I sat down last year with Academy award nominee actor Edward Norton, director John Curran and screenwriter Ron Nyswaner (academy award winner for the screenplay Philadelphia) to discuss their new film with Warner Independent Pictures, The Painted Veil.
We discuss the illusions and delusions of love, the challenges of shooting in China as a western film production company, and the adaptation of the screenplay from W. Somerset Maugham's classic book from the 1920's. This is the first co-production that I know of where Chinese and American film crews worked together on a medium budget ($34 million USD) independent film, and both films were released simultaneously in the U.S. and China in their own respective languages. This is probably one of my favorite interviews of all time, Edward Norton, Ron Nyswaner and John Curran were all very easygoing people to talk with.
About the Film:
Based on the classic novel by W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil is a love story set in the 1920s that tells the tale of a young English couple, Walter Fane, a middle class doctor and Kitty, an upper-class woman, who get married for the wrong reasons and relocate to Shanghai, where she falls in love with someone else. When he uncovers her infidelity, in an act of vengeance, he accepts a job in a remote village in China ravaged by a deadly epidemic, and takes her along. Their journey brings meaning to their relationship and gives them purpose in one of the most remote and beautiful places on earth.