I KNOW THIS MUCH IS TRUE Writer & Director Derek Cianfrance Shares his Process for Telling Stories and Creating Relatable Characters
“I Know This Much Is True is an attempt to reflect real people on the screen. Real people with real issues and real struggles.”
Critically-acclaimed director Derek Cianfrance has always been invested in telling stories about real people and real issues. As he explained in his first interview with the WarnerMedia Entertainment blog, his work focuses on diving deep into familial relationships and creating characters that people will relate to. Below, Cianfrance explains the importance of his characters and the decisions he made to help create I Know This Much Is True.
I Know This Much Is True is filled with incredible acting and strong female characters. What was the process like writing these characters into the series? Did you have a hand in picking the people we saw on the screen?
CIANFRANCE: First, I give so much credit to Wally [Lamb, author of the novel I Know This Much Is True] because they were first written by him. The story of Dominick is truly the story of a caretaker who fails to take care of himself. One of the beautiful aspects of Wally’s novel was that all of the supporting characters were not only around Dominick to assist him with his brother, but to assist him in the realization that he needs help for himself.
All these women in Dominick’s life are trying to wake him up, so he will do the right thing for himself. With all the characters that Wally wrote in the book, I adapted and drew from my own life. I put my own experience into it and looked for inspiration from my own environment and experiences.
Then, I cast people into the roles, wanting them to have the character that we wrote collide with the person themselves. In that way, we find a truth in the character. It’s hard for me to talk about some of these things without getting too personal, because every one of these actors in the series has a deep personal and private connection to the character they are playing. Those are things that I could only find out through casting and the intimacy that I require when I find actors for projects. However, it’s one of the things that I think allows each of their performances to ring so true that they know these worlds and these people. It’s not only aspects of the characters that they recognize, but also the aspects of themselves.
Why did you think I Know This Much Is True should be a limited series and not a film?
CIANFRANCE: I Know This Much Is True is my first narrative television series. Quite frankly, when I went into it, I thought of it no differently than any of my movies, as a way to tell a story. There were some peculiarities that I was able to use to my advantage throughout the process, elements of television that I couldn’t exploit in filmmaking.
One of the frustrations I had in the last few years making movies was the limitations on the storytelling. Although I had a giant screen, a giant canvas to play with, the kinds of stories I was able to tell were limited in their scale. The stories were always a bit constricted, and that’s the case with narrative films unless you have some sort of franchisable universe.
I was also interested in the opportunity to stay with a character for a while and expand their story. In television, you get to live with people for a longer period of time. I would always find myself still fascinated with characters at the end of films and not wanting to let them go when the movie was over. The characters in so many of my favorite films feel like friends of mine. So the idea of doing something for television turned into a film about family that family members can watch together and develop familiarity with over the course of weeks and weeks. This became a thrilling concept to me.
Did you feel like having the ability to tell the story over several weeks was helpful because of the amount of story there was to begin with?
CIANFRANCE: When we talk about the subject matter of the story I Know This Much Is True, you have to realize it is a thousand-page book. There is no way to make a movie out of subject matter that rich without losing so much of it. A film would become a highlight reel, a quick version of the book. That’s not to say that our screen retelling of the book is a page for page adaption. It definitely is not that, but it is very faithful to the subject matter and inspired by it. The TV medium allowed us to push that inspiration and expand, which HBO has a history of doing and being bold with these projects.
What do you hope people were able to take away from this series?
CIANFRANCE: When I was a kid, I had trouble reading. I still do, it is incredibly difficult for me and was one of the many reasons I was drawn to movies as a child. I needed to communicate with people. Movies were always a window to understand the world, people, characters and so much of the world around me. I eventually started seeing films with characters I relate to, films that depicted the messiness of life. I Know This Much Is True is an attempt to reflect real people on the screen. Real people with real issues and real struggles.
It isn’t a fantasy and it isn’t an escape. From my perspective, fantasy and escape can set people up for greater disappointments. This project, along with all of my movies, is a way to relate to people on a human level.
I Know This Much Is True is now available on HBO and to stream on HBO Max.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
