COLLABORATOR written and directed by Martin Donovan, with Martin Donovan, David Morse, Olivia Williams and Melissa Auf der Maur. An eOne Films release. 87 minutes. Opens Friday (July 13). For venues and times, see Movies.
Martin Donovan has spent his entire career working for other people.
People like Hal Hartley, with whom he made Trust, Simple Men, Amateur and The Book Of Life, and Christopher Nolan, who cast Donovan as Al Pacino’s partner in Insomnia. He’s done runs on Ghost Whisperer, Weeds, The Dead Zone and The Firm – and now, finally, he’s broken free and made his own movie.
Collaborator, which Donovan wrote and directed, tells the story of a famous playwright (Donovan) who finds himself held hostage in his mother’s home by a neighbour (David Morse). It’s a small, intimate thriller – a two-hander for Donovan and Morse – and like most actors who finally step behind the camera, Donovan says he’s had this in him for a very long time.
“Another 20 years of therapy and I still wouldn’t know why it took so long,” he says in a phone interview. “I mean, I remember being a teenager and trying to scribble out stuff, wanting to make films and be a director, but [my] mind was just not focused and organized to accomplish that. With acting, you use different parts of the brain, the emotional core I threw my energies into that. But I’ve always wanted to extend the range of my creative endeavours.”
Donovan started working on the script that would become Collaborator in 2003. “If I was gonna do the lead role, there was never any doubt in my mind that it had to be a small, intimate piece,” he says.
The trick was keeping the focus on Collaborator’s characters rather than its thriller mechanics, he says. And that’s where his decades as a working actor came in.
“An actor looks at a script differently than everyone else, perhaps,” he offers. “So I was in the heads of all the characters, and really allowed the characters to drive. When I found myself drifting into hostage [movie] territory, I would immediately put the brakes on, and in most cases it organically shifted into other directions that were consistent with what was going on in each of the characters’ lives.”
But modest, character-driven movies are hard to make these days, even with legendary indie producer Ted Hope on board. “By 2007 we were sending a draft around for financing,” Donovan says, “and it wasn’t until we found Canadian financing that we got it made, because it was not gonna be made in the U.S.”
Ultimately, Donovan wound up shooting most of the picture in Sault Ste. Marie. How do you fake a Los Angeles suburb in northern Ontario?
“Well, you only do the interiors there,” he laughs. “For instance, [David Morse] coming in, in the opening scene, with his beer in the kitchen, having a conversation with his mom: he was shot in Sault Ste. Marie and Mom was shot in L.A.”
Interview Clips
Martin Donovan on where Collaborator came from:
Donovan on working with David Morse:
Donovan on landing Melissa Auf der Maur for a small part:
Donovan on the disappearance of the mid-range indie, and having to reach U.S. audiences through Video On Demand:
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