Her guiding motto: Stick to the facts.
The actress is generating Oscar buzz for her transformation.
Like any good writing, its not an intellectual process.
Annette Bening in ‘The Report.'.Credit: Atsushi Nishijima/Amazon Studios
Although of course in this case theres a lot of content.
I didnt know [director] Scott [Burns].
I just thought, Yes, Ill do it.
So when did you first meet Feinstein?
What was your initial conception?It would have been in 1978.
I was going to San Francisco State.
She was on the board of supervisors and then became mayor.
I had just moved there, and I was in class, and we were informed of the assassinations.
She became mayor at that point.
Shes interviewed in that film and she talks about what happened in City Hall.
Dan White, who was a supervisor, runs past her.
She tries to pull his arm like, Dan, whats wrong?
and he just shrugged off her arm and went in.
And he was sadly heading for Harvey Milk, who he had then killed.
She went into the mayors office.
There was a back area where he was.
She describes finding him, she describes trying to lift his head.
She inadvertently put her finger into the bullet hole.
She was at the center of this cataclysmic event.
Then she became mayor.
She had a very difficult tenure, but she ended up being respected for how she handled everything.
I was around for all of that.
I became very aware of her.
Its still one of the most extraordinary things thats happened in my lifetime.
It was this terribly important moment in her life.
And she also went to San Francisco State shes an alumni.
Id met her at political events like that.
I had that from a personal standpoint.
But it didnt really bear on how I played her.
I just really tried to adhere to the script.
The narrative is so important the events and the facts stand for themselves.
The important thing was to give a shot to serve that as best I could.
Was that part of her character something you focused on?Thats how she is.
I felt that was the important thing, to give a shot to adhere to that.
That is part of the truth of the story.
Sometimes its that kind of personality, if they stick to what they believe in and persevere.
Its not only the more colorful characters and the more verbose.
She can be verbose, and she has her moments, but I think measured is a fair word.
I felt I needed to respect that and take a stab at stick with that.
In terms of the physical part, you really nail her look and even her mannerisms.
Were you concerned about accuracy?I just really wanted to avoid [impersonation].
We all tried to do that.
In all public meetings.
And yet she has an inner core which has a lot of fire.
She believes deeply in what shes doing.
I wanted to capture an essence.
Many of the characters that we see, we dont know them that well.
But people know her fairly well.
I depended on Scott to just help me.
I watched her a tremendous amount.
That was also a pleasure, and a great resource.
[Scott and I] didnt talk in terms of specifics.
I did talk to Dan Jones a lot.
Hes a delightful human being as well as being quite a hero, actually.
I depended on him to help me with that as well.
Ive been around her enough to sense.
She has a really good sense of humor and she definitely knows how to have fun.
But shes a very serious woman and she takes her job very seriously.
Shes incredibly responsible and has always approached things with a lot of integrity.
And so she has this dynamic with Dan in the film that really reflects their different personalities and processes.
How did you and Adam find that?The push-and-pull thats dramatized is kind of a healthy thing.
In a way they complemented each other, Dan Jones and Senator Feinstein.
She was not quick to take on his agenda.
As the chief of staff says, its her name on the report not [his].
Its really a rousing climax.
How did you find your way into that, and capturing that tone?Its a beautiful speech.
And [Senator John] McCains was, too.
I dont think it was easy for her to do what she did.
She did have to defy some people to get to put out the summary.
She had been warned that there might be consequences.
I dont think shes someone who took any pleasure in it.
To discover all this.
She took no pleasure in it, and I think we believe her.
But she did feel a responsibility to do that.
Shes always been incredibly supportive of the intelligence community always.
And shes always taken a certain amount of heat from that in the left, from her own party.
Nobody involved in this torture program lets call it what it was was ever held accountable.
Now, thats a tragedy.
But many people in the CIA didnt want to be involved.
Asked to be transferred.
But we dont get to hear about them because its all so secret.
Many people signed on.
We discussed it how far to go in terms of demonstrating and showing people what had happened.
He wanted to find that balance.
I feel like he did, personally, and Im really averse to any violence.
Its part of the story.
I dont know how they feel now.
I certainly respect all of those filmmakers.
I dont know; itll be interesting to see how they feel.
Obviously, they believed that what they were doing was right, they believed it was the truth.
Feinstein was at a screening of the film, and she walked out.
Thats a pretty significant fact.
Its just a fact that thats what she did.
The Reportis now playing in select theaters.
