Presents JACK GOES BOATING Production Notes Los Angeles Adam Keen Kristin Cotich Senior Vice President, Worldwide Publicity Vice President, National & Corporate Publicity Direct (424)204-4144 Direct (424)204-4145 [email protected] [email protected] Wendy Merry Jamie Denenberg Vice President, Field Publicity & Promotions Director, Creative Content & Materials Direct (424)204-4150 Direct (424)204-4146 [email protected] [email protected] Rebecca Klein Katie Webb Publicist, National & Genre Publicity Assistant, Field Publicity & Promotions Direct (424)204-4149 Direct (424)204-4071 [email protected] [email protected] Troy Troutner Assistant, Worldwide Publicity Direct (424) 204-4148 [email protected] New York Ella Robinson Erin Lowrey Director, National Publicity Manager, Field Publicity & Promotions Direct (212)905-4244 Direct (212)905-4251 [email protected] [email protected] Joe Smithey Joe Kern Publicist, National & Online Publicity Junior Publicist, National Publicity Direct (212)905-4218 Direct (212)905-4211 [email protected] [email protected] 1 JACK GOES BOATING SYNOPSIS Jack Goes Boating is a tale of love, betrayal, friendship and grace centered around two working-class New York City couples. The film stars John Ortiz (American Gangster), Daphne Rubin-Vega (Broadway’s “Rent”), Amy Ryan (Gone Baby Gone) and Philip Seymour Hoffman (Capote), with Hoffman making his feature directorial debut. Bob Glaudini (“A View From 151st Street”) adapted his acclaimed Off Broadway play for the screen. Jack (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Connie (Amy Ryan) are two single people who on their own might continue to recede into the anonymous background of the city, but in each other begin to find the courage and desire to pursue their budding relationship. In contrast, the couple that introduced them, Clyde (John Ortiz) and Lucy (Daphne Rubin-Vega), are confronting unresolved issues in their marriage. Jack is a limo driver with vague dreams of landing a job with the MTA and an obsession with reggae that has prompted him to begin a half-hearted attempt at growing dreadlocks. He spends most of his time hanging out with his best friend and fellow driver Clyde and Clyde’s wife Lucy. The couple set Jack up with Connie, Lucy’s co-worker at a Brooklyn funeral home. Being with Connie inspires Jack to learn to cook, pursue a new career and take swimming lessons from Clyde so he can give Connie the romantic boat ride she dreams of. But as Jack and Connie cautiously circle commitment, Clyde and Lucy’s marriage begins to disintegrate. From there, we watch as each couple comes face to face with the inevitable path of their relationship. Jack Goes Boating was co-financed by Overture Films and Big Beach (Little Miss Sunshine, Sunshine Cleaning), with Peter Saraf and Marc Turtletaub of Big Beach producing; Beth O’Neil of Olfactory Productions producing; Philip Seymour Hoffman executive producing and Emily Ziff producing through their company Cooper’s Town Productions (Capote). John Ortiz is an executive producer and George Paaswell (Notorious) co-produces. Sara Murphy of Cooper’s Town is an associate producer. Director of photography is Mott Hupfel (The Savages). Editor is Brian A. Kates (Nights in 2 Rodanthe). Production designer is Thérèse Deprez (Phoebe In Wonderland). Art director is Matteo de Cosmo (Push: Based on the Novel by Sapphire). Costume designer is Mimi O’Donnell. The stage version of Jack Goes Boating was originally produced by LAByrinth Theater Company in New York City, where Hoffman and Ortiz were co-artistic directors for over ten years. 3 FROM PAGE TO SCREEN Jack Goes Boating began its life as a play produced by LAByrinth Theater Company. The creative home of former co-artistic directors Philip Seymour Hoffman and John Ortiz, the group includes some of New York’s most respected theater artists. Written by LAByrinth company member Bob Glaudini and directed by Peter DuBois (current artistic director of the Huntington Theatre Company), the play started with a critically and commercially acclaimed Off Broadway production starring Hoffman, Ortiz, Rubin-Vega and Beth Cole. Glaudini says the idea for the story originated in what he calls a personal catastrophe. “At first, it was about a relationship between two of the characters that was one of the most hateful, ugly, awful things I could imagine,” he says. “Fortunately, as I wrote, the characters wouldn’t let me do that. But one of the themes that has remained throughout is that even if you are able to forgive a betrayal, you may still not be able to reconcile it.” The playwright asked his colleagues at LAByrinth to take a look at