An Interview with Wayne Kramer

Mention the words “fairy tale” and “Las Vegas” in the same sentence and, invariably, you’re talking about some poor slob who’s just hit a million-dollar jackpot with his last quarter. While The Cooler is set in Las Vegas, writer-director Wayne Kramer’s debut feature has more in common with the kind of fairy tale in which an ugly duckling falls in love with a frog who’s only one kiss away from revealing his true identity as a handsome prince.

William H. Macy plays a sad-sack loser – what else? – whose bad luck is so contagious that he’s able to pay off a huge gambling debt by serving as a human jinx for the Shangri-La Hotel in downtown Las Vegas. Just as he’s about to complete his servitude to the property’s old-school casino boss, Shelly Kaplow (Alec Baldwin), Bernie falls in love with the hapless cocktail waitress (Maria Bello) who’s been assigned to keep him from leaving.

The Cooler, which is in limited release, is the kind of delicate boutique film that will need good reviews and word-of-mouth, as well as some awards nominations, to succeed at the box office. So far, critics have been kind – especially toward the acting ensemble, which includes Shawn Hatosy and Estella Warren – and Baldwin already has picked up a best-supporting-actor nod from the National Board of Review. It would be a crime if Macy and Bello don’t get nominated for one prize or another, as well.

No matter how the screener ban finally plays out, academy members will be given every opportunity to see The Cooler. Because the film’s distributor, Lions Gate, isn’t bound by the whims of the MPAA, it already has made tapes available to voters and the media. Otherwise, it would have faced the same odds for survival has most snowballs have in hell.

Kramer was raised in South Africa, but moved to the United States in 1986 to pursue a career in film. In addition to The Cooler, he wrote the screenplay for the Renny Harlin thriller Mindhunters, which is scheduled to open on January 23 and stars Val Kilmer.

MOVIE CITY NEWS: A gambler either has to be very superstitious or very unlucky to believe that such characters as Bernie Lootz (Macy) exist. Which are you?

WAYNE KRAMER: I’m more of the kind of person who goes to Las Vegas to watch people gamble, and I’ve only been there a couple of times. My co-writer, Frank Hannah, is more of a Vegas regular.

He sent me an e-mail, asking what I thought of this idea for a movie. I thought it was fantastic, and felt I could infuse it with an old-school, Rat Pack feel.

MCN: The Las Vegas shown in The Cooler seems to exist in a mid-‘90s netherworld, between the time when Steve Wynn’s ideas took hold and the rackets guys still felt comfortable there. In that way, it almost feels like Coppola’s One From the Heart.

WK: Actually, the casino that inspired us was Binion’s Horseshoe, in downtown Las Vegas. It’s darker than the places on the Strip, and tends to attract the more serious gambler.

It’s not part of Wynn’s Las Vegas, which targets high-rollers, as opposed to professional gamblers, many of whom already live in Las Vegas. These people just don’t feel as comfortable gambling on the Strip these days, because a lot of that old electricity is gone.

MCN: For once, the gambling scenes feel legit. What kind of research did you do?

WK: I read several books on what goes on behind the scene at casinos, and saw the usual films. When we were in Reno, shooting, we spoke with quite a few people in the casino business.

MCN: Reno?

WK: We found this casino – the Golden Phoenix -- in Reno that was undergoing renovations … otherwise, we couldn’t have made it. We only had 21 days to shoot, and a very limited budget. They gave us a full casino floor, restaurant, offices and a lounge for the musical performances. We turned the entire hotel into a studio.

MCN: But, when you really break it down, the movie is more of a fairy-tale romance than anything else.

WK: As much as the movie is about this guy who’s a “cooler,” it’s more about luck than the realistic functioning of a casino. It was a very deliberate on my part to make it feel like a fairy tale.

You could see that in opening scene when we go over the Excalibur. We wanted to show how fabricated and unreal this city feels, but I’m not saying the new Las Vegas sucks.

MCN: The casino operator, Shelly, continues to hold on to a dream of the Old Vegas, though.

WK: He keeps equating the Shangri-La Casino with the Utopia described in the movie Lost Horizon. In fact, The Cooler makes several references to Lost Horizon, including summoning “Robert Conway” over the loudspeaker, when a table needs to be cooled.

