A proven Hollywood Blockbuster-starring leading man. A former hit-Television comedy actor with mild-mannered film roles. An A-list film director with only three previous films to boast of (though he never would, with an observed self-restraint for media discourse that would cause any to speculate about what’s even going on inside that quiet yet sure to be whirlishly-spinning mind). These are the pieces that were assembled years ago, to tell the based-on-a-true-story movie about the fated relationship between a former, forgotten Olympic Gold winning wrestler and his socially-suspect private investor-turned-surrogate father, whose shared intent to achieve Olympic greatness left in its wake a shocking ending that nobody saw coming. Director Bennett Miller (Capote, Moneyball) fearlessly leads an entire legion of cast and crew, including the aforementioned Channing Tatum, in his best screen-performance yet as Mark Schultz, and Steve Carell, who arguably delivers as equally a career-changing performance as John du Pont, into new, terrifying territory for all, in his latest film, from Annapurna Pictures and Sony Pictures Classics, Foxcatcher.

At a recent press conference with the three, along with the film’s credited screenwriters Dan Futterman and E. Max Frye, held at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, the actors and filmmakers opened up about the film, speaking both honestly and in length about the film’s emotionally demanding shoot and aftermath, yet were still carefully selective about over-explaining its plot and narrative, so as to serve the film’s deeply atmospheric, detached, and mysterious make-up. Our conversation was surprising and revealing, in a way that will undoubtedly spark audiences’ interest into seeing this incredibly made, American-tragedy, modern-day masterpiece.

*Warning: Potential spoilers to follow

CHANNING- IT LOOKS LIKE YOU TOOK SOME HARD HITS IN THIS FILM- CAN YOU TALK ABOUT WHAT THAT WAS LIKE? AND ALSO, HOW WAS IT WORKING WITH MR. CARELL AND MR. (MARK) RUFFALO (PLAYING MARK SCHULTZ’S OLDER BROTHER, DAVID)?

Channing Tatum: Oh, yeah, the hard hits…I don’t think they’ll ever leave my body. For sure. You can’t fake wrestling. We learned very, very quickly, you can fake a punch. Camera-wise, you can fake it. But with wrestling, you just have to go ahead and do it. I mean, you really need to see the hand hit the side of the face, and the head bloodying, and everything. So it was by far, and I don’t say this lightly, the hardest thing I’ve ever done physically. I’ve done a lot of sports, lot of martial arts…it was a suffocating and very painful thing. But I gotta say, I’m so, at the end of the day, I’m so, just in awe, of those athletes, and very, very proud to have been given such amazing time and focus through some of the most amazing athletes I’ve ever moved with. I mean, it was a blessing.

And working with Steve-

Steve Carell: Yeah, I’m curious…

[Laughter]

CT: His physical ability is…

[Laughter]

We actually had to-

SC: He picked me up like I was a sack of sugar.

[Laughter]

He laid me gently down on the mat. 

CT: I think Bennett’s probably a better person to answer this…but, Steve’s actually a great athlete. And we had to sort of be like, less good, than Steve. And I was in awe, just to get to work with them. I mean, they’re such, I guess just, so in control of what they do, acting-wise. And Steve’s ability to stay in a scene, where I was just, I was confused, and just being like, “Wow.” Because the way Bennett shoots, he just does real. He just turns on the camera and you just go. And Steve’s ability to just stay in it is pretty, unbelievably, deep.

And Mark, I mean, he’s actually like, my literal big brother now. Like, I’ve said it, to him. I’m like, “Whether you want it or not!” I’m your little brother now.

FOLLOWING UP ON THAT, CHANNING- THERE’S A SCENE WHERE YOU AND MARK ARE PRACTICING (WRESTLING) BLOCKS- IT’S SORT OF THIS PURELY VISUAL FORM OF COMMUNICATION. THERE’S A LOT IN THIS FILM WHERE YOU’RE DOING TREMENDOUS THINGS WITH SILENCE. CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE SILENT ASPECT OF WORKING IN THIS FILM?

CT: Wrestling is…there’s a lot being said to each other, without talking. You know, you’re in a quiet gym, and you just hear grunts, and slams, and slaps, and breathing hard. And the way that you hand fight is, it’s a bit of a chess match, you know, and you’re constantly baiting, and trying to set up something that you want. And it’s really interesting that, I think, throughout Mark and I’s sort of journey through finding these two men, and us, we had to go through a lot of very humbling, and kind of…you don’t feel like you’re doing very well, especially in the beginning when you’re learning, and one person is getting something better than you are, and I think Mark and I both just were there for each other, throughout that learning process. And knowing what each other was struggling with, we learned on a very, kind of very small, small level, what it really is to be there for someone on that level. And that scene, specifically, there was about twenty other pages before that scene, where Ruffalo and I have scenes together where we’re talking, where he’s being a big brother, and we could just throw it out. Because you see it all in that one scene. And I think it really has to do with all the time, and sort of just, friendship, that we created through wrestling. 

