Inside Secrets: Chuck Russell Reveals Untold Stories Behind Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx’s Iconic Film Collateral
Ashely
Now, as since he’s the producer, are there ever those moments he brings the script to you, you have to critique the script, give them criticism and then take it. Is there ever any moments where you guys didn’t necessarily see eye to eye and how do you handle those situations?
Chuck Russell
There’s another, it’s a great question, there’s another art to that. Since Greg is a friend, and since I was kind of the green light element, he was doing what I, all smart producers do, including me when I, when I produce. I still just produce pictures like Collateral that I got Michael Mann to direct, that Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx were in. You know, you, you support the hell out of Michael Mann. I don’t, I don’t go in and, you know, he may ask me my suggestions or whatever, I might give them to him and we had fun, but, but a producer’s job in a lot of ways is to get to that good script you believe in and then just support your director and, and help him, help him stay on track if need be. So in my case, Greg was just supporting me in a wonderful way. You know, he liked my rewrite, he gave me notes on the rewrite I did, and we just went off in a kind of a wild direction from the original.
