A THOROUGHLY MODERN MITTY


To tackle the much-laboured storyline, it needed a fresh approach and screenwriter, Steven Conrad came up with the goods. It was the tug-of-war between Mitty’s shaky, uncertain reality and the beautiful impulses behind his eye-popping dreams that first drew Ben Stiller Conrad’s version of the story. He’d seen other attempts at re-visiting the tale, but none had hit home.


“Steve’s script wasn’t trying to revisit the 1940s Danny Kaye classic, which was so wonderfully unique to its time. He found a


away from his marriage, and the first movie Mitty was unenthusiastically engaged to be married, Conrad took another route. His Mitty is a typical modern bachelor who starts out more likely to dream of romance – or play around at it on the internet -- than to wholeheartedly go after it. But one thing the screenwriter never saw Mitty as was ineffectual. His dreams reflect not only his hopes, but also the inner strength he has yet to prove.


While Walter Mitty ponders the problems with his eHarmony profile, his romantic


personality where she’s just a little bit intrigued by Walter. I think her character gets to something that audiences really connect with: the idea of that some of the littlest things that happen to us in life – even just saying hello to somebody when they give you a certain look – can affect us in big ways.”


Wiig says that her initial conversations with Stiller were key to winning her over. “Te script was absolutely wonderful but it’s hard to go on script alone because there are so many ways to interpret a story like this,” she notes. “So the tone of


I wanted the film to have that kind of respect for all the things ordinary people go through, whether you’re a guy that nobody pays attention to or you’re the President.


different way of telling the story, one that was smart and compelling but that created a modern context for this character that audiences can relate to,” says Stiller. “I loved that the script honoured the idea of an ordinary guy as a hero in a way that’s lyrical, soulful and funny. Steve said to me, “inside the breast of every American man beats the heart of a hero” - and I wanted the film to have that kind of respect for all the things ordinary people go through. How challenging life is for all of us, whether you’re a guy that nobody pays attention to or you’re the President of the United States. Walter’s journey celebrates the potential that everybody has.”


Te film lovingly winks back at the great American humorist Turber’s timeless fable about a mild-mannered man’s need to turn his failures into something far more astonishing in his head. But Stiller’s Mitty is very much a man of our times. Like so many of us, he feels hemmed in by an increasingly depersonalised, electronic world that is rapidly changing everything – one that is making his very way of life obsolete. His only out is a madcap barrage of reveries that keep him a constant hero battling for a better, fairer world. It’s his own private realm he shares with no one… that is until his search for a famous photographer’s (Sean Penn) missing negative gives him an unexpected chance to connect with another.


Walter does manage to forge some real- life, tangible relationships though. While Turber’s Mitty was a henpecked husband whose fantasies carried him


dreams hone in on his co-worker in accounting – the easy-going Cheryl who frequently morphs into the object of his heroic rescues and escapades.


Te role as Stiller saw it was not just comic relief, but a major catalyst for Mitty’s journey. “It is Walter’s tenuous connection with Cheryl that becomes the impetus pushing him out into the world,” he explains.


As such, it demanded someone who could leap from the everyday world of a single mom in fear of losing her job into the high- wire drama of Walter’s daydreams and back again, without ever losing a beat, or the core of who Cheryl is. To do all this, while also creating the snowballing effect of a relationship in its first throes of attraction, the filmmakers cast one of today’s most intriguing comediennes: Kristen Wiig, who cut her teeth as one of “Saturday Night Live’s” biggest stars before kick-starting a wide-ranging screen career.


Stiller had her in mind from the get-go. “Kristen is someone who is so, so relatable,” he comments. “She’s so real, and so naturally funny, and I also really wanted to see her doing something like this – something that’s not quite the broad, crazy comedy we’re used to. Her personality is so likeable and warm, I felt she could instantly give the audience a shorthand as to why she and Mitty might actually belong together.”


He continues: “Kristen is also terrific at playing many different attitudes and characters. She was able to juxtapose that kind of comedy with Cheryl’s very real


our conversations was really important. I felt that what Ben wanted to do with Walter Mitty was very interesting. I loved that he wanted to take this classic story, modernize it in a fun way and really touch on elements of our lives right now.”


She goes on: “It’s one of those stories that leaves you feeling like there’s a great big, world for you out there – and that if there are things in life we really want to do, whether it’s connect with our families or travel the globe, it’s worth trying to go out and do them.”


Screenwriter Steven Conrad was exhilirated by the challenge of taking on James Turber’s literary hallmark from the point of view of a very different generation. He says he wanted “to re- conceptualise the classic idea of Walter Mitty as a guy with all the kaleidoscopic colors of modern life.”


Tat’s what led him to place Walter Mitty as part of the workforce of LIFE Magazine. In creating his Walter Mitty, he embodied the real-life LIFE magazine’s famous motto, which encourages people to “see things thousands of miles away, things hidden behind walls and within rooms, things dangerous to come to . . . to see and be amazed.”


MORE INFORMATION


Te Secret Life of Walter Mitty is released in cinemas in the UK on Boxing Day, 26th December, and will be shown at the Odeon Cinema, Norwich.


outlineonline.co.uk /December 2013/ 27


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