WHAT STRUCK ME FROM BOTH YOU AND MR. CARELL WAS YOUR MOVEMENT. CHANNING- THERE’S A VERY SPECIFIC WALK THAT YOU HAVE, AND WITH STEVE, YOUR MOVEMENT REALLY BLEW ME AWAY, BECAUSE I’VE ONLY KNOWN ONE “OLD-MONEY” PERSON IN MY LIFE, AND YOU MOVED JUST LIKE HIM.

SC: So all “old-money” people move exactly the same?

[Laughter]

DID EITHER OF YOU WORK WITH A MOVEMENT COACH, OR WAS IT FROM WATCHING VIDEO, OR HOW DID YOU GET THAT PART OF IT?

SC: Yeah, I don’t know…[To Channing] I mean You had Mark….

CT: Mhm.

SC: To emulate and observe…

CT: Yeah, I got to hang out with Mark a lot. So I mean, the way he moves is so, I mean, I just copied it. I can’t say that I had some sort of “actor” reason of why I wanted to move like that. That was just sort of…how he (Mark Schultz) held his fork, I mean it was just really, he was just like a really, dangerous animal. And just kind of moved through life in that way. He wanted people to be afraid of him.

SC: And there was tape on du Pont. I watched as much as I could.

MR. CARELL- COULD YOU TALK ABOUT EMOTIONALLY PREPARING TO PLAY THIS CHARACTER, TRYING TO GET INSIDE HIS MINDSET, AND UNDERSTAND HIS MOTIVATIONS FOR YOUR PERFORMANCE?

SC: I thought a lot about how sad a person he was. He’s a guy, his parents divorced when he was two, he grew up in this enormous house, essentially with just he and his mother, who, by all accounts, was a pretty chilly person. So, I thought a lot about that- who he was growing up, and, surrounded by wealth, and I think insulated by that wealth. I think he was lonely, and in need of things that he didn’t have the tools to acquire. So, starting with that, I think that helped me along the way. That was at least what I thought about him in…I’m trying to think…he was somebody who was in need of assistance, he was somebody that didn’t have a circle of friends- he had a circle of employees. So no-one was going to intervene. He didn’t have anyone who was there to see the red flags, and that’s incredibly sad, and tragic to me. So I never approached him as a villain. I thought of him, in that way.

TO BENNETT, MAX, AND STEVE- WHAT DO YOU THINK WERE THE REAL REASONS JOHN DU PONT KILLED DAVID SCHULTZ, AND WHAT DID YOU PUT IN THE MIND OF THAT CHARACTER IN THAT MOMENT?

Bennett Miller: I’ll start out…

The film really resists the temptation of concluding anything, and part of the style of the film is to not slap a label on anything, and to allow that satisfaction that would allow us to stop thinking about what we’re seeing, and what this complex is, created by these relationships for these characters. There’s a lot within this film, to mull over, about his condition, his character, and I think those are the relevant things. But, the film kind of purposefully denies you that satisfaction of saying, “Oh, that’s what it was.” And denies the invitation at least, to stop thinking about it. But you guys might want to add to that…

Dan Futterman: I just will say, I think that actually, to go along with what Bennett just said, that it was to our benefit that there was no explanation. John du Pont never gave an interview where he said, “I did it because…”, or there was never a reason given. So that allowed us to pursue into the open. That, and address just what Bennett said, about how there’s no conclusion for the film, because there was no conclusion in real life. John du Pont never said why he did it, so I think that’s basically up to the audience.

FOR MR. CARELL AND MR. TATUM- YOU BOTH GO TO SOME DARK PLACES HERE. HOW DID YOU COME OUT OF THAT? DID YOU HAVE TO DO THAT ON A DAILY BASIS, OR JUST AT THE END OF THE SHOOT?

CT: We’re still there. 

[Laughter]

SC: I heard Channing chuckling…

Was it on a daily basis? I don’t know about you [To Channing], but I feel like the whole thing was a…it was all pretty dark. You know, and a lot of it I think was because Bennett sets a tone, and it’s not a light, lively, effervescent place to be…

[Pause]

BM: Thank you.