his script. “I remember thinking it must be special because he had this sparkle in his eye,” says John Ortiz. “We workshopped it at the Summer Intensive, a retreat the company does every year. Everybody flipped over it and we decided to mount it as a production. All the stars were aligned in a perfect way.” Even before the production opened, producer Beth O’Neil saw the play’s potential to become a feature film. “I read it in 2005 just after I produced another play by Bob Glaudini called ‘The Claiming Race,’” she remembers. “When he told me he had a new play, of course I wanted to read it. It was amazing. I would describe it as an unconventional romantic comedy about ordinary working-class New Yorkers, people we don’t usually get to see in films or plays. The characters were so vibrant.” O’Neil urged Glaudini to adapt his work for the screen and took an early draft of the play’s script to Peter Saraf of Big Beach Films, believing that its quirky sensibility and emotional resonance would appeal to the producer of Little Miss Sunshine and Away We Go. After reading the first draft of Bob’s screenplay, Saraf had the opportunity to see LAByrinth’s production of the play and this further ignited Saraf’s interest in the project. “Big Beach likes to make movies that get to the heart of the human experience,” says Saraf. “We like movies that are entertaining, but that are really about the ways in which people connect.” 4 Producer Marc Turtletaub adds, “Jack Goes Boating is an unusual love story in that it’s about three couples: a marriage that is reaching its end, a new romance that is blossoming and also the friendship between the two male characters in the film, Clyde and Jack, and what it means to them. The writing was already incredibly cinematic and it was easy to see how it could be opened up.” O’Neil, Ortiz, Glaudini, Hoffman and Hoffman’s business partner Emily Ziff met with Saraf and his partners, and Bob and Phil agreed to begin the hard work of creating a film from the play, with Hoffman signing on to direct his first feature film. Involving LAByrinth in the workshopping of the screenplay was a natural and productive step in the development process. O’Neil recalls, “They workshopped the screenplay two years in a row at LAB’s Summer Intensive in Vermont.” For Glaudini, returning to the script provided a new kind of satisfaction. “I got to revisit the work,” he says. “The experience of the play was overwhelmingly positive, but re-imagining it as a film gave me an opportunity to sharpen and focus it even more.” Working with notes from the producers, Glaudini reshaped the original material into his first screenplay. “I was fortunate enough to work alongside Phil while I was doing it,” he says. “As the director, he processed the notes in ways that worked for him, and we continued the draft based on that. I don’t think writers often have the opportunity to shape the scenario with the person who is forming the artistic vision for the film. It was a kind of a rare collaboration.” “Bob is an incredibly adept and collaborative writer who is very good at thinking in different mediums,” says Saraf. “It was a natural choice to have Bob write the screenplay,” agrees Ziff. “Who better to see this through? The characters and story began with him, and he knows it all better than anyone. I can’t imagine how anybody else could have realized it so fully as a film.” Jack Goes Boating is Philip Seymour Hoffman’s first foray into feature film directing, but he is an accomplished stage director and brought those skills to the project. “Phil did something I’ve never experienced on a film,” says Saraf. “He had a very long rehearsal process, not just with the actors, but with the director of photography, the script supervisor and the first assistant director. They not only worked on the performances and the script before they got to set, they also worked on the blocking and where the camera would be. The core team arrived incredibly well prepared and aware of what the task ahead would be.” 5 Hoffman had been interested in directing a film for some time, but taking on the dual roles of actor and director proved daunting. “As a director, I had to be available to the other people,” he says. “As an actor, it’s a small movie with four main characters. In a lot of scenes, there are just two actors, so you’re half the acting. That was tricky. No one should be thinking about themselves that much through any given day. It’s just not healthy.” Fortunately, says Hoffman, he had plenty of help from his co-creators. “Our producers Peter Saraf and George Paaswell were on the set to provide support the whole way,” he says.