MoviesOnline recently sat down with Academy Award nominated director Lasse Hallström at the Los Angeles press day to promote his new film, The Hoax. The psychological thriller stars Richard Gere as the notorious author Clifford Irving who perpetrated one of the most audacious and outrageous hoaxes ever on the media and American public. Inspired by Irving’s untrue story, the suspenseful thriller is based on a screenplay by William Wheeler and also stars Alfred Molina, Marcia Gay Harden, Hope Davis, Stanley Tucci, Julie Delpy, and Eli Wallach.

For Hallström, "The Hoax” marks an edgy departure back to his roots, a foray back into the darkly comic labyrinths of irreverence, obsession and deception. Having gained renown for his deft storytelling skills and sensitivity in working with actors, Hallström’s recent body of work – including the award-winning "Cider House Rules” and "Chocolat” – has veered towards moving dramas. But Hallström began his career in his native Sweden with a series of keenly observed comedies, ultimately coming to global attention with the runaway hit about the grittier, wryer side of childhood, "My Life As A Dog.”

Hallström says that, no matter what the subject, his passion for filmmaking has always been driven by one thing: character, regardless of whether those characters are inspirational or downright morally befuddled. And it was character in spades that lured him to "The Hoax” as soon as he encountered it. "I just loved the script right away because these characters are so fascinating,” he says. "It was a chance for me to do the kind of film I’ve been wanting to return to for a long time, the kind of comedy I like most – the kind that fearlessly observes human behavior, in the tradition of Milos Forman and John Cassavetes.”

Hallström had never heard of Clifford Irving before he read the script, and as with William Wheeler, he was knocked for a loop to realize someone had really succeeded in hoodwinking so many people with such a bold and outrageous series of lies. He brought his own take on Irving to the picture – viewing him as a playful, imaginative con artist, emphasis on the artist, who conjured his own amazing fantasy world from thin air and then attempted to live in it as a reality.

"I saw Clifford Irving as more like a performance artist, who saw this scam, this hoax, as an incredible act of creation,” says Hallström. "It wasn’t so much that he needed the money. It was the fun of it all, the art of it all that really got him going. He made a world out of nothing. But then I think it got out of control. He kept raising the stakes and getting more and more caught up in the fraud. It started out at a very playful level but it escalated into an increasingly serious illegal scam.”

Hallström was willing to take the risk of allowing the story’s main character to be drawn entirely in shades of gray, sometimes oozing charm and wit, and other times devastatingly amoral. "I was always torn over what to think about Clifford, because he’s really not trustworthy, and the way he uses and betrays his friends made me cringe,” Hallström admits. "But it also constantly fascinated me, because I could never lie to that extent, and yet I think we all wonder about people who are able to make lying and cheating their way to the top work. What’s so wonderful about Clifford, especially as Richard Gere portrays him, is that he’s not a complete villain. You can understand him, even if you can’t trust him.”

Lasse is a brilliant storyteller who has a way of bringing extraordinary performances from actors. "There was a lot of fairly deep, creative work on this film,” says Gere. "There were also a lot of improvised scenes where Alfred Molina and I would fly into some very spontaneous territory,” he notes. "The great thing is that Lasse creates an environment which is especially good for actors. He gives you the space to try new things and go fearlessly in different directions. But at the same time, you know he’s absolutely in control.”

Hallström was scheduled to join us in Los Angeles but was stranded at the last minute by bad weather in New York City where he’s currently shooting a television pilot. Here’s what he had to tell us about his latest film, The Hoax, by phone:

Q: Hi there.

Lasse Hallström: How is everybody? This is very Howard Hughes, isn’t it? Sorry I couldn’t be there, but all the planes were cancelled yesterday and I’m shooting tomorrow. So I’m here.

Q: WHAT ATTRACTED YOU TO THIS PROJECT? HOW DID THIS COME TO YOU?

Lasse Hallström: It was a script sent by my agent 4 or 5 years ago. I knew it had been around for a couple of years. No one had — I thought it was just very surprising that no one had made it. It had been around for like 2 years. I immediately felt that this was something I wanted to do because it had the true story of this man — such an astounding story — and it was written in a tone that had the dramatic and the comedic, and Bill Wheeler's writing was so well-observed of human behavior and he really heard these voices and he writes the way people speak. I really loved all this — so that's how that started. I didn't know about the story at all. During that period I was in Stockholm, so I knew about Howard Hughes, but the Clifford Irving story never got to me till I read the script.

