Intolerable Cruelty has been in the works for nearly eight years.  "Luckily," says screenwriter/director Joel Coen with regard to the age old subject of the battle of the sexes, "the material is timeless." "Yes," agrees screenwriter/producer Ethan Coen, "I don't think the eight years made much of a difference."

The initial project had begun life quite separately from the Coens, who found the concept interesting and who gave it their signature once over. "We originally did it as a writing job for Universal and it languished at the studio for a while," explains Joel about the long delay from page to screen.  "Then it came back to us about a year ago and George Clooney expressed some interest in doing it.  It was that combination that got us interested in directing it ourselves."

As for the story and the setting, "at face value it's a comedy about lawyers," explains Joel.  "Los Angeles and the culture of L.A. and Beverly Hills are a significant part of the idea or the comedy." "Like a lot of screwball comedies, it's about rich people," continues Ethan, "so not just in terms of photography but in terms of set dressing, wardrobe, every aspect, it's all very high-end."

The fact that it's a star-driven "Hollywood" comedy might be seen as somewhat of a departure for Joel and Ethan, whose previous work includes Palme d'Or-winning Barton Fink, the Academy Award®-winning dark comedy Fargo and the Academy Award®- nominated O Brother, Where Art Thou?. But for Oscar®-winning producer Brian Grazer, responsible for such comedy hits as Parenthood, The Nutty Professor and Liar Liar, it represented an irresistible opportunity to put a slightly left-of-center spin on the kind of big, star-driven comedy he's done so successfully in the past. "Joel and Ethan are the coolest, purest filmmakers in modern movies," says Grazer. "Here you have a romantic comedy with these mainstream movie stars.  And then you add the Coens' irreverence--and it's their irreverence injected into this romance that makes the whole journey very sexy and very unpredictable."

"It's more of a 'glam' thing than certainly we've ever done before," adds Ethan. "For us, it's trying something a little bit different but I wouldn't call it unique exactly," adds Joel.

Despite surface appearances, both Catherine Zeta-Jones (who stars as Marylin Rexroth) and Geoffrey Rush (who plays TV producer Donovan Donaly) see it as a film with a distinct Coen brothers' touch.

"There's a dark humour," comments Zeta-Jones.  "They're masters of that and I think it's just inherent in their filmmaking and in their writing."

"With each film they make, they invite you to visit another planet," says Rush, "but you kind of know that each planet is in the Coen brothers solar system." About this latest addition to their solar system, Rush continues, "You know in reading it that it's a fairly brilliantly constructed script, because they take you into the world hard at the beginning--it's laugh-out-loud funny on page two.  Not many pieces of writing can do that."

The introduction of Hollywood glamour is not the only departure for Joel and Ethan on this project.  Usually known for casting from a stable of returning actors, the circumstances of this script also dictated that the casting process be a bit out of the ordinary.

"In almost every other movie we've ever done, we've had particular actors in mind when we wrote the parts," explains Joel.  "Since we didn't write this originally as something we were going to do ourselves, that wasn't the case here."

With the exception of George Clooney, Richard Jenkins and Billy Bob Thornton, the other actors are new to a Coen brothers' production.  "That's actually been one of the pleasures of doing the movie," admits Joel. "It's been an opportunity to work with new people."

Including veteran producer Grazer, who comments, "Joel and Ethan are brilliant at so many things, particularly the fine art of casting.  It was one of my life goals to get George Clooney in a movie, and I think the chemistry between George and Catherine couldn't be more perfect.


This "flat-out comedy" as Joel describes it, takes place in Los Angeles, the Mecca of glitz and glamour.  "You can tell this story elsewhere," he explains, "but I think it would be quite different, because the movie is informed by attitudes and a lifestyle which are particular to Los Angeles."

"On this one," recalls production designer Leslie McDonald (who has worked with the Coens previously in the capacity of art director), "they basically wanted it 'normal.'  We have a few characters with a few strange fetishes that maybe stretch the limit of 'normal' but really, it's all contemporary Beverly Hills, Los Angeles and then Caesars Palace in Las Vegas."

"The fact that it's modern day is kind of interesting," says Ethan.  "As a production experience, it makes it a lot easier to shoot than a period piece.  You don't have to create the world from the ground up as we had to in the last couple of films we've done."

In addition to production designer McDonald, many of the production team are long-time collaborators of the Coens':  director of photography Roger Deakins; editor Roderick Jaynes; co-producer John Cameron; costume designer Mary Zophres; and composer Carter Burwell. 
"Roger is our closest collaborator in many ways," says Joel of Deakins, who has worked with them since Barton Fink.  "He's somebody that we wouldn't consider doing a movie without."

