White Bird: A Wonder Story director Marc Forster and executive producer Renée Wolfe spoke with Awards Focus ahead of the release.
Forster directs the White Bird from a script by Mark Bomback. The script is an adaptation of R.J. Palacio’s graphic novel. The Mandeville Films team of David Hoberman and Todd Lieberman were immediately on board with continuing the Wonder story. Nobody could have predicted that White Bird would be pulled from Lionsgate’s schedule twice–the second time because of the double strikes–and now be released in a world where the message could not be more important. Forster and Wolfe hope the audience takes away the film’s message of being kind to one another.
Both Forster and Wolfe discuss how they first became involved and how they resonated with the isolation because of the pandemic. They discuss the challenges that the pandemic added to the film on top of the regular challenges that films usually have. One of the challenges included casting the film through Zoom and then waiting until arriving on set to see if actors had chemistry together. It was freezing in the Czech Republic when they shot the film so what people see on screen is real.
The film is a prequel/sequel to 2017’s Wonder. White Bird follows Julian Albans (Bryce Gheisar) following his expulsion after his bullying of Augie Pullman. It just so happens that his Grandmère (Helen Mirren) is visiting New York for a retrospective of her work. She uses this trip to tell her grandson about her youth when she (Ariella Glaser, as a teenager) lived in Nazi-occupied France and a classmate, Julien Beaumier (Orlando Schwerdt), came to her rescue. The two are able to find love during their fantasy adventures in the barn. At the same time, Julien’s mother (Gillian Anderson) risks her life to protect Sara.
Lionsgate releases White Bird: A Wonder Story in theaters on October 4, 2024.
It’s so nice to meet you today. How are you doing?
Renée Wolfe: Doing great.
Marc Forster: Doing great, thank you. Did you watch the movie on a link on a small screen like this little video?
43-inch TV.
Marc Forster: Okay, that’s better.
Yeah, I upgraded from 32 inches during the pandemic.
Marc Forster: Nice.
Renée Wolfe: I think a lot of us did. (Laughs).
Marc Forster: Yeah. That’s good. So at least you got a little bit of a bigger experience.
Yep.
Marc Forster: It’s a bit hard as a journalist when you have to watch so many movies that you definitely want to watch them in a best setting possible.
Yeah, especially when so many screeners have my email address in a gigantic font that it just distracts. Even worse is when it’s right where the credits or subtitles are located sometimes.
Marc Forster: Aye yi yi.
Renée Wolfe: Very distracting.
Marc Forster: Super annoying.
Yeah. Given that neither of you worked on the 2017 film, how did you first become attached to White Bird?
Marc Forster: We read Raquel’s graphic novel and the script probably six weeks into the lockdown in 2020. We both were super inspired and moved. I started when I read Mark Bomback’s adaptation of her graphic novel she illustrated and wrote. I was literally brought to tears. I thought I need to make this movie. You could relate better to Sara instantly as well as she’s spends a lot of time locked up in a barn and we were under lockdown so it just was very quickly relatable. I felt in the heart of the story was this beautiful romantic love story. I always wanted to tell a love story and was inspired by it. It felt it sort of was transcending. And then, you had the story being told through Helen Mirren’s voice as a Grandmère. I felt there was a—definitely, you could enjoy this movie, multi-generational. I felt a lot of young people are not so aware what really happened in the Holocaust and what the Holocaust was about. I thought it was important to never forget and really sort of start a discussion. They can see a love story but also be inspired by it and ask their parents and watch it as parents. I haven’t seen—ever—a sort of a story like the one R.J. Palacio wrote as a graphic novel, a set during the Holocaust. I thought it was a film that we should pursue and I was inspired to make.
Renée Wolfe: Yeah, I completely agree. And as he said, we read this just as the world was shutting its doors and people didn’t understand what was happening and everybody was quite confused. That feeling in the world started to kind of mirror what was in this script. I thought this could really be an interesting time to kind of take the opportunity to make this story come to life, to look at what happens when people actually become introspective, how that changes how they view themselves and how they view the world around them, and especially how we view other people. This, for me, was a story that very much invites you to see the person who is across from you, to actually see the people around you and take the time to get to know them and honor each other as human beings. So to me, it was about the power of seeing each other and the power of kindness. I felt that was very worth telling.
I know that producer Todd Lieberman has been talking about White Bird for quite a while now. Can you talk about the collaboration with the Mandeville Films team?
Marc Forster: Yeah. David Hoberman and Todd Lieberman are both two great producers. Both made some incredible movies and we’ve been talking them for a long time to work together and make a film together. We’re both big fans of both of them. It was just a really great collaboration. During COVID, Renée and I spent most time in the Czech Republic. Not a lot of people were able to come and visit. Todd was there shortly. But it was a lot of through Zoom, like we’re talking now, kind of collaboration. I think we didn’t meet a lot of people until much later in person because of the travel restrictions. We really enjoyed the enjoyed the collaboration and hope to work with both of them again.
Renée Wolfe: I’ll just say I think Mandeville Films and all the people that are part of their team—Todd and David have a really high standard of the stories that they choose to tell. I think that’s really what brought us all together. They’re just really good people who want to tell stories in the world in the ways that we both do.
