INNOCENCE LOST: An interview with The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys director Peter Care, stars Jodie Foster and Jena Malone and animator Todd McFarlane. Part 1 of 2 By Warren Curry 6/7/02

Given current world events, a film bearing the title The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys would appear to be incredibly timely in a very peculiar sort of way. This title, though, may lead some audiences hopelessly astray as the movie, thankfully, has nothing to do with any sort of church oriented sexual malfeasance, but instead is a moving and often difficult coming-of-age tale set in the American South during the 1970's. Based on the novel by the late author Chris Fuhrman, who died of cancer in 1991 while working on the book's final revisions, the film marks the feature directorial debut of acclaimed British music video and commercial director Peter Care. The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys made its world premiere at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival and will be released on June 14 by THINKFilm.

Featuring a superlative teenage cast, which includes Emile Hirsch (his first big screen appearance, although he had a recurring role on the television series ER), Kieran Culkin (The Cider House Rules) and Jena Malone (Donnie Darko), along with two of the most seasoned and well-respected actors in the business, Jodie Foster (who also produced the movie through her production company Egg Pictures) and Vincent D'Onofrio (The Salton Sea, Full Metal Jacket), the film proved to be quite the challenge for Care. "It was like boot camp, really," notes the director about his first foray into feature filmmaking. "It was like going back to film school, because I was learning how to deal with kids, how to work with cougars, who are very difficult animals to train, and learning how to put an animatronic puppet together so you don't waste money asking for too many things to be done inside the puppet. And then the different approaches of the actors. Jodie's approach was very different to Vincent's. I had to learn real fast." Care, though, felt that the novel would provide the ideal material for him to make his transition. "The book is beautiful. It's got wonderful poetry to it and it's also funny and dark and rebellious." However, Fuhrman's book did need the touch of a talented writer in Jeff Stockwell to make it translate effectively to the screen. Care states, "(The book) is episodic. It took us a long time to get a story worked out to work for the three-act structure of a movie. Jeff was one of the people that came up with the idea of putting animation into the movie and sort of going inside Francis' head and using conventions like dream sequences and voiceover."

As Care points out, another highlight of the film is the unmistakable animation of Spawn creator (and proud owner of baseball player Mark McGwire's 62nd home run ball) Todd McFarlane, whose distinct work helps illustrate the tumultuous inner world of the movie's two lead characters Francis (Hirsch) and Tim (Culkin). "What sort of drew me to it, aside from Jodie's involvement, (which gives) you credibility on an independent film, was they asked me not to repeat myself from what I had just done on Spawn. This city has a tendency to always want to narrow cast you," explains McFarlane about his involvement with the project. "They go, 'Todd does dark movie animation. Bam -- that's what he does.' In this case, although they wanted an edge to it -- they didn't want fluffy, dancing frogs and singing -- they didn't want Spawn either, which is always sort of a good thing when you're putting your career out there to show them that you can handle as many tasks as possible. Not that you're equally skilled at all of them, but that you can actually do it." The incorporation of the animation proved to be a painstaking process, actually causing a substantial delay in the release of the film. "We added a lot of extra work to Todd," admits Care. "When he took the job on, if I remember rightly, we had given him some very simple sequences to do. There wasn't really a through-line story, there was very little dialogue, but we found very quickly that we needed that for our film to make it flow... You can't do that quickly with animation. That was something that myself and the producers were really naive about -- the time that it takes." McFarlane adds, "Once you miss a window in an independent (film), because of all the festivals, you almost have to bump it a year. We were pushing to get it in Sundance last year (2001) and maybe even Cannes. Unfortunately, when we missed that window, we had to wait a year, but we also had the luxury of time at that point to give (Care) more... To give him more shots, and bring on some people to finish up some things that would actually make it work."

Foster, who plays Francis and Tim's archenemy, Sister Assumpta, an extremely strict nun, who teaches at the Catholic school the boys attend, was originally only to be involved in the film as a producer. Of her initial attraction to project, she comments, "It was a great script -- that was the biggest thing." A mother of a four-year-old son, Foster continues, "But, also, I was really thinking about boys and raising boys and how different they are and what are the best ways to keep them safe. To keep them safe emotionally, spiritually and physically, and just try to see where people had gone wrong."

Working with a first time feature director like Care was hardly new territory for Foster. "I've made many movies with first time directors. You always just throw your hat in the air. You never know how it's going to turn out," she says. "What you hope is that what they've done beforehand at least reflects a little bit of where they're headed, although very often it doesn't. Doing the first time director thing, you never know how it's going to turn out and you have to accept it."

As for assembling the excellent young cast, Foster knew right away who was going to play the formidable role of conflicted Margie Flynn. "Jena was the first one that we thought of. We never thought of anybody else, so she was our only choice," asserts Foster. Care experienced a similarly immediate feeling when he first met Malone. The director remembers, "I was late for a meeting one morning. I was going to meet (Jena) in this little office, and she was sitting there at the end of the couch looking really frail and lonely and I just thought, well, this is Margie." Moreover, Care was greatly interested in the real life experiences the young actress could draw from to flesh out the character. "She had stuff going on in her life, being emancipated at 15 and running her own career and so on, that really was a great tool for me because she really understood what was going on with that character."

Click here for part two.

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