DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT
PRETTY PERSUASION is the story of a fifteen-year-old girl, Kimberly Joyce, who accuses her English and Drama teacher of sexual assault. The teacher, Percy Anderson, denies Kimberly's accusations and it becomes his word against hers. But it's not that simple. Whether he is innocent or guilty becomes hard to tell, even after we know all the facts. At the end of the film, there isn't one overriding message I am trying to convey. I want the audience to walk away with their own opinions and their own feelings intact. I'm not trying to affect their emotions, or tell them what they just saw was right or wrong and I expect people's reactions to be varied.
The reality is, there are many things wrong with our society and this film deals with some of those frustrations. Layered with issues such as family values, racism, politics, the media, revenge, and our society's obsession with celebrity, the film, while borrowing some elements from the teen-comedy genre, is not a comedy. It is actually a tragedy, exposing those public and private morals that are ripe for satirizing.
I fell in love with the script for PRETTY PERSUASION the first time I read it. I remember thinking it was a totally absurd and ridiculous story but at the same time it was such a clever commentary on our society. I immediately knew how I wanted the movie to look and what the tone should be. A script with such a heightened sense of reality, with such absurd characters, needed to be visually toned down and subdued. I had all these ideas in my head about making it feel timeless and shooting it in a very specific style. I wanted to give it a slow pace in direct contrast to the fast-paced, exaggerated dialogue. But there was one problem, the writer (Skander Halim) wanted to direct it.
Needless to say I was crushed. But luckily for me, Matt Weaver, the producer, really believed in me and thought it would be a good idea for me to sit down with Skander and tell him my vision for his script. A few months later, Skander came to Los Angeles and I went to meet him. I don't remember a whole lot about what I said to him that day but I do remember promising him that if, or when, I got PRETTY PERSUASION made, I would fight to not let anyone change the script or turn it into another teen comedy. That was almost five years ago.
Then came the hard part, we knew no studio would touch the material and no private investors would back us without a cast. This was easier said than done, so we started sending the script out to actors. The material was so good we began to get great responses from everyone we sent it to. I remember the day Evan Rachel Wood came in to meet me. I was prepping a music video and had only a few minutes. It was before THIRTEEN was even made, and I didn't know who she was, so I watched her reel and then sat down with her. I was blown away by how smart and articulate she was. To be completely honest, she left me in awe.
After we secured Evan, James Woods committed to play her outrageous, racist father (Hank Joyce) and Ron Livingston committed to play her teacher (Percy Anderson). With this cast in place I was sure we could get the movie made. But with each meeting, it became more and more obvious that anyone who seriously considered financing the film would want to work on the script and make it more "commercial."
Finally in June of 2004, we raised enough money so we felt comfortable moving forward (not quite enough to shoot the whole movie but we started anyway). We contacted all the actors, some of whom at this point had been attached for up to four years, and all of the stars seemed to be aligned. Everyone was available in August, so we picked our dates and shot for twenty days.
PRETTY PERSUASION is a real example of the independent spirit. It's a film that was made with a commitment to the art. It wasn't driven by anything but a love for the material and a genuine desire to make a good movie. It was truly moving for me to see the belief everyone had in me while making this film. The actors were amazing, the producers were incredible, and all my crew were inspiring. Altogether, it was an experience I will never forget.

Q&A WITH DIRECTOR MARCOS SIEGA AND WRITER SKANDER HALIM
Q: Skander, what was your initial inspiration for the script of PRETTY PERSUASION?
A: The genesis of the idea came to me while I was in high school in my home town of Ottawa, Canada. This story surfaced about this local eighth grade girl who had accused a teacher of molesting her. I remember book marking this as the beginnings of an idea for a script.
A few years later, I was just out of college, and I was in LA reading scripts for production companies, and it struck me that this was the perfect setting for that story. I wrote it as "The Script That Could Never Get Made," and I was shocked when it did.

Q: While people may draw their own conclusions and take different things from it, is there one overriding theme or idea you both hope viewers will leave with after seeing the film?
A: Siega -- At the end of the film there isn't one overriding message I am trying to convey. I want the audience to walk away with their own opinions of what they have seen and their own feelings intact. The reality is that there are a lot of things wrong with our society and this film deals with some of those frustrations. I expect people's reactions to be varied, and my only hope is that they walk away talking about it.
Halim -- The film's ambition -- and perhaps its grand folly -- is to be about a lot of different things. I can say that there is a lot about the current state of America that troubles and frightens me, and that's partly what the script is about. If people leave the film thinking about things in a slightly different way than they did going in, I think I will be happy.

