Behind the Scenes: Driving Miss Daisy (Beresford, 1989) with Morgan Freeman and Jessica Tandy

Meet Miss Daisy Worthen. She is not a very good driver. It was the car's fault. And she needs a chauffeur. Hope, what I'm looking for is somebody to drive my mother around. Says she doesn't go around the bend a little bit. Oh no, she's all there. Oh, that's good. Too much there's a problem. Thus begins a unique friendship between an unlikely couple that will last 25 years. You're speeding, I can see it. No, Miss Daisy, no. We're only doing about 19 miles an hour. I like to go under the speed limit. Yes. But the speed limit's 35 here. The slower you go, the more you save on gas. The story is called Driving Miss Daisy. And recently, Hollywood headed south to Atlanta to turn what was a Pulitzer Prize winning play into a motion picture. A process that, according to producer Richard Zanuck, cannot be forced. The worst thing you can do is to try to manufacture a hit. By compromising either in the cast or in the writing along the way. And so we set out to live up to the integrity of the original play. Oh Lord have mercy. It don't take more than five minutes to load up the pump of this car. Now you fixing to break both your arms and your legs before we even get out of Atlanta. The film stars Morgan Freeman as Hope Colburn. Jessica Tandy as Miss Daisy. And Dan Aykroyd as Daisy's son, Bully. You're a doodle, mama. It also features Patti LuPone as Bully's wife, Florine. And Esther Rolle as Idella, Miss Daisy's unflappable maid. I wouldn't be in your shoes if the sweet Lord Jesus come down and asked me himself. Instead of making this turn, you're going straight down that street. Having directed past films such as Tender Mercies and Crimes of the Heart. Director Bruce Beresford was an ideal choice for the project. According to producer Lily Finney Zanuck. He really is the perfect director for this material. He brought a perspective to it that we wouldn't necessarily find with somebody else. He's just sentimental enough without making something corny. The picture, which begins in the 40s, finds Hope and Miss Daisy trying to get along. An attempt that does not go well. I don't need you. I don't want you. I'm gone, Miss Daisy. All right, I'll see you tomorrow. I'm gone too, Miss Daisy. Good. What are you doing? I'm trying to drive you to the store. How the old lady been treating you, Hope? Oh, man. I'll tell you one thing. She know how to throw a fit. For Freeman, the part of Hope was a continuation of a role he created in the original play. And portraying him again on film was a natural. You sure right about that. Some parts reach out and grab you, no matter what you have to do them. You settle into them like old shoes or an old coat. Hope was one of those parts. I just knew him so intimately. During the course of the filming, Jessica Tandy turned 80 years old. And as far as she was concerned, landing the role of Miss Daisy was the only birthday present she needed. It's a wonderful script and a wonderful part. I think she's very different from me. She's so opinionated. She's so sure she's right about everything. She's having a wonderful sense of humor, though. Doesn't your baby look cute? Well, it's not exactly the word I'd pick. It's true that she's raspy and difficult and abrasive. But she's very, very honest. In every sense of the word. And I think that Hope really responded well to that. You know, I think you're the best widow in the state of Georgia. One scene which shows another side of Daisy and signals a softening in her feelings toward Hope comes when Hope makes a difficult confession. You just can't read. Stop saying that. You're making me mad. She kind of conceives the fact that he can't read. And she goes about teaching him in a way supports him rather than denigrates him. What does that birth letter sound like? Me? Of course. That's one of the nicest things about her. Since the story of Miss Daisy begins back in 1948, one challenge facing the production was to recreate realistic period scenery. Cars had to be right. All the clothes had to be right. Even all the products in the kitchen. You know, when you open the cupboard, all the groceries have to be right. Some of the scenes were based on true events. Daisy is involved with the local synagogue which was actually bombed in 1958. Somebody done bombed the church. Who would do such a thing? Always be the same ones. This scene points up the fact that Hope and Miss Daisy have more in common than they care to admit. A fact that influenced writer and Pulitzer winner Alfred Urie. It interested me to write about two minority figures, one of whom was able to come to terms with being a victim of prejudice and one who wasn't. I ever tell you about the first time I leave the state of Georgia? When was that? A few minutes back. Despite the fact that they came from different backgrounds and lived in a segregated world, Daisy and Hope formed a lifelong bond. A bond that transcended color and focused on what was really important. Hope? Yes. You're my best friend. No, I'm gone. Miss Daisy. No, you are. Morning, Miss Daisy. Thought I'd see you after your seniors. You leave my flower bed alone. Yes. Here were these two people coming from different cultures who grew through the peace to love each other. How ordinary every day was it to have a grandmother in your house living with you who had some man to drive her? How interesting is that? But it was real. Some journalist came up to me and said, what a false picture this presents of American life. As if this black man and this white woman would be talking to each other like that. And I said, well, that's an America I've seen over and over again. What