Writing his own ticket

Tracy Letts on bringing his most famous work from stage to screen, his lasting love of Oklahoma, & what it’s like to best Tom Hanks

Tracy Letts wrote the screenplay for “August: Osage County,” the upcoming star-studded, Oscar-hopeful, Oklahoma-based (and shot) dramatic comedy, based on his Pulitzer Prize-winning play.

This is no new task for the Tulsa-born playwright and actor, who also wrote screenplay adaptations of his first two plays, “Killer Joe” and “Bug,” which both became William Friedkin films.

This year, Letts broke out as an actor, winning a Tony Award for his performance in the Broadway revival of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and entered the households of millions when he joined the cast of Showtime’s “Homeland” as Sen. Andrew Lockhart.

Letts was in town over Thanksgiving to visit his mother (and best-selling author) Billie Letts, and we caught up with him to talk about the Oklahomans who inspired “August,” the dichotomy of writing and performing, and his Tony win against the likes of Tom Hanks.

Tulsa Voice: First of all, what do you think of the film?

Tracy Letts: Well, I think it’s great. I’m probably a biased observer. I mean, my reaction to it is a complicated one, not only because the story is so personal to me and my family, but also because I’ve lived with the play for so many years — as a written work, and then as a performed work, and then as the many iterations of it as a performed work.

Because the film is so different from the play, as films necessarily have to be, my response to it is complicated. I think the film’s terrific. I think it’s very recognizably “August: Osage County,” and I think (Director) John Wells did a lovely job. I think it contains a lot of terrific performances, so I’m excited that the movie’s going to get out there and that people are going to get a chance to see it who wouldn’t get a chance to see the play otherwise.

TV: This is your third play that you’ve turned into a screenplay. What is that process like?

TL: That process is a painstaking process. One thing that’s been common to all three is that we’ve never — and when I say we, I'm referring to myself and the director — we’ve never approached it by saying, “What can we cut? What can we lose? How much can we cut? What does our page count have to be?” We’ve always approached it, I hope, a bit more thoughtfully than that. We’ve said, “How can we tell this story in pictures? Where are the places where moving pictures can substitute for spoken word?” That’s the governing principle going into it, trying to figure out the ways in which it’s a movie and not a play.

At the same time, you’re trying to preserve the things that made the play popular or successful to begin with. You don’t want to lose all the language, all the humor, all the characterization that’s in it, so you spend some time trying to find that balance. But then there also comes a place after all that highfalutin talk, there comes a place where you get down to it and you say, “All right, we’ve gotta lose some stuff.” And that’s happened on every film that's ever been made.

I heard (George) Clooney being interviewed at some sort of panel discussion about the film, and they were asking him about that, about losing material, and he said, “Look, I’ve never taken part in a film that didn’t lose material in the editing room.” Well, that’s right. That’s why it’s the editing room. So we lost a lot of material out of the play, moving from the play to the screenplay, and then moving from the filmed material to the finished edited product, we lost a lot more material there. That’s how we wind up with a two-hour film, as opposed to a three-plus-hour play. So it’s a slow, painstaking process.

TV: What do you think of the actors in the film? Have you spoken to them about it?

TL: I went down to Bartlesville for the very first day. I wasn’t able to be there for any of the shooting, which is probably just as well. I don’t know that a writer’s real helpful on a movie set.

But I was able to come down for the first day, the table read, and this is when all the people arrive. They get a chance to read it out loud for the first time, to ask me questions, find out some things about me, see if I can give them some insight. And it was a nervous first day, because it’s always a nervous first day. First days are nervous. People showing up, and they want to please. They don’t want to humiliate themselves. Everyone wants to make a good impression. And in this instance, these are actors who are finding out who their sisters and mothers and cousins and lovers are going to be. So the stakes feel pretty high on that first day, though the truth is it’s just the first day of work. And their questions were traditional “actor questions” that get asked at that point. “Who am I?” “What do I want?” “What am I doing to get it?” “Tell me some more about where this character comes from.” They're just looking for some very general things before they begin to color it in. And I’ve spoken to them a great deal since the movie’s been completed. They seem pleased with the product. They seem happy with the film, and they’re extremely excited to see how people are reacting to it. Audiences seem to be responding very favorably to the piece, and so I think they’re pleased.

