Director Douglas McGrath and British actor Toby Jones discuss their film, Infamous, comparisons to last year’s Oscar-winning Capote and the tiny gay man who inspired two Hollywood films.

By Lawrence Ferber

In the movie world, lightning sometimes strikes twice. Less than a year after director Bennett Miller's Capote—about gay author Truman Capote's soul-destroying experience writing In Cold Blood—snagged lead actor Philip Seymour Hoffman a best actor Oscar (and garnered four additional nominations), we have a second film about, well, the exact same thing: Infamous. But this time the lightning hits with a decidedly gayer crackle.

Written and directed by Douglas McGrath (Emma, Nicholas Nickleby), using George Plimpton's book Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career as reference and source, Infamous begins in 1959 as author and socialite Truman Capote (British actor Toby Jones) spots a newspaper article about the brutal murder of a Kansas family. Intrigued, he heads to Kansas with friend and fellow author Nelle Harper Lee (Sandra Bullock) hoping to write a “psychological study of a village and how it is affected by a vicious crime.” Flamboyant in every sense, from his clothing to his tinny-voiced chatter, Truman alienates the locals (he's equally shocked by their lack of sophistication—Velveeta is the town's idea of a fine cheese). But he eventually ingratiates himself by regaling them with tales of celebrities and glamorous Hollywood/New York life. When the murderers—Perry Smith (Daniel Craig, the new James Bond) and Dick Hickock (Lee Pace)—are captured, Truman visits them in their jail cells and over the years forms a volatile yet tender bond with Perry, who slowly betrays an artistic, sensitive side. But their friendship—or is it romance?— is doomed since the book can only end with the condemned Perry's execution.

While Infamous bears more similarities to Capote than its subject, time period and doppelganger-esque lead performances, McGrath depicts more of Truman's NYC gossipy, jovial social life with a clique of high-society women dubbed “The Swans”—Babe Paley (Sigourney Weaver), Slim Keith (Hope Davis), Marcella Agnelli (Isabella Rossellini) and the iconic Diana Vreeland (Juliet Stevenson). He also peppers the film with “interviews” from Truman's friends and peers, and explores the possibility that Truman and Perry had a physical aspect to their relationship: during one jail cell visit, they kiss passionately.

The film's producer, Christine Vachon, reveals many juicy details about the making of Infamous in her new autobiography, A Killer Life (Jude Law was considered for the role of Capote!). But to get the reasons behind McGrath's gayer approach, the outstanding supporting cast, and the iconic Vreeland's delicious eccentricities, I sat down with McGrath and Jones during the Toronto Film Festival.

Were you a fan of Capote's work prior to winning this role, Toby?

Toby Jones: No. I knew Capote primarily from those terrible photos of him languishing at Studio 54. When I was a kid I remember thinking, who's he? And also being enchanted by his name because people don't have names like Truman Capote unless they're interesting. So I had a speed course in him.

You did a great job of maintaining Capote's unmistakable voice. Did you ever mess up a take because you would suddenly talk as Toby?

TJ: No. I would mess up my private life because I'd carry on talking as Truman! Being bitchy!

One of the most substantial differences between Capote and Infamous is the physical relationship—kissing—between Truman and Perry, which Capote director Bennett Miller and biographer Gerald Clarke say never happened. Can you talk about why you went that explicitly gayer route?

Douglas McGrath: I came at this story trying to answer the question of what happened to Truman after he wrote In Cold Blood. He has a successful, productive life. In Cold Blood comes out and it's his biggest artistic and commercial hit. And it's straight down to hell after. Continuous, humiliating trouble. Appearing in public drunk or high, going on TV that way. I kept thinking, “What happened to you to make you do that?” Capote himself said that if he had known what was going to happen to him when he went to Kansas, he would have turned around and driven away like a bat out of hell. Surely it wasn't that he couldn't get a good cheese. To me, it was Perry and the complex emotions that came from that … something intimate happening between them. I do know as a fact that Perry kissed Truman on the cheek at the courthouse [before his execution] and said, “Adios, amigo” to him. That's not my invention. That's a real thing that happened. For a killer to kiss that man in front of all the guards and people said a lot.