are you doing there? Oh, I just love a house of pictures, Miss Daisy. You do make a home. I don't want you nosing through my things. Miss Daisy's based on my grandmother who lived in the house with us, my mother's mother. And Hope is based on her driver, Will Coleman, who drove her that many years, I guess 25, 30 years. It occurred to me that I could write a play about them. I certainly knew what I was talking about because my grandmother lived with us when I was a boy. And she indeed had had an accident similar to the one in the film. My father had hired a driver for her. It never occurred to me that it was going to be a movie. I just wrote a very small play that was presented in a 74 seat house. Morgan Freeman was in the play and a five week run was extended to 10. And then the 74 seat theater was too little, so they moved to a 299 seat theater. It ran for three years and all kinds of things happened. And I won the Pulitzer Prize and the Xanax. I wanted to make a movie of it. We had a New York office whose mission was to find plays, find scripts, find novels. And a lady there by the name of Phyllis Skolnick recommended to us this material early on. And we went to see it actually off Broadway, but we had read it. There was this little competitive thing going on to get the rights, which is why we were just so thrilled when the deal was closed. And I think to a large part it was based on Alfred having met everybody and then having made the decision. Dick and Lily really loved Driving Mistakes. They loved it and they got it completely. And they suggested Bruce Beresford and I thought, an Australian, that's really not a good idea. But then I met him and we really hit it off. Well, I thought it was a bit bizarre they asked me to do it actually. But I didn't query it because when I read the play I liked it so much. I thought it would make a very good film and I was just glad they asked me to direct it rather than somebody else. And I just thought Alfred's writing was of such a high standard. The dialogue was marvelous. I had written only one movie before that. Mystic Pizza was the only movie I'd ever written. And I was a little insecure and I think the first draft was basically I retyped the play. And he said, no, you don't want to do that. Think about what it felt like to live in Atlanta in the 40s when you were a little boy. Think about things like what smells were, what light looked like, what you remember your grandmother actually doing. Alfred's observation was so acute that provided the actors played it with integrity, which they did do, it was going to work because it was so well observed in the first place. I mean, having a great script, you're off to a flying start. When I wrote the screenplay with Bruce's direction, I wrote very specific things. What records Dan Aykroyd would be listening to. There was a scene at the car dealership, for instance. I said what year it was, what the car they traded in, what the car was, when they went on the road trip, about what the lunches were, what they packed. I wrote everything. He said, if you don't write it, I won't know it. Well, it was tricky. Getting the whole period thing was tricky too because the budget on the film was really quite low. I mean, originally I think it was much higher and then everyone was very wary about, the investors were very wary about making a film from a stage play in which the two main characters are both elderly. And they said, who's going to want to watch these two people talking in a kitchen? Probably of all the pictures I've been associated with over a long period of time, this was the toughest one. Even though it was one of the smallest ones, if not the smallest picture I've ever been associated with in terms of budget. And then they came to me at one point and they said, well, we can't make it for the money we've got. We've got to cut the budget by more than half and the shooting schedule. I think we had originally a shooting schedule of something like 70 days. They said, can you do it in 34? I said, well, I can try. I mean, I'd made films in Australia very cheaply. I thought, maybe I can if we shoot it on real occasions. So everything got cut down. But then they still had to find quite a bit of money. I just took out like a directory of everybody who finances movies anywhere and just started sending it out. And at Warner Brothers, we had this cheerleader in Alan Stewart. She was an executive at Warner Brothers at the time, and she was doing the same thing. And we were getting turned down by everybody. Finally, Alan Stewart gave it to Jake Ebert. We went in for the third time, actually, and said, you know, it's us. It's the Pulitzer Prize. It was a real struggle, devastating for a long time. And even under those conditions, we went down to Atlanta and started to prep the movie, thinking, well, we've got Jake Ebert and we've got Warner Brothers. It took so long to close a negative pickup deal that we were literally funding the prep personally. And, you know, going, this better close. You know, we have people in Atlanta working at our expense personally. And fortunately, you know, it all came together. And everybody involved in the picture worked with passion on it. But it was really a team effort that was really wonderful. Yesterday while you was out visiting, I went and ate a can of your salmon. Now, I know you said eat the leftover pork chops, but, well, they was kind of stiff. So I stopped by the Piggly Wiggly this morning and I got you another can. You want me to just go and put it in the pantry here? Yes, thank you. Somebody suggested that Elizabeth Taylor play Miss Daisy. Somebody suggested that Shirley MacLaine play Miss Daisy. And I thought