One of the many films to premiere at this year’s Sundance Film Festival was directors Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman’s Linda Lovelace biopic Lovelace.  The film stars Amanda Seyfried as the titular porn star who rose to prominence following 1972’s Deep Throat (the first pornographic feature film to be a mainstream success).  Lovelace would eventually go on to claim that her husband Chuck Traynor (played by Peter Sarsgaard) physically and verbally abused her, and coerced her into the pornography business.   The film also stars Juno Temple, Wes Bently, Sharon Stone, Hank Azaria, Adam Brody, and James Franco as Hugh Hefner.

The day after the premiere, I sat down with Epstein and Friedman for an exclusive interview.  We talked about how Lovelace came together, changes during production, the music, deleted scenes,  how much of the film was “Hollywoodized," and more.  In addition, they talked about some of the other projects they're working on including a documentary about the history of the Oscars, a script about Anita Bryant, and an adaptation of We Deserve Nothing.  Hit the jump what they had to say.

If you missed my exclusive interview with Amanda Seyfried, you can either read or listen to it here.

lovelace-movie-poster

Directors Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman Time Index:

  • :17 Their reaction to first finding out they were coming to Sundance
  • :43 Were they always aiming to premiere at Sundance?
  • 1:17 Talk about the experience of watching the finished film with the Sundance audience
  • 2:10 How much did the screenplay change throughout development and production?
  • 3:05 Talk about how long their first assembly cut was and the editing process
  • 3:32 Deleted scenes
  • 4:10 Why they decided to shoot on film rather than use digital
  • 5:10 The casting process. Talk about how they got so many people to join the supporting cast and the toughest role to fill
  • 5:53 Say they rarely storyboard, but they storyboarded the action scenes in the movie even though they never looked at them on the day
  • 6:49 Talk about the short shooting schedule. They filmed the whole movie in 25 days
  • 8:15 How much of the film was “hollywoodized?”
  • 9:35 How many takes do they prefer?
  • 10:00 Talk about how they work together
  • 10:30 Future projects. They’re developing a documentary about the history of the Oscars, a script about Anita Bryant, and an adaptation of We Deserve Nothing.
  • 11:16 Having worked in the industry for a while, has it gotten easier to make films?
  • 11:50 Which kinds of cameras do they normally use and what do they want to use?
  • 12:50 Is there one project they’ve been trying to get made for a long time?
  • 13:20 Talk about the use of popular music in Lovelace and how hard it was to get certain songs
  • 14:08 Who do they usually show their films to first and were there any big notes given that they use?
  • 15:20 Was it tough to get financing on Lovelace?

lovelace-amanda-seyfried