Q: DID YOU MEET CLIFFORD IRVING IN PERSON AND WHEN YOU MET HIM, WAS IT HARD TO TELL WHEN HE WAS BEING TRUTHFUL AND WHEN HE WAS JUST TRYING TO SPIN THE STORY EVEN TODAY?

Lasse Hallström: I have not met him yet. I think we didn't really avoid him, but we never got to meet — I never really encouraged a meeting, ‘cause I was nervous — I think Richard [Gere] was too — nervous about meeting him and being swayed in some odd direction we didn't want to go. But I talked to him on the phone once, and we've been exchanging e-mails, he's been commenting on the script, and he was an adviser for a while. But then he retired from that. So it's been — yeah, I'm really looking forward to meeting him if I have a chance now, but up to this point I only know him from the footage and from the book and from this one conversation we had and our e-mail exchanges.

Q: WHAT ABOUT THE CASTING OF RICHARD GERE IN THE ROLE OF CLIFFORD IRVING?

Lasse Hallström: I had wanted to work with him for several years. My wife Lena Olin had worked with him on a movie called Mr. Jones, and I got to know him a little through that. And he happens to be living up there in upstate — in Upper Westchester — we're almost neighbors there. We've met occasionally socially, and fantasized about working, so there had been like a couple of other projects that never happened. But this one I just called him and asked him to read the script. I think he called back like two days later and said he wanted to do it. It was the most straightforward, simple, non-agency way to do it that I experienced. I think he's never done it either that way. It was quite simple and straightforward and we started shooting a couple of months later.

Q: WHY WASN'T DICK SUSSKIND’S (ALFRED MOLINA) WIFE EVER SHOWN IN THE FILM?

Lasse Hallström: It was Bill Wheeler's idea. It was just a conscious choice of just having this man constantly referring to his wife's decision and the importance of that offscreen wife. Kind of a fun way of dealing with her. He's always hiding behind whatever his wife says. So she was never really considered being on screen.

Q: DID THE SCENE WHERE IRVING TRICKS HIS FRIEND, DICK SUSKIND, INTO SLEEPING WITH A PROSTITUTE ACTUALLY HAPPEN IN REAL LIFE OR WAS IT A DRAMATIC INVENTION?

Lasse Hallström: That's a little bit of an invention -- the fact that Clifford tricks him into going to bed with this girl. That's part of the writer's invention. I think it portrays what Clifford Irving was able to do, but he didn't do with this particular — this actually did not happen. So that's what I've been kind of struggling with most — the fact that this was a dramatic invention. It does seem as if Clifford Irving seemed to be betraying so many friends. He was certainly capable of doing these kinds of things, it seems. The people at the publishing company were all his friends, and that's partly why they trusted him. It doesn't really show in the film, but they were all old friends since he'd been publishing several books with them. So friends were betrayed, for sure.

Q: WHAT WAS THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE YOU FACED DIRECTING THIS FILM, COMPARED TO OTHER FILMS YOU'VE DONE?

Lasse Hallström: First, I really enjoyed going in a lighter direction here — to do something that was more ironic and had more of a range of — a wider range — and it was free form for me. The storytelling is a bit more playful with the medium of film than anything I think I've done, at least with features. So I added the idea of weaving some of the documentary footage in there, and I really enjoyed the editing process and having fun with the visuals of it. My earlier movies, the free form movies I'd made before this, were striving for stronger sentiment. It was great to be able to be more ironic. It felt like this film was very close to me, and I think was close to my temperament in storytelling. And I hold this film very high.

Q: WHAT IS THE FASCINATION FOR THESE PEOPLE WHO PULL HOAXES ON US? THERE’S BEEN THE JASON BLAIR INCIDENT, SHATTERED GLASS, AND SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION. WHY DO YOU THINK PEOPLE ARE SO GULLIBLE?