to myself, well, you know, that's just not right. They're wonderful actresses. And Bruce said we can't have some 50-year-old lady doddering around in a lot of makeup. It'll look ridiculous. We have to stay pretty much within the age range. And when it came to that, there was one choice. Something wrong back there, Miss Daisy? No. Something I done? No. Yes. Well, Morgan Freeman had played the role on stage. And when I saw the play in New York, in fact, I went backstage and met him, and he said straight away, if you make this film, I have to be in it. He was very, very direct. And I said, oh, it's OK with me. You were great. Because I didn't know at that time, you know, what was going to happen. You often get to the studios and they say, oh, we can't have him. We want him. They want someone else. But they were happy to go with Morgan, which was, of course, wonderful. He's a great actor. You backed the car right into the Pollock's yard. You should have let me keep my lasso. It never would have behaved this way, and you knew it. Mama, cars don't behave. They are behaved upon. We got a call from CAA saying, before you dismiss this idea, how about Dan Aykroyd for Bully? I got this phone call one morning, and his voice said, oh, it's Dan Aykroyd. I hear you're having trouble casting this role in Driving Miss Daisy. And I said, oh, come on. It's not really Dan Aykroyd. He said, no, no, it really is. And he said, I'm interested in that role. Dan came in and played out a scene with Bruce, and it was like magic. That was the end of that. I mean, everybody agreed he was just perfect. I think the trickiest thing when you're filming stage plays is to make the audience forget that it ever was a play. And I think it's easy to make the mistake of just thinking if you transpose the settings, you'll make people forget it's a play. But it's not as simple as that. You've really got to rethink it in terms of film, with the angles, the cutting, the use of close-ups, and making people realise there's another wall, there's four walls and not three. I thought it would be best shot in the American South. I said, obviously you don't want to shoot it in Chicago. You want to shoot it somewhere in the South. And we went to Atlanta to have a look, and of course it had changed a lot. But then we realised we could do it there, and a lot of the scenes in the town, we filmed in a town about 40 miles from Atlanta, which was one of those rural towns which had gone into sort of decline and hadn't changed very much from the 40s. So we were able to just do up a few buildings and things that looked quite incredible. We looked around the area where the characters actually lived. We found some old houses that had not really changed that much. So we rented the house, Miss Daisy's house. We rented it, in fact, from an old lady. And the house had been very little altered over the years. We shot the whole movie in the house. So all the interiors are the house, they're not sets. And the cameraman rigged up a kind of like a boardwalk around the house so he could light through the windows. So it was all shot for real. I mean, normally you'd shoot that on a stage, but we didn't have the money. Finding the right kind of period location was difficult. For example, the house itself, it was an interesting thing because we found many, many houses that were fantastic, they were perfect for the job. But every one of those houses did basically one thing, even if they hadn't changed the house, but they all changed one thing, the kitchen. Every kitchen, no matter how untouched the house was, the kitchen was changed, was modernised. And so was this one too. And this one was the least modernised, but we actually got the kitchen and we made our own kitchen. And of course, you see, we had all the shifts of period, you know, it changed and then everything would have to be redressed for later on and all the cars were props, of course, and every time you went out in the street, everyone had to be dressed in the correct period clothes. It was fairly elaborate. So it started off with one look and ended up with another. It started with a look that told you you were in the late 30s or early 40s and then ended up in, well, it was around 1970. But the only thing that ever told you was the photographic style. Even that didn't hit you over the head, it was just something subtle, it was just something that looked different, so you knew it was some years had gone by. I think Driving With Stacey was actually exactly the right size movie for me because it wasn't that different from the European movies I'd been doing. Very contained, you know, character-driven, great writing, beautiful performances. When I write, it takes me forever to come up with a theme and I bang my head against the wall and it drives me crazy. And on Driving With Stacey, it happened instantly. Really all that happened was I saw her walking next to the car in that one shot and all I did was I looked at her body language and there was the theme. There's no more to it than that. I think it was appropriate to have that bit of energy in the whole thing. I mean, there's nothing classical about that theme, there's nothing period about the theme. It uses devices straight out of, you know, techno. I mean, what's now called techno, they didn't call it techno then. I'm never that concerned about the music, I'm always concerned about the character. It seemed to be right for the character. It was inconceivable the picture could get nine nominations without the director. And when I accepted the award and I spoke first, the first words out of my mouth was, this proves that Bruce Beresford is a great director. I said, it's as simple as that. I