King of California - About

'I've done a lot of things in my life, but maybe I haven't done what I need to do yet. And maybe if I do this, I will.'- Charlie (Michael Douglas) in King of California

 

Writer/director Mike Cahill's film is the story of a teenage girl who has essentially raised her mentally-ill father, and her attempts at supporting his most questionable plan yet: locating 18th century gold that he believes is buried beneath their Southern California suburb. Miranda (Evan Rachel Wood) has more than a few reasons to be cynical: her mother abandoned her, she's been forced to quit school and work at McDonald's to support herself, and Charlie, her father (Michael Douglas), has just returned home after two years in a mental institution. But as Miranda begins to see the possibilities in Charlie's deluded treasure hunt, she also begins to realize that what he's attempting is a last-ditch effort to make something of himself and for his daughter in a world that seems to be constantly disappointing them.

Cahill and one of the film's producers, Academy Award-winning filmmaker Alexander Payne (Sideways), have been friends since completing UCLA Film School together. 'There's a whole group of us who still keep in touch who were there [at UCLA] at the same time,' says Cahill. 'I basically went off and wrote books for a while and Alexander asked me if I had a script maybe I wanted to do, and I said, 'Well, what about this one?' and he said, 'Well, okay, let's do that one.' That's this movie.'

Payne recalls, 'I liked this script so much, I was jealous I wasn't directing it myself. I handed it to Michael London, when we began making Sideways [which London produced and Payne co-wrote and directed]. I said you should produce this. He read it and agreed, and said, 'Why don't you produce it with me?' And I said, 'Well, I don't know anything about producing.' And he said, 'Well, I'll teach you.' So I got roped into producing.'

London remembers his initial reaction to the script: 'I vividly remember reading it from beginning to end, and getting really excited and animated. Then we started talking about how to do it.' 'Mike is almost a character from this movie,' says London. 'He's really a strongminded, unique, and eccentric-at-times individual. I related intensely to the script, and then I met him. Sideways was looking like it was happening, and it gave Alexander and me confidence that if we had a good piece of material we could get it made, working together as producers.'

Finally getting the green light was not an easy process, however. London continues, 'It took us two or three years of different financiers, and different casting possibilities. Then, after a lot of people rejected it, we finally hit this moment with Michael and Evan and financiers who really understood it and would give us enough money to do it right.'

One of the obstacles to getting the film funded was overcoming resistance to a first-time director. 'I think Alexander and I thought for some reason it would be so much easier because we loved it and we knew Mike, and we didn't feel like there was any question that he was a filmmaker,' says London. 'He'd gone to film school with Alexander. He directed a really extraordinary short film called Broken Horse, which he made in film school, which was stunning and unique. Now, Mike had gone off and had another career as a novelist.'

Producer Avi Lerner remembers, 'Michael and Alexander trusted Mike Cahill to direct the movie. They brought us the script and we read it in our office. We found it a very funny and entertaining piece of material, and we decided to support it.'

Producer Randall Emmett recalled feeling confident after his first meeting with Cahill. 'Here was a first timer who had already been a very successful writer in Hollywood, so he wasn't like an 18-year-old kid coming to us. He was a man who had really lived with the script and done his homework. On top of it, he brought in two producers who are extremely successful and proven.'

Emmett recalls being immediately drawn to the father-daughter connection at the heart of the story: 'What really attracted me to the story is how Miranda takes care of her father. Here's a young girl who's basically the provider in their relationship. He doesn't work. She works. Not only is she raising herself, she's raising her father. I thought that dynamic was something I hadn't seen in a long time.'

The casting of Michael Douglas and Evan Rachel Wood was a key component in filming ultimately taking place during the spring of 2006. 'The first time I met Mike Cahill, I was fifteen' notes Wood. 'It was at the premiere of Thirteen. I knew Michael London who had a script he wanted me to look at. I read it and completely fell in love with it from day one. It's so well written and had so much heart - funny, too, but real and bittersweet.'

