The Departed
The Departed Casting
In the final casting, Damon plays Colin Sullivan, a mob boss’s mole in the police department, and DiCaprio plays undercover cop Billy Costigan. “Brad [Pitt], Leo, and I were in a bathhouse together,” Damon joked. “No, Brad came to me because his company had access and I first heard about it through Brad. And it's like the dream of all dreams. Hey, did you hear that Martin Scorsese is directing a movie about Boston? Then I got a copy of the script and loved it and when I came back to New York, I met with Marty. But I think I had already agreed to do it. Most of these things are contingent on a meeting on both sides, ‘Well, we should meet and discuss the films.’ I wasn't even trying to be cool about it. ‘I'm in, so if he needs to meet with me, I'll go meet him wherever he wants.’ So it was a really easy yes for me.”
Once Matt signed on, there was only one other lead role left for DiCaprio. “I never had an initial conversation with Brad and I had received the script and it was really this tightly-woven, highly complex ensemble piece, this gangster thriller,” said DiCaprio. “It's very, very rare I must say in this business where a script lands on your lap ready to go. And this was one of those rare occurrences. There was a certain amount of work, character development, taking things out, changing dialogue, but to have the construct of the story there and really complex characters there, duplicitous characters, information, disinformation, plot twists, you know, all leading to a satisfying ending is something that you hardly ever get to in this business.”
In the film, both characters are in pursuit of the other but neither can uncover the other’s identity. Their screen time together is minimal, but they are part of the same story the entire movie. “Well, the script makes it work,” said Damon. “Leo and I read everything that comes around and you don't find characters that are this interesting and complex in movies where the budget is this high. The kind of rule of thumb is the bigger the budget the more boring the character. A lot of this was already on the page and as long as Leo and I both did our work and got ready and got prepared and just played the scene without even thinking about that and just letting Marty go in and sort it out, it was bound to work well. There are bound to be similarities in the characters, they're the same guys, they're the same age, from the same neighborhood, they're both pretending to be people they're not, there's bound to be comparisons.”
DiCaprio added, “Certainly, I've said it before, they're two sides of the same coin, it's true. They're products of their environment, they make certain choices early on in their own lives that affect everything that goes on in the film. But for us, I think the working experience was interesting because it was almost like we were shooting two entirely different films and of course they intersected at moments but they were two different films and they were entirely completely different experiences. It was interesting to intersect the different pieces and Marty was the segue for that. What was Matt doing in that scene and how does that affect me here? Well, let's rewrite the entire scene then, ok. But the moments that I did have with him, he's an unbelievable actor, he really is. I enjoyed them.”
Vera Farmiga plays the leading lady who connects both stories. Beginning as Colin’s girlfriend, she ends up seeing Billy as a patient and ultimately a lover. Farmiga was the only woman tough enough to hold her own against these guys.
“I like Vera's attitude,” said Scorsese. “I wanted someone to come in and enrich the part with Bill [Monahan, screenwriter], with the actors, whatever, and that's part of the process. Also, the worlds that I depict in these films that Bill wrote, it's male-driven, the action is male-driven, so usually the female characters are the dangers. The female characters always seem to be adjuncts in a way to the main plotlines and developing the characters in the picture with Bill and the actors, we wanted someone like Vera who was able to come in and tell them what to do or Bill or any of you guys.”
The Departed opens this Friday, October 6th.
For the trailer, posters, stills and more movie info, go to The
Departed Movie Page.
Stay tuned for updates.
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