remember when I was at school, oh, I must have been about 10 or 12 when I was in Australia. I remember telling the kids at school that I wanted to be a movie director when I grew up. I remember saying to them, one day I'm going to make a film that wins the Academy Award and they all laughed and ridiculed me. I thought, I hope they're all watching this. It was just a joyous time for us because it really had been such an agonising struggle and then to get that acclamation from the Academy was just a wonderful thing and it just filled us with such joy and it was a real triumph. In one way or the other, all the right people assembled around this project and protected it and did it for the one and only reason that you should do these projects, because they wanted to, because it made them feel something. I think the greatest compliments I ever got from the play or the movie were letters from Southern people who said, you did it, you made the real South, which is a big intention of mine. Making any film is exciting to me because I try not to get involved with anything unless I really believe in it very strongly and that one I think I believed in perhaps the strongest of all the films I've made because the original text meant so much to me. I just thought it was so superior to almost anything else that I read and that I thought when we're having all those struggles, trying to get the finance and Zanuck was struggling, I thought if we don't make this film, it's going to be a tragedy and it's going to really break my heart. But we did make it. Believe you me, I know the value of a penny. Yes. My brother Manny brought home a white cat one day and Papa said we couldn't keep it because we couldn't afford to feed it. My sister saved up money so I could go to school to be a teacher. We didn't have anything. Yes. But you're doing all right now. She said to me that the secret to her success was a good smile and that of course is not true, but it didn't hurt her. She was the most delightful and charming person you'd ever meet in your life. She was funny and very intelligent and a real pro. What do you think you're doing? I'm just dusting the bulbs, Miss Daisy. That's the silliest thing I ever saw in my life. Who cares if lamp bulbs are dusty? I had known of Jessica from her work on Broadway. That was where my interest in her came in. I was just an enormous fan of hers. She was a wonderful person to share a stage with and share rehearsal with and I think that's a very important thing. I've always been pretty much in awe of her as a person who loved to go to the theater, and she was this lovely, gracious lady. She's the kind of star that belongs in a pantheon as a performer. Remember, this is the woman who originated Streetcar Named Desire. Kazan cast her as Blanche in Streetcar. Her performance in Streetcar must have had an impact on her career as a stage actress because it was a play that was such a blockbuster. I saw her in Gin Game with her husband, Ewan Prone, and I thought she was wonderful. I started working on Fragmenting Tomatoes and I started writing the script and I was basically writing the script for her. Jessie got the Tony Award for Gin Game and Hume, for some reason or other, didn't get the Tony Award. When she went up to accept the award, so many people you know have so many people to thank. I thank this, my parents, and everybody I ever knew in my life. Jessie said, thank you very much. And that was it. And I wrote her a note afterwards and I said, I think of you as getting the award for both of you. And she wrote me back and said, thank you for that. I'd never been in a wedding party and I'd never seen the ocean. Papa said it was the Gulf of Mexico and not the ocean, but it was all the same to me. And I tasted the salt water on my fingers. Dick Zanuck had worked with Jessica Tandy and recommended her to me. I'd never seen her. I mean, she was famous, mostly as a stage actress. I had never seen her, but I knew who she was. And then I met her and I thought she'd be perfect. It's three after seven. Well, yeah. You said we were leaving at 15 days. At the latest I said. We wanted to make this movie with Jessica. So, you know, we just twisted everything into a pretzel and got the movie. There's something very simple about an actress who's trained in the theater, which is you're able to rehearse and rehearse and rehearse. And it generally doesn't destroy their ability to have some spontaneity. One thing I did, for example, was the scene where she's going crazy at the end where dementia is setting in. And she said to me, oh, I'm raving and I'm running around and I'm doing this and I'm doing that. And I said, no, no, it's not like that, Jessica. You're very quiet and you're very withdrawn. I said, it's always more scary when people are like that. She said, oh, OK, dear. That's the way you want it. And she did it so brilliantly. The first time I saw it with an audience, I sat with Jessica, I remember that. And it was over, there was a sustained applause. And I remember she and I just held hands. We didn't look at each other, we just held hands tight for a long time. I remember that. I was so happy for her. When she said, I'm on cloud nine, I thought, yes, good. She really earned it. I remember she said, I take the subway, you know. And I said, well, good. And she said, the other day, I was in the station, in the subway station, and I was going into a car. The door opened and a man was coming out. And he looked at me and said, what are you doing here? You're a national treasure. I was deeply fond of her and consider myself lucky that I knew her and lucky that she made so many films that she's still here whenever I want to. There she is.