In terms of the look of this production, Deakins says, "We talked about it being more of a conventional-looking, glossy movie.  We talked about it being sharp and using colors.  This is a much more straightforward movie in many ways than the others we have done.  This film is so much about characters and faces.  We want to see the actors deliver his rapid-fire dialogue.  In that way, it's a straighter comedy than The Man Who Wasn't There or even Fargo."

The idea of a more conventional style was also a consideration for costume designer Mary Zophres.  From the start, she took her characters' looks directly from the tone and settings inherent in the script. 

While marriage, divorce and the havoc brought about in the process can be rather weighty topics, "it's also a staple of comedy," explains Ethan.  "That hard-hearted woman, soft-headed man--and Clooney is definitely the soft-headed man and Catherine's the hard-hearted woman--these are forms that have been handed down to us."

And within that form, says Ed Herrmann, "It's just wonderful what they say about divorce lawyers and the machinery of divorce."

"I hope people will just enjoy it, have fun with it and then go home and look at their marriage," laughs Zeta-Jones.  "It doesn't take any stance at all about marriage.  But I'm sure that everyone out there will find similarities to somebody they know."

"It's really a love story for anybody and everybody," observes Grazer.  "You're dying to see George and Catherine get together, but they really beat the heck out of each other on the way."

"I think it's both pro-marriage and divorce," says Ethan diplomatically. 

But whatever it is, if one were to predict the outcome for Miles and Marylin?   

"I think there's a happy ending," replies Ethan.

And finally, with regard to audience reaction, Joel remarks, "Well, we hope they'll laugh.  It is, after all, a comedy."

Joel Coen (Director / Screenwriter)
He was honoured by the Cannes International Film Festival in 2001 as Best Director for The Man Who Wasn't There and in 1991 as Best Director for Barton Fink.  In 1996, he was honoured as Best Director by the New York Film Critics Circle, the National Board of Review and the BAFTA Awards for Fargo and also won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Fargo, which he co-wrote with his brother Ethan.  The screenplay for O Brother, Where Art Thou?, also co-written with Ethan, was nominated for a BAFTA Award and an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.  Other films he has directed and co-written are The Big Lebowski, The Hudsucker Proxy, Miller's Crossing, Raising Arizona and Blood Simple.

Ethan Coen (Producer / Screenwriter)
He has produced and co-written such critically acclaimed films as Miller's Crossing, Barton Fink (winner of the Palme d'Or, Best Director and Best Actor Awards at the 1991 Cannes International Film Festival) and O Brother, Where Art Thou? (which was nominated for two Academy Awardsâ, four BAFTA Awards and two Golden Globe Awards).  In 1996, one of the year's most honoured films, Fargo (which he produced and co-wrote), received four Academy Award nominations and won two, including Best Original Screenplay for Ethan and his brother Joel.  Among the other films he has co-written and produced are Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, The Hudsucker Proxy, The Big Lebowski and The Man Who Wasn't There.

Robert Ramsey & Matthew Stone (Screenwriters / Story by)
They met while undergraduates at North-western University.  Intolerable Cruelty is their fourth feature film.  Previously, they wrote Big Trouble, starring Tim Allen and Rene Russo, directed by Barry Sonnenfeld; Life, starring Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence, directed by Ted Demme; and Destiny Turns on the Radio, developed at the Sundance Institute, starring Dylan McDermott and Quentin Tarantino, directed by Jack Baran. They also contributed to the CBS television series Johnny Bago, starring Peter Dobson and produced by Robert Zemeckis.  Shooting begins October 6, 2003, on their current project, Cheer Up, a comedy for director Steven Herek, starring Tommy Lee Jones.

John Romano (Story by)
He has amassed a lengthy list of credits as both a producer and writer for television.  As a writer, he most recently scripted the HBO film Cloudsplitter and the FX telefeature John Walker Lindh: The American Taliban and worked on the pilot episode of 24. Romano currently serves as consulting producer on NBC's acclaimed series American Dreams.  Previously, he was executive consultant on NBC's Providence.  He has worked as executive producer on myriad projects, including:  Third Watch; Party of Five; Michael Hayes (series also created by Romano); Dark Angel (also created by); Sweet Justice (also created by); and Class of '96 (co-created by).  He also served as consulting producer on Early Edition; as director and co-executive producer of Knots Landing; and as supervising producer of Cop Rock.
Additional credits include scripting freelance episodes of the series L.A. Law.