Sacha Baron Cohen Breaks Down 'The Trial of the Chicago 7' with Aaron Sorkin | Vanity Fair

hello my name is sasha baron cohen and i'm aaron sorkin and this is notes on a scene for the trial of the chicago seven do you know why you're on trial here we carried certain ideas across state lines not machine guns or drugs or little girls ideas i first heard about the trial of the chicago seven when i was a student at the age of 20 and i came across this incredible character abby hoffman cut to 13 years ago and i hear that steven spielberg is making a movie about the trial and it's written by the very brilliant aaron silkin cheekily i call up steven spielberg introduce myself i just done a movie called bull rant i said i want to audition it was after i think my first or second draft of what would end up being 32 that sasha was cast aaron had written the screenplay and unfortunately for a variety of reasons including the tragic death of two of the cast members the movie ended up not happening at that time heath ledger and philip seymour hoffman uh had both been cast originally stephen became the producer he wanted someone else to direct it it went through the hands of a number of directors over a decade went by donald trump was elected and stephen thought the time to make this movie was now by then i had directed for the first time i directed molly's game and stephen thought i should direct chicago seven sasha found out that the movie was happening got in touch with me and let me know that the part was still his he hadn't given it up i was thrilled i jumped for joy when we crossed from new york to new jersey to pennsylvania to ohio to illinois we had certain ideas and for that we were gassed beaten arrested and put on trial this is the moment where abby takes the stand he is chosen out of the chicago seven or eight including bobby seal to be the representative of the group and it's incredibly surprising because he is seen as a clown as a fool as a prankster but over the course of the trial they realize he may well be the smartest man in the room the most important thing about every element of this scene with simplicity finally after all the fireworks uh of the film it needed to be very simple with the least simple of the chicago seven we had a discussion early on with the costume department where i said i'd really like to wear some of the outfits that abby chose because he actually chose he's very purposeful and very aware of the camera this is the one of the more simple ones and then there's the hair the hair i felt that there was a specific choice without something that i read in his autobiography where he actually grew his hair to that length for political reasons he knew that he could get you know what were referred to as hippies to join the movement in droves if he looked like them i let all the actors know they were not required to do a physical or vocal impersonation of the people that they were playing the one exception was going to be abby who has an iconic look he has an iconic dialect it's it's not quite a boston accent it's not quite a brooklyn accent it's an abby hoffman uh dialect i really wanted to be able in order to inhabit abby to really master the accent and so i was lucky enough to work with the greatest dialect coach in history tim monik and we basically compiled a list of audio recordings of abby to listen to how his voice changed in between setups really i was really just listening to various speeches that were nothing to do with this by abby hoffman to get the rhythm kind of feel him you know feel the the vibe of abby hoffman my recollection was that you had earbuds in right until the moment you know you started hearing you know okay cameras up sound speed speeding it was interesting that shot beforehand we did a a number of different camera setups i did one version where i'm looking that way the jury are over here so i did a bunch of takes where i was looking that way while i'm looking at ryland or here is jerry ruby and the rest of chicago seven then when i'm looking here we're looking at frank langella we didn't have much time to make this and so i felt part of my job was to give aaron options in the edit ordinarily take after take the director is sitting next to the script supervisor and you'll say circle that one or it's takes two five and six those are the ones that you want the editor to work with when we got done shooting this scene i just said circle the whole thing in 1861 lincoln said in his inaugural address when the people should grow weary of their constitutional right to amend their government they shall exert their revolutionary right to dismember and overthrow that government and if lincoln had given that speech in lincoln park last summer he'd be put on trial with the rest of us that's a brilliant bit of writing by aaron they're fantastic they're accused of being unpatriotic and he basically makes clear that lincoln himself would be put in jail for doing what they did i hate saying this after sasha just gave me uh such a nice compliment i can really only take credit for being a good editor everything that adam says on this on the stand it's not stuff that he said on the stand it's stuff that he said that i turned into testimony so how do you overthrow or dismember as you say your government peacefully in this country we do it every four years women that's is that your line aaron that's me that's a great line and barely that little pan going from mark rylance over just gordon levitt is actually simpler than a cut i'm going to draw a pan that's a bit difficult here we have moved that way we have here joseph gordon-levitt mark rylance is heading over there and these are the extras who are actually incredible i've got to say they loved the movie they loved listening to it and it they simon's reacted you'd do a take and they would you'd see whether it was good or not afterwards they for sasha erupted into applause time and time again it was really it was something by the way these are props this table is a visual effect what wasn't really there we had the star wars visual effects team create that one this one was real but this leg this leg is created and taken from lincoln so chicago was just a massive voter registration drive yeah the lights beautiful fade and papa michael our dp 50 60 percent of the film we're in that courtroom fade and papa michael found ways to change the lighting conditions depending on what time of day it was depending on that the trial went from september to february one of the pieces of advice that stephen uh gave me was make sure there are windows in the courtroom because he knew we were going to need to change lighting conditions the other thing was i wanted the courtroom to feel big cavernous and oppressive so you really felt you know the weight of the government coming down on these guys i wanted to have a certain sound to kind of cathedral uh sound and if we're saying the whole world is watching it should feel like the whole world is watching there there should be a hundred people out there shane valentino our production designer built us this courtroom inside of an abandoned church in patterson new jersey did you hear the tape we played in court and tom hayden at the band show yes you heard the tape yes did you hear mr hayden give an instruction to his people to take to the streets his people hayden's not a mafia donna neither am i did you hear him say if blood is gonna flow let it flow all over the city we haven't talked about frank langella who's obviously there who was wonderful an incredible support throughout