Q: Films set in high school, and depicting that unique experience, are many. What is it about PRETTY PERSUASION that you hope sets it apart from most others in the genre?
A: Halim - It's kind of an anti-high school movie. It has some of the glossy, pop trappings of a high school movie, but really it just uses that as a framework to tell this kind of nightmare story.

Q: Marcos, what was the first thing you felt after having read the script for the first time? What was it that made you certain that you wanted to direct it?
A: I remember thinking that it was a totally absurd and ridiculous story, but at the same time it was such a clever commentary on our society. I knew I wanted to direct it because it was so much smarter than other scripts I had read. I felt I could do something with the material that didn't suffer from the trappings and conventions of a regular teen movie.

Q: Skander, what was it about Marcos' take on the script that made you realize that he was the right filmmaker to direct it?
A: He was the only person who understood that it wasn't a straight comedy. He got that it's supposed to make you laugh, but that the laughs should kind of catch in your throat. He realized that many people were going to try to make it into something else, and he was willing to fight for its integrity. The few changes he suggested -- less broad comedy, even less sympathetic characters -- were an indication to me that he had good instincts about it.

Q: Marcos, the film has a precise look and style. Can you discuss how this was conceived and what you were hoping to achieve with it in terms of the story?
A: I felt a script with such a heightened sense of reality, with such absurd characters, needed to be visually toned down and subdued. I had all these ideas in my head about making it feel timeless and shooting it in a very specific style. I also wanted to give it a slow pace that was in direct contrast to the fast talking exaggerated dialogue.

Q: The character of Kimberly Joyce is so many things - fiercely intelligent; wildly funny; shockingly cruel; sexy and sometimes downright scary. Did you have any particular actress in mind when writing the part?
A: I wrote the script with the utter conviction that it would never get made, and one of the reasons was I didn't think there was a teenage actress capable of playing that role. So no, I didn't have anyone in mind. I was impressed by Evan's work on "Once and Again," and I suggested her early on for Brittany. I knew she could do fragile and sweet, but I never dreamed that she could summon up the darkness necessary to play Kimberly.

Q: Marcos, how difficult and important was it to find the right actress to play her?
A: It's hard to say how difficult it was - I think we just got lucky finding Evan. At the end of the day the right actress really meant everything. The movie is so layered that it doesn't work if her performance doesn't work. As proud as I am of all the components of this film, I feel it is Evan's performance that really holds it all together.

Q: Marcos, the entire cast seems to be having a ball with their roles and the film. Please describe the overall feeling on set during the making of the film.
A: I had the most amazing experience making this film. I couldn't wait to get to work each day because I felt like we were making something special that we all really wanted to be a part of. I did everything I could to ensure that the cast trusted what I was doing and to let them know that I trusted them. And although there was a very specific tone we were going for, I think that really freed them and allowed them to have fun with their roles.

Q: How did the rest of the cast and production come together?
A: After we secured Evan we got James Woods committed to play her outrageous and racist father and then Ron Livingston to play her teacher. With this cast in place I was sure we could get the movie made, but with each meeting it became more and more obvious that anyone who seriously considered financing the film would want to work on the script, make it more "commercial."
Finally this past June we raised enough money so we felt comfortable moving forward. We contacted all the actors, some of whom at this point had been attached for up to four years, and all the stars aligned. Everyone seemed to be available in August, so we picked our dates and shot for twenty days.


Skander Halim (Writer) was born in 1976 in Carleton Place, Ontario, Canada, to immigrant parents, one Bangladeshi, one Dutch.
After attaining a B.F.A. in Film Studies from Concordia University in Montreal in 1997, he spent a year in Los Angeles interning for production companies reading scripts and writing coverage. During this time he wrote PRETTY PERSUASION, a script he hoped would get him some attention, but which he was convinced would never actually get made.
In the meantime, Halim wrote for children's television: NBC Saturday morning and ABC Family shows, including "I Was a Sixth Grade Alien," "The Zack Files," and "Strange Days at Blake Holsey High."
He is currently developing his feature directorial debut, a horror movie entitled THE PERFECT GHOST, as well as a drama series with 20th Century Fox Television. As a director, Halim has made a number of short films. His most recent short, "Guest Room," played to acclaim on the international festival circuit, including the Toronto International Film Festival and the Tribeca Film Festival.