On Tuesday evening David O. Russell took the stage for a Q& A session at the Paris Theater in New York following an awards screening of "Silver Linings Playbook."
During the course of the session, Russell addressed the film's awards buzz, the casting process, and his own directing style and voice. When asked about the film being in the Oscar race and whether he was conscious of its potential when making it Russell answered that "It's hard to make a good movie... I don't know that there's any category that's separate between an awards thing and a non-awards thing." He added that his main goal is to make a good film and he doesn't "think about that other stuff." Interestingly enough, Russell did name a few movies that he thought were among the top of the year. "Argo's a good movie; Zero Dark Thirty is a very good movie," he noted. Both films have won the majority of early awards precursors. Russell's film was thought an early Oscar contender when it took home the top prize at the Toronto International Film Festival, but it has lost some steam since despite taking home two best picture precursors in the last week.
Regarding the casting process, Russell noted that he had a choice of every young woman in Hollywood for the character of Tiffany, now played by Jennifer Lawrence. When he originally wrote the script five years ago, he had the intention of casting Vince Vaughn and Zoey Deschanel and even mentioned that there was also a Mark Wahlberg-Angelina Jolie combination at one point. However, he noted that Jennifer Lawrence came on board through a Skype audition and her complete involvement during the audition swayed him.
Regarding protagonist Bradley Cooper, Russell noted that he had known Cooper for a few years and felt that he had not shown what he could really do on the cinematic stage up to that point and that the rest of the world was also oblivious to his gifts. "That's a wonderful weapon for a director," said Russell. Cooper is known for his exuberant roles in such raunchy comedies as "The Hangover" and Russell noted that when the film screened in Cooper's hometown in Philadelphia, the audience was initially put off by seeing Cooper in a different light. Eventually however, they warmed up to the performance and film.
Russell admitted that he had never originally considered Robert DeNiro for the role of Pat's father, but cited his budding relationship with the veteran as motivation to get him on the picture. "He was one of our teachers," said Russell regarding DeNiro's demeanor on set." He really showed up emotionally... That set a tone for everybody."
Regarding his own personal involvement in the film, Russell sited that he had a personal experience with his own son and he wanted to make the film for him (his son makes a few cameos in the film). He noted that he is currently in a phase of capturing "humanism" and that a film "has to have a lot of heart" for him to get involved. He also cited that his main goal with most of his films is to create an "enchanting" movie.
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