this scene we did the first take and he took me aside and he said this is beautiful i mean frank langella basically you know helped teach me how to act between the camera setups it was a frank langella school of actor had our first meeting he had said listen would it be okay with you uh if i didn't joke around with the others if i came to the set a minute later if i came in through a different door he wanted them to experience him only as this judge this 80 year old incredibly famous actor uh coming in to scare them to death and at the end of the first day he waved me over and said those guys look like they're having a really good time over there remember what i said forget it no he still scared the hell out of all of us the beginning of that sentence was supposed to be yes yes i did here in this scene i know when schultz comes brilliantly played by joseph gordon ever that this is the boxing match now we're similar ages and we're we're representing almost two sides of america him the establishment me the anti-establishment i say me i mean abby what'd you think of that i think tom hayden is a badass if an american patriot abby has just said i think tom hayden is a badass of an american patriot it's the first nice thing he has said about and to tom hayden uh in the entire film and it's the greatest thing that you know tom could hear from abby so here we go to a reaction shot of tom this means that there was an entire camera set up where sasha is off camera is that you that's an oscar yes eddie owns an academy award it wouldn't be uncommon for either sasha already to say can i just get one more they think they can do it better they think they could do something different eddie asked for another we're just getting a reaction shot from him now this is it and it takes the entirety of the scene to get this we don't just roll camera for four seconds uh and say you know eddie make a face we do the entire scene except this time the camera is on eddie and sasha is 20 feet uh behind the camera by the way look at that it's the uh it's the face of a little boy who realizes that his brother loves him very well drawn there this is the relationship of two brothers i didn't know that when we started shooting the movie and eddie redmayne said to me before we did the scene he goes yeah this is where you know the two brothers are fighting i got what brothers he goes abby and tom you know aaron always said this is a movie about the relationship between two brothers right there's is sibling rivalry and i go when did he tell you that he goes you know from the beginning the day you hired me i go aaron never told me that i just forgot i swear to god i just forgot i didn't ask what you thought of the man i asked what you thought of his instruction of the crowd i've also heard tom hayden say let's end the war but nobody stops shooting the way um i learned the accent i would write it out the way it sounded essentially so war was w a h uh let's end the war one of the things he sacrificed with uh a tight budget is rehearsal time but by the time we got here we had shot a lot in the courtroom and people simply knew how to do it you start with the master the master is the widest longest possible shot you can do of the scene once you get in the editing room you're hardly ever going to be uh in the master in fact i haven't been able to find a moment in this scene when we were in the master and then you're slowly moving in closer and closer so that by the time we're doing the setups that are going to count they have done it 40 times do you have just seen his best friend get hit in the head with the night stick the police mr schultz there right there another set up a whole another time several times that sasha is doing the scene but not on camera we're going for this three shot i'm sure that there's coverage of all seven i'm sure there's coverage of the two lawyers in other words a lot of the shooting day is spent on coverage i know that this feels like a scene that's just between sasha and uh and joe but you have to include everybody you have to include the defendants and the lawyers both the prosecution and the defense you have to include the jury and the judge and you have to include everyone sitting in the gallery it takes hours and hours of film to create a five-minute scene do you have contempt for your government do i yeah do you have contempt for your government i think the institutions of our democracy are wonderful things that right now are populated by some terrible people that line was that written yes that's the thing that line was written before donald trump really never did i make a change in the script to be as a reaction to something that was going on in the world that was the only line i was tempted to take out just because it sounded so much uh like i had written it as a reaction to donald trump and the whole maga uh gang but then i just said stick to your guns i was thinking about donald trump when i delivered that do you have contempt for your government i'll tell you mr shorts it's nothing compared to the content my government has for me it's one of my favorite moments in the film right there we've heard testimony from 27 witnesses under oath that say you hoped for a confrontation with the police that your plans for the convention were designed specifically to draw the police into a confrontation well if i'd known it was going to be the first wish of mine that came true i would have aimed a lot higher again these colossus were put on in post they were not there was a feeling that joseph gordon levitt was not commanding enough to look too young and boyish glasses were put on by three-time oscar winner rob legardo in post joseph gordon letter comes to play every day if you look at the reflection here you'll see one of the ewoks from star wars because that they had to steal their glasses russia is making that up eddie redmayne is cgi here actually circle alex sharp for a second you can't really see it in this we'd have to get closer my only concern about casting alex was that i thought if you put joseph gordon levitt in a time machine and sent him back 10 years he would look exactly like alex sharp it's a yes or no question when you came to chicago were you hoping for a confrontation with the police i'm concerned you have to think about it give me a moment with your friend i've never been on trial for my thoughts before six different camera setups in the last 15 seconds of that scene and i would say there are about a hundred ways to play that moment badly sasha didn't you know avoided all of them by just not pressing by keeping it simple and when i say simple i mean simple but i also mean honest it's a wonderful experience on set and you completely trust aaron as a director when he says you've got the scene because you know if you please darren salkin you've done a great job what a nice thing to say yeah i just read it it's on the promoter right next

Channel: Vanity Fair

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Keywords: aaron sorkin, abbie hoffman, chicago 7, chicago seven, court scene, noas, notes on a scene, notes on a scene vanity fair, sacha baron, sacha baron cohen, sacha baron cohen abbie hoffman, sacha baron cohen breaks down, sacha baron cohen chicago 7, sacha baron cohen trial of chicago 7, scene breakdown, the trial of the chicago 7, the trial of the chicago 7 explained, trial of the chicago 7, trial of the chicago 7 explained, vanity fair, vanity fair notes on a scene

Id: CQI6OKQQvy0

Length: 16min 29sec (989 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 14 2021