[Laughter]

SC: But I think that was important. Everyone took it very seriously. And I think added to that were the (real life) people that were there, you know, Mark (Schultz) was there, and Dave’s widow was there for a time, and they were being very generous. And I think we all felt a responsibility to them, and to be as honest as we could to the story and to kind of to stay in it. So yeah. It wasn’t fun.

CT: Yeah, I can’t say it any better than that. I mean it was…yeah, we all just came in and with the intention of really just going on this ride with Bennett, and, he says to jump and we just said, “how high?” Or, “how low?” And we just stayed in it. And that was it.

THERE’S A MULTI-GRAMMY WINNING ALBUM BY POPULAR RECORDING ARTIST, DRAKE, CALLED, NOTHING WAS THE SAME. IN THAT RESPECT, DID ANY OF YOU SIGN ON TO THIS FILM THINKING OF HOW SPECIAL THIS FILM COULD, OR WOULD, BE, AND HOW YOU AND YOUR CAREERS MIGHT NEVER BE THE SAME?

SC: Well, based on this press conference, people are referring to me as “Mr. Carell.”

[Laughter]

That in and of itself is a change.

[More laughter]

I’ve never experienced that before. I don’t know…I mean, you get to work with somebody like Bennett, and with actors like Channing and Mark, and it is a different experience. And, the change for me is that I want to do more of this. It was challenging, and exciting, and exhilarating, and I felt like it meant something. And in terms of so much of the response that the film is getting, it’s very rewarding, that it is resonating with people. 

So, the change for me is, this is something I want to…I don’t know if I’ll ever do anything on this level again, but I would aspire to, because it’s been a great feeling.

CT: I just think they’re all different muscles. Comedy doesn’t come easy for me, you know. I’ve only done two movies that are really comedy-styled films, and I have to work at them, and they’re just as scary, in a way. And I hate labeling all these things as comedies, love stories, whatever, “mysterious-dark dramas,” like, whatever. But they’re all just different muscles, and this one…I’ve only played one other person that was real before, and it is, the stakes are very, very high, and I have to live with Mark Schultz in the world, and hoping that I did some amount of justice for him. And so, things are a little bit more tangible. And they’re not just in some make-believe, high stakes game that movies are.

But I really enjoyed going deeper than I’ve ever gone into a character, for sure. And, I don’t, I can’t say that I want to do this forever. I think that I’ll just find the people that I want to do them with, and then go do them.

I don’t think we left a day feeling amazing, feeling, “Oh my god, I crushed that scene!” You just don’t on a movie like this.

THE MOVIE WAS SUPPOSED TO COME OUT LAST YEAR- DO YOU THINK IT’S BETTER THAT THE FILM IS COMING OUT THIS YEAR, IN WHAT MIGHT BE ARGUED TO BE A SLIGHTLY LESS-CROWDED FIELD FOR BEST PICTURE CONTENDERS?

BM: Well, first of all, you’re right, that the film was originally slated to be released last year, and it got pushed. But the reason that it got pushed was that we were still working on it. We needed a few more months, and there’s no other factor to it. And, I should pause and acknowledge the producers who stood at that juncture, and determined that we could work hard and fast and make the date, or, at some expense, to Megan Ellison, she could determine that, what she cared about most was that the film became what it wanted to be. And with Jon Kilik here, the decision was made then, after some expense and some inconvenience to the distributor, Sony Classics said we wanted to work on it a little bit more. And that’s the only consideration that went into that.

BENNETT- IS THERE A SCENE THAT CHANGED THE MOST FOR YOU, IN AN INTERESTING WAY, BETWEEN THE PAGE AND THE SHOOT?

BM: The first thing that comes to mind is the helicopter scene.

The way that we worked on developing the film, and the way that the screenplay was written, was, for me, more novelistic, where, an attempt to really understand deeply, who these people were, and what happened, and how to coordinate these facts into something that can work on a larger than journalistic level, but that there’s an element of allegory to it. And let that inform everything we do, and become a guide. And so necessarily, more was understood, more was written about that could ever possibly fit into a little film, with the understanding that all of it is going to inform the shoot. 

And on the (shooting) day, things happen. And in the case of the helicopter scene, which Steve can speak to also, it was just a spontaneous moment of this “Ornithologist, Philatelist, Philanthropist,” moment. But how that kind of thing happens, I think is, begins with the material, the research, the understanding and the atmosphere that sort of allows actors to explore and be spontaneous. So, when you say “change,” I feel like, it’s the final realization on the day of shooting it. But I wouldn’t say…I don’t know…anybody else?

