Jerry Bruckheimer Interview, Déjà Vu

It’s not often that a screenplay arrives in leading producer Jerry Bruckheimer’s office and is purchased within a matter of hours – but "Déjà Vu," written by Terry Rossio and Bill Marsilii, was an exception to the rule. Bruckheimer, who has become a brand unto himself with a roster of films that span many of the most popular and influential films of the last two decades felt right away that the script was something special.

Screenwriter Rossio (along with another partner Ted Elliot) had already written the wildly entertaining and phenomenally successful "Pirates of the Caribbean" series for Bruckheimer, as well as such runaway hits as "Aladdin," "Shrek," and "Zorro," among others. But with "Déjà Vu" he and newcomer Bill Marsilii had ventured into fresh territory – taking a sleek modern thriller and poignant romance out on the edges of modern physics’ understanding of time.

Recalls Bruckheimer, "The concept of "Déjà Vu" was completely original, a real page-turner, and different from any other love story I had ever read. We were fortunate enough to be the first ones to get a peek at it, so we bought the screenplay within forty-eight hours of receiving it."

Movies Online recently sat down with Jerry Bruckheimer at the Los Angeles Press Day for his latest film, "Déjà Vu," directed by Tony Scott and starring Denzel Washington, Paula Patton, Val Kilmer, Jim Caviezel, and Adam Goldberg. Mr. Bruckheimer is a sensational producer and we really appreciated his time. Here’s what he had to tell us:

JB: What did he say? How true…what did he feel?

JB: Well, it wasn’t about him. It was about what he wrote and when you write something as good as what he did, him and Terry (Rossio), it’s unique to get such good material out of a first-time produced screenwriter. And it was just a unique idea. It was one of those scripts you read and you can’t put it down. It was a real page burner. So, I’m sure you saw the audience last night, they were riveted to it and that’s the same way I felt when I read it.

JB: It doesn’t matter to me. It’s all about the material. When I read it, I didn’t realize he hadn’t written anything before nor did I care. It’s all about what you read.

JB: Well his partner was somebody that I had worked with and had done two movies with so…

JB: Sure. But it’s the quality of the material that is always the way. You know, good material rises to the top. You’ll get an agent or you’ll get somebody to read it and say, ‘Wow, he’s read a great screenplay’ and it gets to us.

JB: Yeah, we have kind of a film family and a television family that we keep going back to because they’re really good. If they’re not good, they don’t last long, but when they’re really good, you want to keep them around and this group was really good.

JB: I think the city services were stretched. The police, fire, medical. They treated us very well. We got everything done we needed to get done. As an example, and this is minor, but in the hotels there was no room service which is no big deal. But it’s things like that because they lost a lot of their workers because there was no housing so it was very difficult for people to live in New Orleans during the period of time that we were there.

JB: I always wanted to go to New Orleans and wanted Tony to be there because I love the city, I’ve worked there in the past, and it’s just such a unique American city. And there’s a misnomer about New Orleans because it’s not… The city itself is functioning. The Quarter you’d never know anything happened. Even though you walk around the city and there’s construction going on, but every major city has construction going on. It’s not like a war zone in the major part of New Orleans. In the Garden District you see roofs and you see blue tarps over places. But when you get to the Ninth Ward, it’s total devastation for ten miles. So that’s the area that got hit the worst. And people should go back there and the media should talk about how the city is trying to put it together again.

JB: Quite a bit.

JB: And that’s why Denzel really wanted to go back there. I mean he was the one, other than Tony, who was very passionate about going back only for social reasons and commitment to the people of New Orleans. He wanted to make sure that we came back and tried to help them and support them.

JB: Well when I first read the script, I had a problem with it, but we hired the physicist to come in and explain it to me and once he explained it to me and we added it into the movie, then it became much easier for me. We put all the dialogue in there that he talked about like cell phones. I don’t know how a cell phone gets a signal. I don’t understand how that happens, but it does. I don’t know how a remote control works, but it works. There are waves shooting back and forth all the time that we can’t see. And that’s what they created. They created this link to the past and you couldn’t see.

JB: Right.

JB: It’s having great people around you. It really is. It’s finding good people, keeping good people, and relying on them to do it and not meddling in what they do. I’m not as involved in television as I am in films. I just can’t be, but we have great people doing it. I don’t go sit on the set or do their casting for their episodic television but we have fabulous showrunners. I still read everything. I watch everything and I give them notes, but I can’t be there. Movies are different, you know. I have to be there because there’s so much money being spent in a very concentrated period of time but you’ve got to hang around.

JB: Being able to delegate but the secret is finding good people. That’s the truth. It’s knowing who’s talented and who’s not.

JB: By the work. You can tell by the work. You can always tell by the work. Work tells you everything. A lot of guys can talk. People can talk a good game but can’t deliver. You’ll find out a lot of people can’t say anything and you think they don’t know what they’re doing yet you look at the work and say, ‘It’s brilliant.’

JB: That’s a Disney question. They can tell you. It’s their money and they’ll talk about it.

JB: Our casting people brought her in and she gave a fabulous reading to be honest with you. Tony worked with her some more and even got her better and then we brought in Denzel to work with her and we put her on tape and she sold everybody and she was in competition with some big actresses.

JB: Yeah, but she’s so beautiful. She’s a beautiful girl and she’s so hard working and appreciative of everything that’s going on. She was really a pleasure to work with and so excited to be there

JB: No interest. I just want to keep doing drama – any kind of drama – whether it’s a comedy or whatever it is.

JB: I think eventually the network will do a movie. You know I think they will which is fine. It could be real interesting.

JB: If they want to work on it, they should do it. You know they’re really good. I’ll come in and help them because it’s a different medium. It’s a much different medium.

JB: Sure. Sure.

JB: I don’t. My staff does. They do. The better ones filter up.

JB: It’s always the same. It’s like anything else. There are a lot of people who can write but very few people can write really, really well and unique. And anybody who’s written an essay in school thinks they’re a writer and you know, it’s not that easy. If you look at Hollywood and you go back in time to when the studios said, ‘Oh, we’re going to bring in all these journalists and we’re going to bring in all these playwrights to write movies. Very few of them made it. A novelist – and they went to a novelist to write screenplays. Very few could do it. Yet they could write brilliant novels and the journalists were brilliant journalists – you know, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists – but when it came to writing a screenplay, it just didn’t work. Mankowitz was one of the ones who made it and a few others made it but the rest of them didn’t.

JB: We have Chow Yung-Fat which is really interesting and exciting. It’s a thrill to be able to work with him. We’ve got … there’s always new stuff. We’ve got an ending that’s amazing. So it’s really a nice ride and it’s still filming.

JB: He’s in it. We finished him. He’s filmed. He’s got a small little cameo.

JB: Apparently. (laughter) He was great to be with. He didn’t want to leave. He was having the best time.

JB: I hope so. I hope so if we could come up with a good story. I think we have a big jump on a story that we’re going to do.

JB: Yeah, we hope so. We hope so. Thanks everybody. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks for coming.

"Déjà Vu" opens in theater on November 22 and be sure to also read our Interview with Denzel Washington on Deja Vu If you like you can also watch a half dozen extended clips from Deja Vu