Everything Is Illuminated
An Interview With Liev Schreiber & Elijah Wood

Shooting your directorial debut is tough, especially when the subject matter is extremely close to your heart. Liev Schreiber put his all into his most recent project – Everything is Illuminated. Based on the 2001 best-selling novel, of the same name, the story follows the main character’s journey to Ukraine to locate the woman who saved his grandfather’s life.

Liev wrote the screenplay as well. Starring as Jonathan is Elijah Wood; we had a chance to speak to both of them about this project. Of course they’re both veteran actors, but Liev owes everything to Elijah:

Liev Schreiber: “Elijah is amazing, he grew up making movies so he has an incredible vocabulary of film, he knows what’s going on always, he’s aware of the cameras, the needs of the day, the schedule; he’s very proficient and he’s very professional. That was a bonus because I had to spend so much with the actors so I needed someone who could just find his place. What I was really interested in a lead actor was somebody who could break some of the stereotypes and the molds of an American and I felt at in this time in our nation’s history (post 9/11, 2001), the most important thing we could represent was a character who was vulnerable, who was flawed, who was open, who was nostalgic, who was defeatable, but more important than anything looking for his history beyond the boundaries of his own country. I love the fact that there’s a white Ukrainian kid who’s obsessed with the Black American culture and a neurotic American kid who’s obsessed with Eastern European culture; there’s future in those two, there’s a future there. And for me, there’s a kind of openness and sweetness there, that people have been exposed to as an element of our character and I don’t think there’s anyone who embodies that better than Elijah Wood.”

And for Elijah, it was just the chance to be on set with Liev that made making this film enjoyable:

Elijah Wood: “It was wonderful to work with a director who had never directed before and was an actor first. It really depends on the actors since it’s a character driven film, so to have an actor at the helm of that was really helpful. It was actually fascinating to me to watch a first-time director go through those first steps. And he was so incredible and knew exactly what he wanted, very confident. And it was a good look into what it would be for me if I ever decided to direct, really educating process. If anything, he was too hard on himself.”

Both Liev and Elijah felt very close to the character and story; it was more of a materialistic thing as Elijah puts it:

Elijah Wood: “Yeah, I’m not as socially inept of neurotic as he is, at least I don’t think I am. Am I? But I certainly grasp onto his wanting these memories; I’m a collector, not nearly as organized as he is. I attach sentimental value to everything, so in that sense I grasp hold of it. And that’s my way of not keeping a journal, except they’re not in scrapbooks, but if I pull it up I know what it means. So one day I’ll have to put it all together; I certainly relate to that, I put so much meaning to everything.”

Liev Schreiber: “I went to Ukraine to scout and the way I chose to do that was to mimic the journey of the characters in the book and my own journey; I went looking for my grandfather’s schetel (village) somewhere between Kiev and Odessa. I took with me as close to an Alex as we could find; we hadn’t shot anything, but I felt it would be a good idea to shoot as we made the journey, somewhere I knew we could use that. We hired a DP (director of photography) from Ukraine and the footage he shot is in this movie.

One scene Liev found fascinating and most difficult was finding the perfect place for the sunflower field. But thanks to his DP, Matthew Libatique, and Production Designer, things went according to plan:

Liev Schreiber: “At the beginning of production, I had this idea about a field of sunflowers and finding a way to reveal Lista’s house; I knew that was something that was supposed to feel emotionally, spiritually like some sort of payoff. When you arrive at that house, you have to feel like you’ve just arrived at somewhere magical. I had this idea about putting her house in some kind of sunflower field, but how do you do it. We looked around, we went to sunflower farmers; we learned that sunflowers only last about a week and a half. We couldn’t find any farmers to let us cut a portion of their field out and Mark Geraghty, the production designer came up with the idea to build our own, as if it’s that simple. So we rented this colossal field, huge field. We found the week that we’d probably be shooting that sequence, and I said, ‘Sh*t, we’re not going to shoot this in a sunflower field.’ I have to think and believe into what they’re talking about; I thought we’d have to shoot Lista’s house in the middle of a hay field. So we shoot for about a month and a half, I forget about the sunflowers; one morning they bring me out to the field and they’re all smirking and smiling because they know what they’ve got and you’ve seen what they got. I’m convinced I need to be ready to re-shoot this; we pull up and it’s just exquisite, they had planned it to a day. The next morning, the sunflowers sagged and they were brown.”

Even though Elijah was one of the only American actors, he enjoyed the interaction from the Europeans:

Elijah Wood: “It was wonderful; Eugene (Hutz) brought a freshness, in a sense, to the process. Boris was always delightful and gave a great performance. The approach is different cause we’re dealing with two different languages and you can’t just read through the script. They were written by Liev for a specific rhythm, some of it comedic and some of it for the language to time out so that was really interesting, the dynamic of the three of us working that out.”

As for directing another film, Liev left that up to an old saying of his:

Liev Schreiber: “My favorite quote about this is asking a mother who has just had a cesarean birth if she wants to have another child. (lots of laughter) This was such a personal story to me (long pause as Liev looks down at the table) and had it not been for my own attachment to my grandfather and my own (another long pause almost as if he’s too emotional to finish) - my own – I had to finish, because if I didn’t finish, I had to answer my family and I don’t know if I would have if I didn’t have something like that motivating me and I don’t understand how professional directors do this. It’s some hard work; I would look over at the actors sometimes with their late’s, pretty girls putting make-up on them, and I thought ‘what the frick am I doing? This is awful.’ It was really awful, 500 questions a day and I’m not a very social person; it was not something that I really should have done.”

The film is brilliant beyond words, and beautiful to watch. Everything is Illuminated opens in theaters September 16th; it’s rated PG-13