his dark eyes for the part, said that although Bulger had declined his request to him for his portrayal, he had worked on the assumption that the convict did not see himself as fundamentally bad. "I think within the context of his business ... not only was the violence just a part of the job, let's say, but it was also kind of a language that the people that he associated with and the people that he opposed ... understood."
    Depp's presence in Venice was greeted with perhaps the biggest fan excitement of the festival so far, with hundreds of people flocking to the Lido to see him from about 6 a.m.
    Depp said he did not see his admirers as fans but rather as the people who finance his movies.
    These people are my boss. They keep me employed, you know? They're the boss. And they're wonderful. Very, very wonderful supporters."
    "Black Mass", in which Depp as the criminal turned FBI informant Bulger, is screening in the out-of-competition line-up at the 72nd edition of the world's oldest film festival.
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