00:00 Well, we had worked on the script for so long and we felt that we had exhausted every possibility
00:09 of making it through the point of view of the Bureau of Investigation.
00:15 I'm talking about two and a half years of work on the script while we were doing other
00:18 films.
00:19 And myself and Leo came to the decision that the real heart of the story was through Molly,
00:25 through Molly Burkhart.
00:27 And that means he shouldn't play Tom White, he should play Ernest.
00:33 So we revised the entire script and that took actually all the way through during shooting.
00:38 I must say, having worked with Leo and Bob so often, both of them surprised me.
00:45 I'm not being politic about it.
00:47 They slipped into a way of behaving that most people, good friends of ours who know Bob
00:55 very well when they saw the movie, didn't realize it was De Niro until 45 minutes into
01:00 the film.
01:01 Leo, I saw, take his performance, take that character and play every element, every variation
01:09 you could think of in that character that a human being could come up with within the
01:16 context of the story.
01:18 And so for me, it was extraordinary for both of them.
01:21 Well, I think it's, first of all, I'm always for the big screen.
01:27 And secondly, that in a way, the story was meant to be seen by people in a theater, an
01:32 audience, and also a way of rethinking about who we are as a nation and who we are as human
01:39 beings, you know.
01:41 And so it's always important, I think, to try to deal with aspects of the truth as maybe
01:48 as unpleasant as they may be.
01:50 Because they're unpleasant doesn't mean they're going to go away.
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