"I believe in music the way some people believe in fairy tales. What I hear came from my mother and father. Maybe that's how they found each other. Maybe that's how they'll find me…"
- August Rush

"This is a story about a child who hears the world differently," offers award-winning producer Richard Barton Lewis, who nurtured "August Rush" from its inception through every aspect of development and production. "He doesn't fit in where life initially places him. His one desire is to be with his parents, and no matter how much people try to convince him that they aren't alive or, worse, that they don't care, he never gives up believing. No one can talk him out of it. He waits for them for 11 years and then decides it's time to go look for them himself."
What he doesn't know is that his parents are just as lost as he is.
Director Kirsten Sheridan explains. "August's ability to channel music from nature has its origin with his mother, Lyla, a concert cellist, and his father, Louis, a singer, songwriter and guitarist--both of them talented musicians but, more importantly, both similarly attuned to the music that's all around us but few of us hear. It's what brought them together. These are two people who have always heard the world in a special, specific way and that has left them a bit on the periphery with other people. When they realize that they each feel the same way, it's an absolutely magical and immediate connection that breaks them out of their loneliness for that one night and that's when August is created.
"'August Rush' is a love story with three people," Sheridan affirms.
"But, like so many love stories, things don't run smoothly. Lyla and Louis are quickly torn apart and remain apart for years. Sadly, upon losing each other, they also lose their passion for music," adds Lewis.
That the lovers' separation also results in their unintentional separation from their child--a child they don't know even exists--gives the story a triangular structure as each must now follow his or her unique journey to the same destination if they are ever to be a family.
"I liked the story's ensemble nature," notes Jonathan Rhys Meyers, who stars as the impulsive, creative Louis. "They're all parts of the same puzzle, these three people separated by circumstance, who need each other to feel fully alive."
Keri Russell, who stars as Louis' precious Lyla, says, "I love stories in which people are trying to find where they belong, to find their true home and the people they're meant to be with. It's easy to make a poor choice and spend a decade living the wrong kind of life and not as easy to correct that kind of error, but it's possible. I believe what this story is saying--not just with August but with each of the characters--is that it's only when you open yourself up to emotion and loss and become vulnerable that you find your way."
Sheridan concurs. "I'm constantly reminded of how the most profound ideas are often the most basic. What I fell in love with was the central story of this family finding each other through their shared passion for music and how it juxtaposes life's two extremes: love and loss."
"The thread running throughout all of it is the music," says Lewis. "It's integral to the story, like a character unto itself."
Freddie Highmore, whose 14th birthday coincided with the first week of filming, describes how this musical influence is a theme established at the very beginning and helps to enhance and propel the story. "Even in the orphanage, August feels connected to the parents he's never met because he believes they hear the same music he hears in everything around him. Later, when he learns guitar, he can start expressing some of that music and believes he is playing to his parents. One thing leads to another with him just getting better at playing all the time and gaining a wider audience, but it all means the same to him: he's calling out to these two people. He is absolutely convinced that this is the way to reach them."
Music as communication is a concept August knows instinctively but it's the mysterious man known as Wizard who first articulates it for him. Played by Robin Williams, who refers to the character as "a kind of rock-and-roll Fagan," Wizard serves as August's first mentor. "You know what music is?" he asks the boy. "A harmonic connection between all living beings."
With much of the story told through the changing rhythms and moods of music, Lewis greatly credits director Sheridan's ability to "match sound with camera flow, to sweep, visually, as the music sweeps, always flying to capture August's soaring point of view. Kirsten brought a facile touch as well as passion, imagination and tremendous heart. It was the purest collaboration I have ever had with a director. She is an amazing storyteller."
"August Rush" evokes a certain fairytale quality but is grounded in reality--a balance the filmmakers sought to maintain because, as Sheridan attests, "If everything is magical you won't be able to see the one part of it that is truly meant to be transcendent; it would be like putting a color on top of another color. We wanted the contrast of the real world."
Citing the truth-is-greater-than-fiction principle, screenwriter James V. Hart notes that even the seemingly fantastic elements of August's musical prowess could be drawn from reality. "One amazing aspect of this story is that while we were prepping the script for production a child prodigy enrolled at Juilliard--Jay Greenberg, age 12, who had already composed five symphonies. In an interview he stated that he doesn't know where the music comes from, but that when it arrives in his head it's completely composed. He sounded like our August."
"I've always been attracted to stories that hint at magic. It's very seductive because we all want to believe," says screenwriter Nick Castle, reuniting here with Hart for the first time since their creative collaboration on Steven Spielberg's "Hook." "And music is the most mysterious of arts; it seems to bypass the conscious mind and go to some very primal place in us. It's the perfect medium for the magic in this kind of film."
As Lewis concludes, "There are no special effects in this movie. The magic is in the performances, the characters and the discoveries they make along the way."

CASTING
Casting on "August Rush" naturally began with the story's central role.
