‘May December’ Team Examines Mary Kay Letourneau Comparisons – The Hollywood Reporter

Charles Melton, Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman attend the Los Angeles premiere of Netflix’s “May December” at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures on Thursday.

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like May December Making the rounds at this year’s film festivals and kicking off awards season, many comparisons have been drawn between the Netflix film and the real-life story of Mary Kay Letourneau — the teacher who began a sexual relationship with a 12-year-old student. Vili Fualaau, went to prison in 1997 before they were eventually married for 14 years and had several children.

Similarly, May December Stars Julianne Moore as Gracie, a woman in her 30s who begins a relationship with Joe (played by Charles Melton) when he is in seventh grade; 20 years later, the two are married with three children and headed off to college when actress Elizabeth Berry (Natalie Portman) shows up at their house on a research visit to prepare to play Gracie in a movie.

“Certainly that’s the germ of it, the big picture, but it was important to me that this wasn’t a Mary Kay Letourneau story,” writer Sammy Burch said. Hollywood Reporter At the film’s Los Angeles premiere on Thursday. “It wasn’t the same detail — I certainly don’t want anyone to assume we’re trying to say all these conversations happened behind closed doors, which is not the case. That was just a starting point and a way to make something like this make sense to me emotionally.”

Director Todd Haynes added that at first he shied away from the real story, “but then there were times when it became very helpful to be very specific about the research and we learned things from that relationship, even in the ways that I did.” “It’s different from the relationship between Gracie and Joe in our movie.”

Moore, who responded that “this is not a Mary Kay Letourneau story,” said that while playing the role she was drawn to Gracie’s “hyper-femininity, the fact that she was very interested in sex and the way she felt like it.” almost a child; That she was not responsible for the start of this relationship is in direct contrast to the abuse that occurred 20 years ago. Portman noted that she liked the script, as “the characters were wild and strong and very complex.”

Despite sharing the screen with two Oscar winners, Melton receives particular praise for his performance, as the arrival of Portman’s character shakes up Joe’s marriage and forces him to look back at how it started. He earned £40 for the role by “eating a lot of hamburgers and pizza” to act out what the character was going through.

“He’s a suburban dad with three kids, a breadwinner, a great loving husband, and at such a young age he has the enormous responsibility of having kids, what will that feel like and where will he find comfort in the middle of all that?” Milton explained his conversion. “That really helped inform what we created with Joe.”

Hines also said that because the true story takes place 20 years before the film’s setting, a big focus of the film is the cultural coverage of the couple’s marriage: “It’s about the way we look at ourselves when stories are told and we navigate through them.” And questioning our expectations and moral positions that we add to the stories we watch. Will Ferrell, who produced the film alongside co-star Jessica Elbaum, added: “A lot of time and distance has passed since (the true story) actually happened, and it really ended up being a story about desperate, unhappy people, and how one decision. Narcissism impacts so many people.” of other people and change their lives forever.

May December Currently in select theaters and begins streaming on Netflix on December 1.