Photo by Melissa Hanson
Please check out my review of The Ledge here.
In this race-against-time thriller, the opposing philosophies of two men embroiled in a complicated love triangle with a beautiful woman (Liv Tyler) escalate into a lethal battle of wills. Ultimately, the believer (Patrick Wilson) forces the non-believer (Charlie Hunnam) onto the ledge of a tall building. He gives him one hour to make a choice between his own life and someone else’s, while a policeman (Terrence Howard) tries to convince him to come down from the ledge.
Without faith in an afterlife, will he be capable of such a sacrifice? The Ledge is a nuanced character study of love and conviction that will force you to ask how far you’d be willing to go for what you believe in.
Matthew Chapman enters the room very relaxed and collected. He sits down and after being introduced, the conversation begins.
While writing two books on the subject of evolution versus creationism, and in the research and travels for it, he met a lot of interesting people and he says, “I had reached a point where I really had to write a movie that was from my heart and reflected my own intellectual growth.” He comments about the genre, “being that I had wrote a lot of thrillers in the past, it was natural for me to put it in a thriller format.”
In reference to the casting, he was fortunate to catch Charlie Hunnam before the success of Sons of Anarchy. He met Liv Tyler very early on in the process, but she had to work on something else. He met Patrick Wilson, then Terrance Howard, “then Liv came in again at the end much to my delight because I think she gives a great performance.”
When discussing how he writes, he puts everything on index cards then writes the script in 10-15 days. He then rewrites and went through the alphabet twice. A, B, C….AA, BB, CC. “Sometimes the drafts would not change a great deal, but I’ve found over the years it gives me a sense of safety if I save each draft and I know it’s there without being changed.”
Though the film is mostly dialogue, there are several instances of glances and looks the actors give and it puts an extra punch into the film. Matthew explains that those came as the direct result of the actors and gives them full credit. “You just have to have the camera in the right place.”
When speaking about the specific characters, “Patrick’s character [Joe] is based on a character I met in Tennessee when I was doing my first book . Terrance’s character [Hollis] is based on a cab driver who’s story I heard in New York that had happened. So, reality is a strange thing, isn’t it?” He also reveals that he is purposely vague about the details of Hollis’ situation to leave it open to interpretation.
When asked if he thinks the character of Joe has inherent evil, he says, “I don’t think there’s any evil in him at all. I think he’s a perfectly decent, good man who’s been warped by circumstances and has found a way to hold himself together.”
When I asked about the arrangement of each of their apartments, Matthew comments that he wanted to portray an oppressiveness for the characters of Joe and Shana, and that he wanted it to have more of a “Lolita feel,” because of how much Joe really loves Shana.
“For some people, faith is not a choice, it’s an absolute necessity.”
Q: What conversations do you want this movie to spark?
MC: “I’d like people to consider the possibility that it is possible to live a decent, ethical, kind, forgiving life without God. That there are many atheists in this country that are actually treated in a way like gay people were 15 years ago. I just wrote a piece for the Huffington Post called The Atheist in the Closet, and it had almost, very, very quickly, 500 comments on the article, from people living in small town and rural America who’s lives have been made very difficult because they don’t believe in God. So I would like to see more tolerance against atheists.”… “And all that an atheist believes is, we just go one step further than everybody else. If you’re a Christian, you’re actually atheist about all of the other religions. You don’t believe that there’s only one God and his name is Allah. You don’t believe in the 2000 to 20,000 Hindu gods, so you’re atheist about those. The atheist simply says, Well, I don’t believe in any of it. It doesn’t make sense, and I don’t think it’s a radical position, but it’s a very disliked position. So I’d like people to think about that. I’d like people to think about being more forgiving. I find modern American culture extraordinarily unforgiving of human frailty and weakness and the “sinner.” And I think that’s a shame. I think there are many values in Christianity that advocate the forgiveness and mercy and I think there should be more of that.”
Dedication of the film is to his uncle and his partner, who have been together now for over 50 years.
What’s next for Matthew Chapman: New film, set in 15th century Florence, Italy during the Renaissance. A teen romance…
Writer/Director Matthew Chapman is the critically acclaimed author of two non-fiction books, Trials of the Monkey – An Accidental Memoir and 40 Days and 40 Nights: Darwin, Intelligent Design, God, Oxycontin, and Other Oddities on Trial in Pennsylvania. Critics and newspapers from Christopher Hitchens to The Wall Street Journal have praised his books as brilliant, highly personal accounts of the battle between faith and reason. His screenplay credits include Consenting Adults directed by Alan J. Pakula, Color of Night, directed by Richard Rush, and Runaway Jury, directed by Gary Fleder. He is grateful to have been given the opportunity with The Ledge to marry his love of the thriller to his fascination with religious extremism.
The Ledge is in theaters in limited release in New York and L.A. on July 8th and currently available on Video On Demand.
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