Payne felt Wood was a natural choice for the role. 'She's fantastic,' believes the producer. 'She can do everything - she can play drama, comedy; she can sing, she can dance.'

Wood had an instant understanding of her character. 'Miranda is definitely a loner, a precocious teenager who doesn't really have anybody. For a couple of years she doesn't have any parents, is very independent, and takes care of herself. And she's always desperately trying to stay in control. As much as she wants to believe that she's always in control of the situation, she never is. And I think that really scares her. But she definitely longs to be normal, and to have a normal life.'

While the role of Miranda seemed almost tailor-made for Wood, the role of the generally aloof Charlie was miles away from the parts in which audiences are used to seeing Douglas play. But Payne notes, 'When I saw Michael Douglas in Falling Down and Wonder Boys, I also had not seen him do those parts before either. Like all good actors, he's extremely versatile.'

London remembers, 'I don't think we knew what to expect with Michael. With Evan, we knew what to expect, and she's been everything we wanted. With Michael, it's been a really great surprise. Wonder Boys was certainly a reference point for his playing Charlie. But this character is a few years farther on, and more broken down. I think Michael's reached a place where he wants to show a side he's never shown before. He really went for it, and allowed Charlie's broken-down nature to become a part of him. He's funny, original, and truly surprising.'

Cahill concurs, noting, 'Michael brought something very unexpected. I had my preconceived notions of what Charlie was like, but Michael brought to mind other possibilities I hadn't considered; different colors and greater depth than I would have imagined.'

Douglas' professional approach made working with him 'a dream,' according to Wood. 'It's nice, because we don't really have a lot of time to waste. We're on a really tight schedule. Sometimes we don't even rehearse. We just walk right into the scene and do it.' The actress is as complimentary towards her director as well. 'I've loved, loved, loved working with Mike Cahill,' she says.

Part of Cahill's approach was to allow his actors a certain freedom, sometimes unintentionally. 'In some cases, I forgot about the script and would just start shooting,' he remembers. 'And then I would think, 'Oh, something's missing here.' Then someone would say, 'look at the script.' And there it was. So in some ways, the writer had it right, but you get different ideas [while shooting]. And the actors bring different ideas. So I was re-writing stuff a lot; throwing things out and putting stuff in.'

The majority of the filming took place in Santa Clarita and Simi Valley, both perfect locations for a film that also offers insightful commentary on the environmental dangers of real estate development and urban sprawl. This was a theme that had resonated for Cahill long before he started writing the script. 'I have been driving from a small town about 90 miles away from LA, off and on, for 15 years or so. I grew up in California and I've been watching the landscape change. I've always thought about all the stuff underneath there that's getting covered up.

The key location in the industrialized California where the film takes place is Costco, under which Charlie comes to believe the treasure is buried. For shooting, the producers used a local Costco, which presented its share of amusing production anecdotes. 'It was hellacious in one way because were on a 9:00 p.m. to 9:00 a.m. schedule,' says Cahill. 'So we had two deadlines, the first was you’re losing the dark. Sun's coming up. There are skylights in there. And the second one was they're kicking you out because they've got to start their sales day. So it was very, very tense in some ways.'

One of the perks of shooting in a Costco, however, is that it's easy to shop between shots. 'There was one electrician I saw trying on jeans at like 3:00 in the morning,' remembers Cahill. 'You're in there long enough, you get worn down and have to buy something. They kept a register open all night so we could do that. !'

The occasional moments of buying-in-bulk aside, what Cahill and his team really managed to convey during the shoot is what caught everyone's attention in the script – 'something really magical,' as Randall Emmett states.

At one point in the film, Miranda explains why she's enabling her father to go along with his scheme: that a guy like Charlie would die without a dream. This theme is what Cahill believes is the universal appeal of King of California: 'In Charlie's case, he literally would die without a dream. It's something I believe and hold to -- if you give up on something that means a lot to you, you die inside.'

King of California