So was Perry a repressed homosexual in your opinion?

DM: I'm not saying necessarily Perry was a repressed gay man. I think more than anything he was an extremely lonely man who never felt connected to anyone. You think about his relations with family, parents, with Dick Hickock—you couldn't have a real connection with Dick—he just wanted to be listened and connected to. I think he would have been as likely to initiate as reciprocate [physical affection with Capote].

TJ: And I think by making the relationship as intense as that, physical, it ramps up in some way the terrible exchange Capote makes, which is: In return for a masterpiece, the rest of your life is screwed. Because the one thing you fall in love with, you finally see someone who is almost you and you have such simpatico with, and to get your masterpiece he has to die. I think that's almost a mystic pact.

Do you think In Cold Blood would have been as much of a success if Truman had, instead of letting Perry be executed, busted him out of the clink and they opened a B&B in San Francisco?

TJ: One can only speculate on that. I'm not sure I'd like to be in any kind of B&B Capote was running.

Was the kiss good for you?

TJ: There were actually two kiss scenes, originally. Capote had a dream that Perry Smith was in his room [and they kissed], and that was cut. As actors we don't have major problems with kissing each other, it's fine. What was very emotional, to be honest with you, was we were filming those last few weeks in a tiny cell. The tension would build up because there would be so many people and it was hot in there. The kiss did feel like a relief because it felt like years of me talking and trying to get him to talk. It felt right to have a kiss at that moment.

Now that you've had a chance to kiss Daniel Craig and establish a chemistry together, would you like to play his next Bond girl?

TJ: God! (laughs) Um. Yes, I would. The James Bond girl? If you could develop a story, I'm happy to have a look at the script.

Another thing that distinguishes your picture is the high-profile supporting cast. How was working with them—Sandra, for example?

DM: Sandra's a big star used to having a big film set. We had a small film set. And she was totally in the spirit. She understood her job as Nelle Harper Lee was to listen, not to talk so much. When we were shooting the scene where Truman is telling his story about arm wrestling Humphrey Bogart, she doesn't say anything for eight pages. And when we were doing Toby's close up and she realized we were shooting without her, she came over to the first assistant director and said, “Why didn't anybody call me?” And he said, “You didn't have any lines and we thought you wouldn't want to come.” And she said, “but I want to be there for him.” And she did. A lesser actress wouldn't bother, and I thought it said so much about how committed she was.

And Daniel Craig?

DM: Daniel came to us at the last minute. He had the least amount of preparation of anybody and he's like a lot of those great English actors—they don't make a big fuss about it, jump in, and then do this amazing work. He had to learn an American accent, we dyed his hair dark, and put in [brown] contacts for his eyes. His eyes are so movie star blue, and Perry is part Indian. But I find his eyes in the movie extremely poignant, something very sad about them. I liked him a lot. And I'll tell you why I wanted him: It's very tricky to find someone who can be persuasive as a murderer. You have to believe he has that vulnerability and tenderness in him. And I'd seen a lot of that in his work.

And Sigourney?

DM: Sigourney contacted Babe Paley's daughter and said, “I'm going to play your mother in the movie. Can I meet you and talk about it?” So she went and met her and we got great details out of it. Apparently Babe, although ravishingly beautiful, was very embarrassed about her teeth—whenever she would smile, she would try to do it with her lips closed and, when she laughed, she would cover her mouth, geisha-style. If you watch, you'll see Sigourney smiles sometimes and covers her teeth.

I love that you brought the eccentric Diana Vreeland to life.

DM: Isabella Rossellini and I were having lunch and she said, “You know, I used to share a maid with Lauren Bacall and Vreeland. The maid said Miss Vreeland was very exacting with a specific list of things she wanted done, including—every morning—to iron her money.” I burst out laughing and thought I've got to get that in the movie. So I went back to the hotel and wrote a little speech, brought it to Juliet the next morning, and said “Could you possibly learn this for this morning?” And she did it and just makes me laugh when she does it!

Let's end on another deep, serious question. Would you like to do an extra for the DVD where you and Philip Seymour Hoffman do dueling Capotes?

TJ: How about a biopic where I play Hoffman playing Capote?