Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/891583
I was deep into phone conversations and pre-negotiations about replacing the designer on a remake of a 1980s classic when, at the eleventh hour, my agent sent the script for Mudbound, which was to be directed by Dee Rees. I wasn't particularly interested in focusing my attention on a competing offer, especially for a smaller film. My agent encouraged me to give Mudbound a look. Based on the bestselling novel by Hillary Jordan, the screenplay was written by Dee and Virgil Williams. I was immediately captured by the script: Two WWII soldiers, one white (Jamie McAllan, played by Garrett Hedlund), one black (Ronsel Jackson, played by Jason Mitchell), return home in 1946 to a farm in the Mississippi Delta. The black soldier's family, tenant farmers, had a plot within the larger farm owned by the white soldier's family. The movie would be told through the eyes and voices of seven characters with varied perceptions of the same world. There was something in each of these voices that I had experienced, so the script deeply resonated with me. From the beginning, I knew I would have limited resources. The line producer called to say there would be very little money and very little time to get the movie up and running. I was told Dee had already seen the locations and that, if interested, I would begin my prep in two weeks. So— very little time and very little money—neither mattered, I was hooked. I passed on the remake to throw myself into Mudbound. B C D E