TV: How was the decision made to shoot in Oklahoma?

TL: Well, John Wells was trying to figure out where to shoot the film, and the Oklahoma Film Commission was working hard to get the movie made here. They thought it was important it was shot here. They've been embarrassed about the movie “Oklahoma!” not being shot in Oklahoma for a very long time. They didn’t want to let that happen again.

So John, doing his due diligence, said to his producers, “Well we ought to go to Oklahoma to at least look at it and see if it’s doable.” So he came here and he went to Osage County and he looked around and said, “Well you have to do it here. There’s no place else that looks like this.” Not only because of that particular part of the country, the Tallgrass Prairie, but John also pointed out that there’s a quality of light here in Oklahoma that is different than you get elsewhere.

I brought my wife with me on this trip to Oklahoma. She had never been here before, and I brought her on this trip, and she saw it immediately. We went outside and she was like, “My god, the quality of light here is really special.” And it is.

TV: Are there any concerns that the dark story in “August: Osage County” will stereotype Oklahoma in a less than positive way?

TL: Oh … crap.

I don’t even know where to begin. First of all, it’s a very specific story about a specific family, so there is no way in hell that we are saying, “This is what all the families in Oklahoma are like.” There are as many different kinds of families in Oklahoma as there are families.

The truth is, too, that I think we Oklahomans have been stereotyped so often in popular culture. We’re so often shown as hicks and rubes and rednecks. The family in “August: Osage County” are, by and large, academics. They’re educated people. Those are the people I grew up around. Now, there's a crazy-ass family in the center of it, but all families have complication to them. I think that if anything, I'm blowing up some stereotypes about Oklahoma.

TV: What do you like most about Oklahoma?

TL: What I like best about Oklahoma are the rich, funny, fascinating, complex people that I’ve known here. They’re the people that made me. Not just my family, but friends and friends of family. People often talk to me after they see “August: Osage County” about the women. They say, “How do you write middle-aged women so well?” I say, “Well, I've known some strong personalities in my life. Some of them were middle-aged women, and they came from Oklahoma.”

TV: Let’s talk about your work as an actor. And congratulations on your Tony win, by the way.

TL: Thank you.

TV: Have you ever considered, or would you ever consider acting in a work that you’d written?

TL: Well, never say never, I guess, but I really have no interest in it. I just don’t think I’d do either job as well if I was trying to do both at the same time. They’re both hard jobs. I find them hard. I’m not a savant; I work hard at the things that I do. I just think if I split my focus in that way, I wouldn’t do either job as well. Orson Welles is not entering the building any time soon.

TV: Which do you enjoy most, acting or writing?

TL: I love both. I don’t think I would ever give up one for the other. The writing career has for some years now sort of surpassed my acting career, but then in the last few years my acting career seems to be catching up a little bit. I’ve always liked doing both, and I think they both make me better at the other thing.

TV: One final question: What was Tom Hanks' reaction to losing the Tony to you?

TL: Well, hell, I don’t know, you’d have to ask him. He sure was a sweet guy. I got a chance to meet all those fellows and see all of their shows. I was really pleased to be in their company. They’re really lovely guys. So I don’t know. To tell you the truth, I thought they had done Tom a disservice. These people, they write all these goddamned prediction sites about who’s going to win and who’s a lock to win and all this stuff and, boy, if you read all that stuff, you’d have thought Tom Hanks was just going to win the award. I thought after awhile that they really should not do that. They’re not doing him any favors. Maybe they made him feel bad. I don’t want to make Tom Hanks feel bad!