DF: Well, I’ll just say this- when Bennett and I worked on (writing) that particular scene, Mr. Carell was a gleam in somebody else’s eye. We had no idea who would play that role, and I think that that’s a testament to the actors, and when they’re on the set- I don’t care what’s on the page, that’s what you hope actors bring to it. You hope that they can do things like that, that that was never written down, and so, thank you Mr. Carell. 

AND THIS IS A PERFECT SEGWAY FOR THAT – MR. CARELL, WAS THIS A PERFORMANCE YOU KNEW YOU HAD IN YOU, OR-

SC: Oh yeah, I’m really dark. I’m very dark inside. 

[Laughter]

WAS THIS A PERFORMANCE YOU KNEW YOU HAD TO DO?

SC: I didn’t question it. I really, again, I didn’t think, necessarily, that…it’s not a part I would’ve campaigned for. Had I read the script, and looked at that, I wouldn’t have thought, “I need to get in touch with Bennett,” and throw my hat into the ring. At the same time, when Bennett called me in, and we discussed it, I, I trusted him, frankly. The fact that he thought I was capable of doing it allowed me to believe the same.

I’D LOVE TO FOLLOW UP WITH SOMETHING YOU SAID EARLIER, CHANNING- ABOUT HOW YOU HAD PLAYED ONLY ONE OTHER REAL PERSON BEFORE, AND I THINK YOU’RE REFERRING TO A GUIDE TO RECOGNIZING YOUR SAINTS-

CT: Yeah.

WITH THE DIVERSITY WITH ALL OF THE MOVIES THAT YOU’VE DONE, WHAT KIND OF PERSONAL SATISFACTION AND FULFILLMENT DOES A MOVIE LIKE THIS, WHAT DO THOSE DO, FOR YOU?

CT: I don’t know, I mean…it’s really the journey that you get to go on, with the people that you do them with, I think is part of it. And then just, you are playing someone else. But ultimately they’re just, they’re versions of the person, because you have to go do them. I mean, I can’t put everything that Mark Schultz is in a ninety minute movie, it doesn’t work like that. I really am just telling Bennett’s story. And really, trying to be as honest as you can possibly be, on the walk, and just keep digging, every day. And I don’t say this as a bad thing, I don’t think we left a day feeling amazing, feeling, “Oh my god, I crushed that scene!” You just don’t on a movie like this. It’s a constant, “I think we did alright, I think we got the scene, I think it’s in there…” because it is precious, and you just keep digging. And I think the satisfaction of walking away from it, of just being like, “I know I left it all out there. I know I gave all the colors that I could possibly give so that now someone can go paint a picture.” And that’s it.

FOR MR. FRYE- AS AN ACTOR (JUDGING AMY) YOURSELF, WHO TRANSITIONED TO WORKING BEHIND THE CAMERA, DO YOU HAVE ANY ADVICE FOR MR. CARELL AND TATUM, IF THEY HAVE ASPIRATIONS FOR WORKING BEHIND THE CAMERA?

EF: I was very frustrated, at a certain point in my acting career, largely due to my own limitations as an actor, where I was getting certain kinds of roles, and not all kinds of roles, and I wanted to…there was, I got very hooked on the story of Truman Capote writing In Cold Blood. It was something I wanted to explore. Whenever I’ve written, I can always think of other actors who would be better playing those parts than myself. So I have no interest in writing something for myself. But, I can’t tell you the joy of seeing this movie- it’s a Lazarus-like experience. Bennett and I spent years together, and before that, Bennett and Max spent a long time together, thinking about these characters, talking through every scene. Bennett is incredibly meticulous, by examining every moment. And then you hand it off, and it’s take and make something out of it. And these guys breathed incredible life into these roles. It’s an absolute thrill to see that happen, and it’s rare. 

Whether they should get behind the camera, I made a transition because I felt like I needed to. If they’re moved to do that, of course they should, and I think their talents are incredible and they’re on display in the movie.

BM: I’m gonna just discourage it- they shouldn’t do that.

[Laughter]

SC: And based on that, I will never direct. 

[Laughter]

Because whatever Bennett says, I will do. I have complete faith in him.

CT: I’ll go do it, and then fail, and then be like, “You were right, I don’t know what I’m doing.”

BM: I don’t know about Steve, but Channing is going to do it, and he’s going to do it before too long. And I have high confidence in it. I think that when you step forward it’s gonna be special, I really do.

CT: Thanks buddy.

FOXCATCHER is in theaters Friday, November 14th.