Q&A: Getting Under Darwin's Skin

NATURE|Vol 457|26 February 2009 OPINION

Movies for a Q&A: Getting under Darwin’s skin scientific mind Charles Darwin’s relationship with his wife Emma is the subject of the film Creation. Actor Paul Bettany It will be a good year for films about science, describes portraying Darwin’s turmoil over his judging from the screenings at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, held in Park City, Utah, last month. daughter’s death and religious conflict with his wife. Aside from environmental documentaries, some of the more intriguing films on offer examined the Was it difficult playing such human mind. a famous man? The documentary Boy Interrupted chronicled It was a real honour and the life of a teen with bipolar disorder who jumped horribly frightening in to his death after his parents took him off lithium, equal measure. Often when and Over the Hills and Far Away followed a couple I prepare I must scratch scouring Mongolia for a shaman to cure their son’s around for research, but with autism. Two fiction films, starring Kevin Spacey and Darwin there is almost too Chazz Palminteri, told the stories of psychiatrists much material. He was such FILM DISTRIBUTION L. DANIEL/ICON negotiating their own mental breakdowns. a prolific writer and there has Some of the best films got inside the twisted been so much written about minds of fighters. Bronson made theatre of the him that no matter how much Paul Bettany as Charles psychopathic exploits of a British prisoner, and the I read, I felt that I hadn’t done Darwin in Creation. documentary Tyson wove the musings of the boxer enough. into a portrait of an exquisitely vulnerable man. Not all films reached this standard. Brief Interviews Did your experience of playing the ship’s there is a temptation to look at or touch with Hideous Men, about a female anthropologist surgeon in the 2003 film Master and each other more, whereas there is an studying how men view sex, did not retain the Commander help you? absent-minded closeness between Jennifer cranky charm of David Foster Wallace’s novel. I found it really useful having spent time and I in the movie. Adam, in which a schoolteacher falls for a young in the Galapagos Islands making that engineer with Asperger’s syndrome, was stiff and earlier movie. I was able to draw on a How did you handle the conflict between preachy. Yet it won the Alfred P. Sloan prize for real place in my memory. Creation is set Darwin’s agnosticism and his wife’s films depicting scientists. during the writing of On the Origin of strong Christian beliefs? “For a screenwriter it’s always so much easier to Species 20 years after Darwin returned Darwin was a social conservative who tell a story about the perils of science than about from the Galapagos. The film is about his had a revolutionary idea, and it was very incremental progress,” said Jeffrey Nachmanoff, procrastination and the reasons for it — difficult for him. He couldn’t help seeing who co-wrote the 2004 global-warming thriller The his inability to write, it making him sick, how the idea fitted like a glove everywhere Day After Tomorrow and who served on the Sloan the death of his daughter, the effect that he looked, in the indifferent cruelty of prize jury. The festival was remarkably free of such had on his relationship with his wife, and nature. When their child died, he went sensationalism. their different means of dealing with it. to science and she went to religion. And An unusually strong presence of science the thing that he was working on was fiction included a coincidental pairing of movies Scientists are often portrayed as being potentially going to take her solace away. So about astronauts encountering their own cloned emotionless, so how did you draw out it is incredibly moving and dynamic to play. replacements. Although the Japanese The his intense grief following his daughter Clone Returns Home was rather slow, its British Annie’s death? How did they convey their feelings? counterpart, Moon, directed by David Bowie’s People say he looked at his children like Charles and Emma had a fantastic system son Duncan Jones and starring Sam Rockwell and they were projects. But I think that this of writing. They were in the same house but Kevin Spacey, was more entertaining. If one accepts was a sign of the utmost love and respect. would write each other letters to discuss their premise — that doctors will eventually be able Science was his life. So of course he was things. They were brutally honest with each to duplicate not just bodies but minds — these films going to involve his family. For him, science other about their feelings. Even so, Annie’s raise questions about medical ethics and the origins was an act of love, and study was an act death was very difficult for them to discuss. of identity. of love. I don’t think that science is a dry, One astrophysicist expressed frustration that dusty thing for scientists. Any plans to play him again? none of the 118 films at Sundance depicted an I would love to play the old Darwin, simply ordinary scientist at work, but not all agree. “I don’t Was it easy playing opposite your wife, to be able to say I’ve had the biggest beard make such a distinction between pure science and Jennifer Connelly, as Emma Darwin? in cinematic history. ■ science fiction,” replied John Underkoffler, science We got a lot for free in terms of the Interview by Adam Rutherford, Nature’s adviser on the films Minority Report and Iron Man. physicality that real married people have podcast and video editor. “At their best films convey ideas, and the guise isn’t with each other. When you are trying so important.” ■ to produce a relationship on screen that Listen to the full interview on the Nature podcast Jascha Hoffman is a writer based in New York. doesn’t actually exist between the actors, at www.nature.com/nature/podcast/index.html.