Lasse Hallström: Yeah, you're fascinated by actors that actually do convince you. It’s just the guts that it takes — I was in a cold sweat reading the script the first time as he was hitting obstacles and upping the ante each time he hit a wall. He kept going in a way that really intrigued me. I would never be able to do such a thing. I guess that's part of why we are attracted to it. I loved his guts. I loved how bold he was with this. You know, you're envious of his charm — how was he able to convince these people? The energy and the charm of this man, it's something to strive for, of course. And there's a lot of betrayal in this, so I'm torn about the character, of course. I do like his charm. It's a kind of character that's not too uncommon. In top positions of some of our leaders – I’m not talking politics here, but just in general - you know people in top positions tend to have this kind of capacity of charming and lying their way through life. Not that I make any comparison with what a psychopath does, but you could say — I mean that's one of the first descriptions of a psychopath, is someone who doesn't really care what happens to people around him, as long as he gets what he needs. I'm not saying it's related to this, but it's sort of interesting that you see some of that in so many top positions, I'd say.

Q: IT SAYS IN THE PRODUCTION NOTES THAT IN REAL LIFE IRVING HAD A FOUR-BOOK DEAL WITH MCGRAW HILL AND THAT HE HADN'T BEEN REJECTED FOR A BOOK WHEN HE CAME WITH THE HOWARD HUGHES ONE. DO YOU KNOW THE REAL REASON WHY HE DID THE HUGHES BOOK?

Lasse Hallström: I have not heard a version yet that I believe in. I think Clifford Irving himself on the phone told me. He said he just didn't know why he did it. He'd forgotten why he did it — that was what he said to me. Though you look at — he made this book on the art forger Elmyr de Hory and you can just imagine what the conversations were about in those restaurants in Ibiza as Clifford told his story. And I imagine that it was more of a happening — which was very much of the early seventies like an art form, wanting to do a big happening and wanting to play around with the establishment. And I think they invented this over a restaurant table in Ibiza. That's my theory.

Q: HOW RELIABLE DO YOU THINK IRVING'S OWN BOOK, HOAX, IS?

Lasse Hallström: I really, really don't know. I've been trusting more the book that a journalist wrote, the New York Times journalist wrote on it. I think, in my experience, there have been so many 180 degree turns with Clifford, and some of these things that we see in the film were actually spelled out as true when Bill Wheeler wrote the script. He turned on it and claimed it was untrue — whether it was weeks or months or years later. He saw the film several weeks ago and he was observed saying that he loved it and he has now turned and said I think the opposite. So he's certainly not reliable here, and I guess some of the elements of the Hoax, some of the details of the Hoax, I really don't believe in. And when it comes to his story about the romance with Nina von Pallandt and how he didn't cheat and that it was just coincidence as he happened to meet her over and over again -- I just didn't believe in some of that. I'm long winded in answering this, but I just don't know what's true and what's not. Certainly, Clifford’s stories keep changing. That's for sure.

Q: ARE YOU WORRIED ABOUT HIM GOING TO THE PRESS AND USING THIS AS AN OPPORTUNITY FOR A MEDIA OUTLET? OR IS THE FEELING THAT IT WILL JUST DRAW MORE ATTENTION TO THE MOVIE?

Lasse Hallström: Yeah, he can do whatever he wants. I'd love to have some discussion — almost wanting to inspire him to go talk about it. I don't think he — I heard that he's willing to do some interviews from Aspen. He was going to come and host a screening, and he was willing to do that a couple of weeks ago, but he changed his mind (laughs) not surprisingly on that one too. So that would be great. But basically the major beats of the story are true.

Q: IS IT TRUE THAT HE ALMOST HAD A BREAKDOWN WHERE HE WAS TURNING INTO HOWARD HUGHES WHEN HE WAS DOING THE TAPINGS, ESPECIALLY TOWARD THE END OF THE MOVIE? IS THAT TRUE OR IS THAT DRAMATIC?

Lasse Hallström: No, I think that was dramatic, but when you read his Hoax book, it’s certainly a very pressured man at the end of that. You can't imagine how deeply he had to get into the mind set of Howard Hughes as they were doing these interviews, because that's really what happened. They sort of entered the mind of Howard Hughes, and they were alternating playing Howard Hughes, Dick and Clifford. In the film, we only had Clifford doing it, but you can just imagine what it took to really have to start believing this story, and I think he really had to start believing that what he was saying was true to survive it. And he was on 60 minutes to talk about the prune and all the details of that. I think he really had to believe it at some point. Maybe we were pushing that a little bit further. . . I think the script does.

Q: HOW DIFFICULT IS IT TO DO A PERIOD FILM WHEN THE PERIOD IS COMPARATIVELY RECENT?

