Crack in the classroom

Ed Lawrenson speaks to Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden, makers of the Oscar-nominated 'Half Nelson'.

Apr 20 2007

'Half Nelson' is the remarkably assured feature debut of director Ryan Fleck and his co-writer, editor and producer (and real-life partner) Anna Boden. A haunting portrait of Dan, a teacher in a tough New York school struggling with crack addiction while forming a tentative friendship with a 13-year-old female student, Drey (Shareeka Epps), the film features an Oscar-nominated central performance from Ryan Gosling. A beautifully observed, delicately low-key throwback to '70s filmmakers like Hal Ashby and Robert Altman, it was hailed by Kevin Smith as 'a powerful reminder that American independent film is alive and well'.

There's a mini-genre of movies, like the recent 'Freedom Writers', about teachers struggling to make an impact in deprived areas. 'Half Nelson' owes something to that tradition but it avoids the clichés.

Ryan Fleck: We were conscious of the genre but we weren't in risk of repeating its standard steps because we had a crack-addicted teacher as our hero. That's already starting in an inherently different place. But we also didn't want to go through the usual route of drug addiction movies, which either end with a fall into the abyss and the character dies, or he or she cleans up and everything's figured out.

I've heard you jokingly suggest a different title to the film could be 'Crack in the Classroom'. Is that how you pitched it?

Anna Boden: We didn't know that pitching was something that people did still. When we started writing the script we were very young, we were just out of college, we didn't even know who to give the scrip to. So we made a short version called 'Gowanus, Brooklyn' on video, very inexpensively with friends.

RF: After we made the short we got an agent and he basically sent out the script with a DVD of the short to all the financiers so that they could get an idea of what the style of the film would be.

AB: They would only read the script if they saw the short. Basically, anyone has 20 minutes to watch a short. Luckily it had won a prize at Sundance so it had something behind it.

Was it a leap of faith for Ryan Gosling to commit to you, given that you're young, first-time feature directors?

RF: We got very lucky. Originally in the casting process we were looking for actors who were older, but he got hold of the script by accident and he contacted us and said he really wanted to talk. We got together thinking he'd probably be too young for the part but we were really impressed with his presence. We felt like we could see Dan in him; he understood what we were trying to do. In rehearsal it was nice to work with him because he was always thinking; he takes it serious but he can be spontaneous.

And how about Shareeka Epps, who plays Drey? Where did you find her?

AB: When were casting for the short film we put an open call to local schools and we saw her back in 2003. She'd never acted before and she was really charismatic, honest and funny. It was a couple of years later when we came to do the feature and she'd moved home. The number we had for her didn't work any more. Even though we looked at more kids we were dead set on seeing her again, so we went to her old apartment complex in Brooklyn and picked some kid off the street to ask him if he knew where she was. Eventually we got in contact.

The director Kevin Smith gave the movie a glowing review when he was standing in for Roger Ebert on the 'Ebert & Roeper' show. That must have helped.

RF: It was great but unfortunately at the time the film was on a very limited release. Our distributor did a great job but they didn't have the resources to take full advantage of Smith's quote; no one outside of New York watching the show could see the film, even after Kevin Smith said 'turn off your TV and go see the movie!'

How about the Best Actor Oscar nomination for Ryan Gosling? Is it like the Christopher Guest comedy 'For Your Consideration', where there's hype even before the nominations are announced?

RF: Yeah, it starts very early. And it's all manipulated. These things cost money. You have to start hopefully with a good performance, and if you have that then you can really start to work it. Fortunately, our distributor came into some money just before the Oscar campaigns and they had some really smart people behind Ryan's nomination.

AB: There was some buzz about it and was certainly something we hoped for. But ultimately it was a surprise. We can't believe that any nomination for our little movie managed to slip in. I feel somebody made a mistake.

RF: Some subversives in the Academy deliberately miscounted!

'Half Nelson' is out on Friday April 20.

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