The Pursuit of Happyness is a Will Smith movie. He plays Chris Gardner, the dreamer who became a stockbroker while living on the streets with his son. It's not a Thandie Newton movie. She plays Gardner's wife, albeit a fictionalized version, who leaves when he announces his plans to take an unpaid internship at Dean Witter. That takes her out of the film less than halfway through, but Newton saw the depth of her character.
Interview: Thandie Newton Talks The Pursuit of Happyness
"I don't judge people," she said. "I think people's lives are so complex, life is hard, painful. For her specifically, I really, really felt for her. I'm a mother of two children. To leave your child is a slow suicide and that is the depth of her self destructive nature based on who knows what. Sometimes I felt frustrated that I wasn't able to reveal more of her story in the movie to the audience. But not too much because then the audience is going to want to know more about her. This is a small role in the movie and it really kicks off the narrative but it's not part of the narrative. So I could talk endlessly about this role but I have had to kind of reign myself in because at the end of the day, this movie's about Chris Gardner and his son. It isn't about Linda and I struggled with that for a long time because after playing her, I felt there should have been a movie just about her and about what it's like to leave your child."
Many audience members may be on Newton's side. The internship program would always be there. Couldn't he have gotten a day job and waited until they had some savings to pursue his lofty dream? I mean, most people in that situation aren't Hollywood movie heroes who always achieve their goals.
The Pursuit of Happyness
Thandie Newton in The Pursuit of Happyness
"Absolutely, I agree but that was the problem with their relationship. Couldn't he have taken an unpaid internship in a couple of years' time? Why does he have to do it then, when she's falling apart? But that's the fact. Both of them were at fault. Both of them were so at the mercy of their domestic situation, their social situation, that it just broke it down. Of course, in hindsight, all of us could have done things better if we'd known. But they were also both at the mercy of their pasts. It was a very unsympathetic thing to do to force her to have to work for the family while he had an unpaid internship job as a stockbroker. It's like one of us deciding to be an astronaut tomorrow. It's ridiculous. But then you see the movie goes along and that's where the fairy tale comes in that it came true but actually, in that situation, I would have been out the door, with the kid, but yeah. I think those things, we didn't need to show them beating each other up and throwing them down the stairs. It's there anyway. Why didn't she wait? Why didn't he wait?"
Everyone needs a faithful supporter though, and Gardner's wife was not that and would not have been that in any amount of time. "Maybe there isn't a scene that spells it out but I think some people have had such a tough time in their lives, they've got no faith. Faith in what? Depression is where your perspective is not logical, and she's so obviously depressed. They should have had a scene where I was taking pills or going to the doctor to get a prescription for Zoloft, but this is a depressed woman. This is also back in the '80s. Things were different then."
The Pursuit of Happyness opens this Friday, December 15th.
Stay tuned for updates.
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