"Finding the right August was essential. If the child does not genuinely touch an audience, this story won't work. You're not going to believe him," states Lewis, who cites Freddie Highmore's park bench scene with Johnny Depp in "Finding Neverland" as striking exactly the right emotional tone he needed for August. Securing the young actor proved more difficult, as Highmore's mother had planned for her son to take a break from his film schedule at the time. "But when I described the story to her, she agreed to read the script, and when she and Freddie read the script they loved it."
Taking Highmore's formidable talent as a given, the producer took an unconventional approach to his interview by putting Highmore together with his own young son and observing their rapport. "Freddie has a unique, genuine, unaffected quality that is entirely his own, as an actor and as a person. You simply fall into his eyes," says Lewis. "He has an uncanny ability to connect with people, which we needed because August doesn't speak much; he lets others talk, and takes it all in."
This quality proved essential, adds Sheridan, as "August draws out the truth and humanity from the people he encounters. People who look into his open, honest face find themselves looking into a mirror. He reflects back to them what they had forgotten or don't want to see, and it was truly remarkable to see Freddie accomplish this with such apparent ease.
"He had a strong instinct for the role. For example, he kept August quite low-key when he wasn't playing music and then, when he picked up an instrument he would suddenly come alive with electricity and his smile would be radiant," Sheridan continues, adding that in a few instances where their approaches to a scene differed slightly she opted to let him play it as he felt and was not disappointed.
"August is not quite normal in his interactions with people," Highmore observes. "He tends to stare. Kirsten and I decided it's as though he never learned the social convention to politely look away, so he stares the way a much younger child might do and in the same calm, open and fearless way."
Highmore, who could play clarinet and read music prior to the project, enjoyed the guitar work particularly and declares conducting the most challenging of his on-set lessons. "There's a seven-minute symphony I have to conduct, and it's amazing how involved that can be: you have to know the exact place to bring in the oboe on the left or the violas on the right and time the beats so you don't mess up. Of course, if I did it wrong it wouldn't have mattered that much; it only had to look real, but I wanted to get it as near to perfect as possible."
At the same time, says Lewis, "Keri Russell learned to play cello from a dead stop. She didn't play a note when we started this movie, and we gave her arguably three of the most intricate pieces ever written from Tchaikovsky, Elgar and Bach."
Russell, who devoted herself to learning the solos, describes the process as "going from 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star' to Bach in twelve weeks. We broke the pieces down and slowed them so I could learn the correct bowing positions and then gradually brought them up to speed. Fortunately, they're not relying on me for the sound--that will be some brilliant professional cellist--but it took intense practice just to achieve that visual credibility.
"It's easy to see how the demands of a concert career can impact a person's life," she continues. "For a young virtuoso who started playing at an early age, it can be a strange world. I don't think Lyla had much of a childhood or the regular 'kid' experience. She lived in her own world. Her whirlwind romance with Louis was such an incredible connection and a meeting of soul mates, that suddenly her reserve was gone and it was like a revelation. But, just as quickly, it was taken from her. Ten years later she's like half a person. That spark is gone."
Still, she says, "Lyla finally chooses to be brave. It may have taken her ten years to get back on track but she does it with passion. Once she learns she has a son, her story really begins."
Says Sheridan, "I didn't want Lyla to be the kind of girl who was just beautiful and gazed demurely out of windows. Certainly she has been sheltered by the kind of life she's led but this is a woman with a steel spine. She has drive and focus. I wanted to see her get angry when she learns the truth and discovers she's been cheated out of the love she deserved and then find a way to get it back. Keri has that classical, ethereal beauty and the grace and poise you would expect to see on stage at Carnegie Hall, but she delivers the rest of it, too. Lyla begins as a kind of china doll and ends up a fighter."
Lyla's initial reserve and formality provides a dynamic counterpart to Jonathan Rhys Meyers' Louis, whose energy Richard Lewis describes as "raw and instinctual, a bad boy with heart."
"It's a role that could easily have gone down a self-indulgent path but Johnny does not allow that. He never turns it into 'poor me.' It's a heartfelt, vulnerable role and he understood it perfectly," says Sheridan.
"I liked the idea of playing a father who doesn't know he's a father and, more importantly, a character whose main concern is not himself," says Meyers. "Working with Freddie took me back for an instant to that sense of fearlessness and freshness I felt when I was his age and it was delicious."
The character Louis sings three songs on screen, each an original composition written expressly for the film by renowned musicians John Ondrasik, Chris Trapper and Lucas Reynolds. Rather than cast a musician who could act, the filmmakers sought an actor who could sing because of the depth of the material, and planned to enhance his voice in studio later, should he prove not to have the pipes. Producer Lewis recalls his relief and delight when it became obvious that Meyers was a dual talent. "When he came in to record the John Ondrasik song 'Break,' Ondrasik was on hand and said, 'As long as he has the right attitude, we can fix it.' Music producer Phil Ramone said, 'As long as he gives us something to work with, we can fix it.' Then Johnny sang and he was great and Phil looked at us and simply said, 'You are so lucky.'"