Lost Horizon offers an idealized view of what Utopia would be. This is a messed up version of what Utopia would be.

MCN: The Harvard-educated executive sent in to convince Shelly to change with the times isn’t an idiot, after all, just a businessman. He wants to turn the Shangri-La into the kind of themed resort property popular in the mid-‘90s.

WK: The Shangri-La isn’t perfect. It actually could do with an upgrade. But, for Shelly, it represented the world he helped build … more of an adult destination, than this Disneyland crap on the Strip.

MCN: So, Shelly’s choice is to buy into the program or step aside. He uses Bernie’s ability to chill a customer’s good luck as an example of how the old ways still work.

WK: Characters like Shelly can’t survive if they aren’t willing to change … they won’t be dragged along with progress. But that gives Shelly some poignancy. He’s pining for a way of life that isn’t there anymore.

MCN: How did you round up such a great cast?

WK: I wrote this thing for William H. Macy, and knew that Alec Baldwin would be absolutely through the roof in it.

MCN: Had you seen the scene Mamet wrote into the movie version of Glengarry Glen Ross for him?

WK: Oh, yeah, and I’ve always wanted to see him be that kind of a tough guy throughout the course of a movie, like he was in Malice and Miami Blues. There’s something old-school about Alec, as well, and that appealed to me.

MCN: Maria Bello, though, is the revelation here.

WK: Maria Bello auditioned for the movie, and was very aggressive about wanting the role. It’s a real breakthrough performance for her.

I was aware of her, even before she picked up a copy of the script. I was a big fan of ER, and remembered her from that, and her work in Payback and Permanent Midnight.

I always thought she had a great look … sexy, with a tough exterior. But, she had the chops.

MCN: She certainly doesn’t hold much back in The Cooler.

WK: What I was looking for was an actress who was willing to go all the way in that role. She had to understand that I was trying to do a throwback to a certain kind of ‘70s film, and there would be nudity … she’d have bare herself emotionally and physically for the role.

The nudity wasn’t in there for gratuitous reasons. Nothing takes me out of a scene more than when I see an actress covering up or pulling up the bed sheets over her.

MCN: I’ve met a lot of cocktail waitresses in my time, on and off screen. Her Natalie is as close as it gets to reality.

WK: My feeling is that anyone who’s come to L.A., and struggled to be an actress, already has done all the research necessary for that kind of part … waitressing, auditioning for a role and having people hit on you. She has this delicious frosty quality about her, yet she warms up beautifully.

She can be very strong. When Natalie stands up to Shelly, there’s no doubting her love for Bernie.

MCN: I can’t imagine this group of actors needed much directing.

WK: I think if the director has a clear vision of what he wants to do in the film -- and shares it with everyone, right down to the grips – the actor’s will pick it up. Writers have more in common with actors, I think, than directors do.

We don’t have the talent to express ourselves externally, but, internally, we’re playing all the voices. If the writer isn’t hitting the right performances, the dialogue is going to sound like crap.

MCN: What was it like for you growing up in South Africa?

WK: I hated growing up in South Africa under apartheid, and repressive censorship. The police raided my house, and confiscated copies of A Clockwork Orange and Last Tango in Paris.

MCN: Anything like submitting a film to the ratings board here?

WK: I wanted to get to a country where I would be free to make the films I wanted to, only to have them censor this film here. The Catch-22 is that this film would be released uncut in South Africa. They wouldn’t ask me to cut a flash of pubic hair.

MCN: You arrived here in 1986. That’s a long time between gigs.

WK: It was tough. I didn’t have a green card, and had to take all sorts of menial jobs just to get by. I didn’t have any connections, so I just had to get better at what I did. I needed to find a voice that sounded American, by learning the colloquialisms of the society.

MCN: Tell me about Mindhunters.

WK: I do a lot of genre stuff, and I’m a fan of thrillers. Mindhunters is about a serial killer within the FBI academy … sort of a Ten Little Indians situation. It was a good idea, and I’ll leave it at that.

MCN: I just saw something on the Internet about the judge lifting the screener ban. I take it you approve?

WK: Lion’s Gate has already sent out screeners to voters and members of the media. At a time when Miramax can afford all the marketing it wants, all I want is a level playing field.