Lasse Hallström: I didn't worry too much about recreating — you know, I'm very much into looking at the performance, trying to help actors be as real as they possibly can be. And Oliver Stapleton I think had started the film in the 70s and tried to emulate the look of that and decided that obviously he needed much more research on the backdrop of this than I did. I can't say that it was a challenge to me. I guess a challenge was to — the script was at times very light and the weaving of the dramatic and the true parts of the story and the comedic takes on it, and we were, I guess, at times overly tempted to go comedic with it and got carried away a couple of times, I think. So in trying to stay calm here and trying to hold the reins in and doing it more for real was the challenge, because it was very tempting to go a bit more comedic with it.

Q: DO YOU THINK DICK SUSKIND WAS A NATURALLY COMEDIC CHARACTER IN THE STORY?

Lasse Hallström: The real Dick Suskind, I think, had more personal authority and wasn't as reliant on Clifford Irving as the character is in the film. So I think that's also a bit of a dramatization, though he was a researcher and he was talking with Clifford and he was the second fiddle here, and they were close friends, and they did it all together. But Fred is probably not off to portray the real Dick here. It's more of a dramatization of him.

Q: WAS THERE ALSO SOME DRAMATIC LICENSE WITH THE TIMING OF THE WATERGATE BREAK-IN AND WHEN HUGHES AVOIDED THE FINE RELATED TO AMERICAN AIRLINES? WAS THERE REALLY THAT PROXIMITY IN TIME?

Lasse Hallström: Right. All that according to George Marrett and Bill who really started this in detail. It is true and there are so many biographies from those who were involved in Watergate and their quotes — again it’s Clifford Irving who says that he met someone in jail, one of the burglars, who said, ‘If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't be here.’ Also [John] Dean is referring to this and there are several sources that actually claim that they had guessed the amount of money that Howard Hughes had offered Nixon precisely, so Nixon was really afraid that this was a true story and it was going to damage him. He wanted to get hold of what the Democrats knew about the Hughes story, so that is a true part of the story and the more you started that, the more fascinating it becomes. Of course, that's an absolutely true element to the story that the book could have actually been the main instigator of the break-in.

Q: COULD YOU TALK ABOUT CASTING MARSHA GAY HARDEN?

Lasse Hallström: She's just a fantastic actress, a bit of a look-alike to Edith. She is doing the real Edith's accent. She was from Switzerland, she was a painter. We're using her real paintings in the film. And it's the hairdo of the real Edith, so when you look at that hair, it's actually the kind of haircut that Edith had. So we tried to stay true with that.

Richard changed his hairline, he added as you can tell a little something to his nose that changes his gaze. I think it really changes his gaze. And I am by the way very proud of his performance, and I'd never had such enjoyable collaboration with an actor. He seemed to really appreciate the way I work. He works the same. Like last minute, last second impulses are really what we're striving for. And we really enjoyed the making of it.

Q: WAS A LOT OF IT AD LIBBED?

Lasse Hallström: The truth is some of the ad libs are in the film, but mostly we came back in editing to what was on Bill Wheeler's page. But I guess the ad libbing also helped actors a little bit in their performance. Some additions were made, but mostly it's back to Wheeler's script.

Q: CAN YOU TALK ABOUT WHAT YOU'RE WORKING ON RIGHT NOW?

Lasse Hallström: I'm directing a television pilot for Fox network called New Amsterdam. It's a detective story set in New York in present time. It's about a man who's been around since the 1500s and had many different lives. It's quite a fascinating story. I like the script a lot. I'm doing that for another two weeks.

Q: HAVE YOU EVER DONE TELEVISION BEFORE?

Lasse Hallström: In Sweden, yes. I started off as a television producer before I made my first feature in ‘74.

Q: ISN'T THE PACE MUCH QUICKER THAN DOING A FILM? HOW ARE YOU HANDLING THAT?

Lasse Hallström: I think with this pilot it isn't. It's like making a short film. It's really pretty similar. We've got a generous schedule for it. So it's not too different. But I'd love to get into making television again, so that's why I've started out, and I want to see if I can come up with my own idea for a pilot for next year.

Q: ELI WALLACH HAS A WONDERFUL SCENE. HOW DIFFICULT WAS IT TO LAND HIM?

Lasse Hallström: Oh, I think he was available to do it. Yeah, he's 91, 92, and he was such a charming man. No signs of that age. He knew his lines and he did all kinds of variations of what he had to do, so it was just great to meet him