For the role of Wizard, Lewis turned to Robin Williams, with whom he had recently worked on "House of D," citing Williams' ability to "bring lightness to roles that are not especially light and vice versa. He conveys the complexity of the roles so deftly."
Maxwell "Wizard" Wallace is the personification of complexity. Father figure, mentor, headmaster, boss and agent all rolled into one, he is a homeless former musician who has taken possession of a condemned theater in the city where he holds court over dozens of street performers--offering guidance, discipline, shelter and protection… at a price, namely: "no play, no pay, no stay."
Says Lewis, "There's a real edge to Wizard's personality. I wanted him to be unpredictable, scary and wonderful. You never know what you're going to get with him, and that's what makes him such a compelling character. Music is his only way of really connecting. It's probably the one thing he did well in life, but he's lost it and is desperate to get it back."
Speculating on Wizard's back-story, Williams suggests, "He was a promising musician himself, then fell through the cracks. I imagine years of abuse or neglect, then he just lost it, hit the wall, or maybe he just didn't have enough talent. Now he finds himself working with these kids, trying to impart to them his understanding of music, but not many of them get it until August comes along. Right away, Wizard knows there's something extraordinary abut this kid: he has the gift. In one way, he wants to nurture it, but he's jealous too. More than anything, I think, he's afraid the teachers and the world in general will beat the gift out of August the way they did with him."
"August reminds Wizard of the best that music can be. Also, he reminds Wizard of who he once was--his own talent and promise--and that stirs very mixed emotions," says Sheridan.
Highmore jokes that Williams' casting meant he "wasn't the only kid on the set," adding that his collaboration with the multi-talented actor helped develop his own improvisational skills and proved a learning experience as much as it was fun. "The way Robin works the dialogue it's more like a conversation. It feels more natural and even when he took us off the page, I would find myself talking and answering questions in the way that August would answer them. Robin became Wizard and I became August. It was fantastic. He's so good at it; I just tried to follow his lead."
The film also alludes to a possible history for social worker Richard Jeffries, played by Terrence Howard, that adds depth and dignity to the character without spelling anything out.
"Maybe he was a foster child himself and finds some solace in reuniting other lost children with their families," Howard speculates. "A good portion of my roles have been tough, disreputable characters so it was nice to play someone who is closer to my heart. I know that a missing child is a reality for many people, and I feel for them as a father myself. It's not hard to imagine the things that could happen."
When Jeffries interviews August at the orphanage, says Howard, he sees that "August doesn't fit in. The kids think he's strange, but he knows he has a purpose." During the meeting, which involves going over standard questions for the social worker's case file, Jeffries attempts to encourage August to be more receptive to the idea of being adopted, by reminding him that there is a whole world waiting for him outside.
"As self-possessed as August seems, Jeffries understands--or suspects, because he's likely seen this a hundred times before--that this child resists adoption because he fears that his successful placement will prevent his family from finding him," says Howard.
"It's at this juncture," says Lewis, "that August first realizes he could go beyond the boundaries of the orphanage instead of merely waiting to be found. That one remark helps set August's journey into motion."
Similarly, Lyla's father Thomas, played by William Sadler, sets her journey into motion when he finally reveals to her the life-altering truth that her baby boy survived.
"Thomas is flawed but not a one-note bad guy," offers Sheridan. "We imagined a past for him that involved losing Lyla's mother, a concert cellist herself. All he had left was Lyla. His decision to give her child away and keep the truth from her was not only a selfish attempt to keep her with him and manage her career, but it was also what he thought best for her as a father. Unfortunately, he was trying to push her into being something she wasn't."
Sadler sees the character as a catalyst, observing that "Thomas is integral at both turning points in Lyla's life. First, when he's hustling her into the car for her next performance and she sees Louis running toward her, she makes the split-second decision to stay with her father and that changes everything with Louis. Secondly, when Thomas finally tells her the truth, after ten years of her living under the shadow of this decision and the tragedy of thinking she'd lost her child, it sets her on an immediate search to find this child and, in the process, reclaim her life."
Joining the "August Rush" main cast in the role of Arthur is Leon Thomas III, best known for his work on Broadway. Arthur is the young street musician whose guitar playing in Washington Square captures August's attention upon his arrival in New York City and who leads him to Wizard. "Arthur is a real street kid," says Sheridan. "He's sharp, confident, a real wheeler-dealer with plenty of attitude, but August brings out his vulnerability and kindness. Later, when Wizard is so impressed by August's ability that he focuses all his attention on him at Arthur's expense, it truly hurts him."
Another youngster who figures prominently in August's journey is Hope, a choir soloist whose clear voice draws August into a Harlem church one night when he's lost in the city for the second time. Hope is played by Apollo Kids Talent Search winner Jamia Simone Nash, just nine years old at the time of filming and already adding numerous television roles and singing engagements to her credit. It's not long after befriending August that Hope brings his prodigious talent to the attention of Reverend James, played by Mykelti Williamson ("Forrest Gump"). After August's impromptu organ concert reveals his astonishing ability, the reverend feels a moral responsibility to help him develop this gift.

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