Producer with the skills of a diplomat

Greg Shapiro: 'I love stoner comedies and I also love war films so to me it was just working on something that I loved' Photo: Courtesy of Film Servis Festival Karlovy Vary

Back in the day Greg Shapiro, producer of both independent and mainstream titles such as Kathryn Bigelow’s 2008 Best Picture Oscar-winner The Hurt Locker and, at the other extreme, the Harold & Kumar franchise, landed a job as an assistant to veteran actor Nick Nolte on the Lee Tamahori-directed thriller Mulholland Falls.

Looking back he describes it as “film school” during which time he learned valuable skills such as the fact that “there is no easy way out – you actually have to put in the work. Nick really breaks down he scripts he receives and from he has developed a process. I found that any time that I tried to take a shortcut as a producer I ended up getting in trouble. So I have since followed those fundamental rules of diligence and care – and only then it gets to a better place.”

Shapiro, 53, who was one of the industry guests at the 60th anniversary edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, admits that he makes rather eclectic choices. He had produced the second Harold & Kumar stoner comedy, all basic low-brow jokes, just before he made The Hurt Locker, a high-minded war film which won six Oscars in total. He explained: “In my mind I was always thinking that they’re the same kind of movie to me. Look at it like this: I love stoner comedies and I also love war films so to me it was just working on something that I loved.”

He revealed that work already is under way on the screenplay for the next Harold & Kumar movie. “Everybody’s back – the actors and the writers, and the writers are directing. We hope to be shooting soon but it all has to come together in the right way.”

His collaboration with Bigelow dates from 2006 when they met to discuss The Hurt Locker (a prescient bomb-disposal drama set in Iraq) and continued through two other films Zero Dark Thirty in 2012, dealing with the US Military’s hunt for Osama Bin Laden, and last year her first film in eight years, A House of Dynamite, a nuclear thriller premiered in competition at the Venice Film Festival.

“We’re looking to work together again soon. When I work with Kathryn it is a very easy dynamic because she’s so in control as a filmmaker which gives any enterprise a certain safety, although The Hurt Locker certainly was a challenge but I loved the script. The film became somewhat forgotten a few months after its festival launch. I was making The Conspirator when I got a call explaining that we had won a major film critics award. And then I would get more similar calls and the film took on a life of its own.

The Hurt Locker. Greg Shapiro: 'When I work with Kathryn it is a very easy dynamic because she’s so in control as a filmmaker which gives any enterprise a certain safety'

“Now people want to see what she does and that makes any project that much easier to cast. And she won’t go ahead until she is 100 per cent sure that it is all there which can take years,” he said.

He has produced more than 20 films but also has amassed many projects where nothing happens. “That’s so annoying but it’s the way the cookie crumbles. Movies are a series of compromises and often the most exciting things come out of a compromise,” he said. One of his main bugbears is directors who refuse to budge over casting decisions.

Shapiro’s approach as a producer has been always to support the director first and foremost. “You’re in the service of the director even if he or she is not doing a good job. You still have to support that director’s vision. I have worked with some directors who have completely lost control and I have had to suffer through it all until it is finished. I will try to help them as much as I can and sometimes that works and sometimes not. You have to possess diplomatic skills and the wiles of a politician – especially dealing with the people who have put money into the production. It’s all about striking a balance.

Greg Shapiro: 'I have worked with some directors who have completely lost control' Photo: Courtesy of Film Servis Festival Karlovy Vary

“Fundamentally I feel I am doing the same thing now as I did 20 years ago. The development process is the same and there’s finding the right piece of material and then working on it which can take anything from six months to six years. The release pattern has changed because it has become a much more competitive landscape. Films can have a much longer lifespan in the cinema and then on streaming which is exciting because you reach such a wide audience.”

Shapiro is a dedicated fan of Karlovy Vary. He said: “First of all, it's a beautiful place to visit but it’s also great for making contacts and a good place for meeting people. I always connect with people from Hollywood that are here. But then I also get to connect with some of the Czech producers with whom I have been developing relationships over the years. I love the fact that the festival attracts such huge audiences and that creates an amazing energy mix. Just two days ago a Czech producer whom I’ve know for a long time mentioned this Czech book and I read it in translation and it’s really good. So who knows what might happen to that.”