Can you talk about working with the cast?
Marc Forster: Yeah. It was an interesting experience because during COVID, I had to cast through Zoom. This is a love story where the connectivity between the protagonists is most important and normally, you cast in person and see if they have chemistry and now suddenly, you’re sitting like us and them reading scenes, both of them in different spaces in their homes somewhere in the world, and I’m like looking at it and see if they have chemistry together. I just had to follow my gut.
Ariella, who plays Sara, comes from a very well-educated scientific Jewish family, really understands the historical significance of the Holocaust and the details. Orlando, who plays Julien, really is a very focused, incredible, talented actor. I wasn’t sure until I met them. I met them in person and I was so blessed because I was so nervous that if the chemistry doesn’t work, what am I going to do, recast? They’re flying half around the world to meet me in Prague and start the rehearsal process. We’re very blessed that the chemistry was fantastic and they were very dedicated.
Helen Mirren, obviously, as the Grandmère, who is really the anchor of the movie, who is the narrator, who is Sara in older age, and who tells her story to Julian. We casted Bryce, who was the bully, Julian in Wonder. So now, he’s a little older and we were very lucky with him as well, very blessed that he grew up to be a really good actor, because sometimes as child actors—it’s a couple of years later, he did Wonder. He was wonderful in Wonder, played a great bully, but he was also so thankful and excited doing this role, because finally, he got some redemption. I think it’s hard as a kid to play a bully in a movie like Wonder that’s so widely popular, and portrays you as a bully, who in real life, you are something completely different.
When it came to determining the film’s look, what led to the decision to shoot on both film and digital?
Marc Forster: I love still shooting on film. Usually, I shoot all daytime exterior on film and then the interior, I like to shoot in digital because sometimes the space and I can use less light. So because of that, interiorly, sometimes if I have limited space and limited way to light certain scenes and sometimes, we all shot in real locations with limited lighting access, then I use digital. I’m using a process in post to add a certain grain structure to match the film grain so that both look alike.
Renée Wolfe: Some of those exterior shots are a little wider, more anamorphic, more spacious so I think that choice to shoot in both film and digital, it also adds to the filmic language. It’s a very conscious choice to expand and use those larger spaces filmically, juxtapose those with those smaller interior spaces that require more light bandwidth. It’s a very conscious choice, I think, on his part.
I felt the fantasy scenes in White Bird added this nice emotional touch, especially with everything that was taking place at the time.
Marc Forster: Thank you. Yeah. I love magic realism and I think it’s always something creatively fun part to play around as a filmmaker to wander into this sort of magic realism’s realities.
Pandemic aside, what was the most challenging aspect of the production?
Marc Forster: Definitely certain budgetary constraints. As we’re running into a pandemic and all the cinemas being closed, nobody was in a spending free frenzy. And even though lots of content was needed and because people consume more, it was definitely making a period film for constraint budget and trying to make it big and use a big paintbrush on a wider scope because it’s an intimate love story, but at the same time, you want to make it film cinematic and have it cinematic experience on a big screen.
Renée Wolfe: I would just say a small part. It was so cold!
Marc Forster: It was freezing cold. I forgot about that.
Renée Wolfe: Every bit of the cold that you see in the movie, no part of that was exaggerated.
Marc Forster: Yes, that’s true. It was freezing.
Renée Wolfe: Freezing!
Marc Forster: In the winter in the Czech Republic, it’s definitely challenging.
Renée Wolfe: But it also was fun.
Marc Forster: Yes, you couldn’t feel your toes or hands usually at the end of the day.
Oy!
Renée Wolfe: Yes, oy.
What challenges did the pandemic add to the production?
Marc Forster: I assume like everyone else who was going through is being tested numerous times during the week—everyone. Every morning you wake up and you hope the phone doesn’t ring that you’re going to be shut down that. We were very, very blessed on this production that literally we never got shut down. We had very responsible actors and crew that everybody really followed the rules and regulations and that made us fly through safely.
Renée Wolfe: It was a great group of people, just couldn’t be better.
After two years of release delays for one reason or another, how does it feel to know that White Bird is being released during the worst period of antisemitism since the Holocaust?
Marc Forster: I think the film is even more important now than has ever been before. At the time when we thought it would get released the first time and then the strike happened and so on, the release dates was always pushed. As filmmakers, we were bummed out. And then suddenly, the world has changed in the last year, year and a half, and it’s more important than ever. I hope that the film reminds us of being kind to each other, seeing there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. I think it’s an important film and hopefully people will go and see it and talk about it. I think the only way to move forward is that we all don’t forget and we all remember to be kind to one another.
Renée Wolfe: I think, in certain ways, it’s kind of a blessing in disguise that it comes out now. At the time we were really like, ah, why can’t it come out and now there’s a strike. It’s sort of landing for us in a good moment, but an important moment and a sober moment. We hope that this message will go out in the world. As he said, people will never forget, always remember, and remember the power of kindness and the ability to see each other and how that can and will and should shape the future for all of us.
Thank you so much.
Renée Wolfe: Thanks.
Marc Forster: Thank you. Have a good day. Bye, Danielle.