Catch-22: Interview with Grant Heslov and Kyle Chandler

11 June 2019

Grant Helsov plays - Doc Daneeka

Grant Heslov is also an Executive Producer and Directed two episodes from the series

Kyle Chandler plays - Colonel Cathcart

Q. Catch-22 is such a massive, iconic novel. Why take on something so loved by so many, and why now?

G: Listen, that’s a good question. We’ve been asking ourselves that question for a year and a half. Originally, George and I weren’t going to take it on for exactly that reason. But we read the scripts by Luke and David, and they were just great. So we thought “Okay, let’s take a stab at it. And in terms of why now, it’s a pretty tumultuous time out there, it’s also a crazy time in the States and here. I remember I was in the UK the day Brexit happened. I remember the night before – it was a late night, it was like 4am. You guys have the best TV here, I think, and they had one of those shows on, with a guy talking to an audience about Brexit, and it really felt like it was never going to pass. And the next day it passed, and it’s been insane ever since. I guess, unfortunately, it’s always relevant to talk about this stuff.

Q. Does the iconic status of the novel add a layer of extra pressure to what you guys are doing?

G: Yeah, it does. It did for us. But there are always going to be people out there who can’t get past that we tried to turn this book into something, and they’ll find stuff to dislike. That’s fine. For the most part, we wanted this to be fun and entertaining too, we want this to be a great story, and this will bring the book to countless people who didn’t know about it and had never read it. Maybe they’ll go and read it. That’s be great.

K: When they said Catch-22 I also thought “Oh man!” I had my hesitancies too. But once you read the script, and then you think about it being George and Grant and their group, and what they’ve done…

G: And you came on board in spite of that!

K: [Laughs] And you put all those things together, and then you read that script, then it was pretty easy. Nothing’s ever perfect, you’ve gotta jump out of the plane eventually. And everything that I wanted this to be, when I said yes, it was. Down to the look, down to the tone. It takes so many people to be on the right page to do what they’ve done. It’s pretty amazing. The final product, the way it turned out, to have so many different levels of tone. In orchestral perfection in that way. These guys really nailed it. And as Grant says, I think this will make more people pick up the book. And I think that might encourage people to start questioning what’s going on. “I like these guys, I don’t like what’s happening.” That’s what it’s all about.

Kyle, you play Colonel Cathcart, the base commander who keeps upping the number of missions the troops have to fly. What’s he like?

K: He’s the guy who’s turning the fire up on the stove. The pressure cooker’s on, and it hasn’t released the steam yet. It’s gonna explode. Within his own little world, I think he’s justifying everything he does in his own mind. And then I think towards the end, once other people come in and start pushing him down, and his powers are diminished, he sees the world a little bit more for what it is. That’s sort of a fun place to take him. He’s a guy, like all of these people, who’s stuck in a world that is so compressed that they just don’t have a grasp on reality.

Q. So does he develop a sense that his actions have had repercussions?

K: I think so, yeah. Towards the end of it. Scheisskopf comes in and kicks him down a step, then Dreedle comes in and kicks Scheisskopf down a step, then Scheisskopf kicks Cathcart down another step, and he starts to think “Wow, what have I done to this Yossarian kid? And who am I now?”

Grant, as well as directing and exec producing, you play Doc Daneeka. You get to deliver the iconic lines explaining Catch-22…

Yeah. I failed to recognise the significance of that until I had to actually do it, and then I was like “Oh!” And that was an episode I directed. It was fun, a great scene with Christopher Abbott.

Q. He’s a brilliant Yossarian, isn’t he?

G. Oh yeah. The thing that I feel the best about in this whole thing is the casting. Finding the right Yossarian – if it doesn’t have a great Yossarian, this thing doesn’t work. We found Chris – we didn’t find him, he’s been working for a long time – but he came in and read for us, and he was just… he’s the glue that really holds this thing together. He’s just good in every beat. Every moment is good. It’s not an easy part, and we didn’t shoot it in a way that made it easier for any of the actors. We did what’s called cross-boarding, so we were shooting all six episodes simultaneously, because it was all set-dependent. So if we had scenes taking place in this room, we would shoot all the scenes in all the episodes in this room. So I might direct a scene with Kyle in the morning in here for a couple of hours, and then George would get off the bench, and he would direct a scene with Kyle from a different episode, and then Ellen would get up and finish the day with Chris and some other guys in another different episode. You shoot out of order always, but to shoot out of order in this way was like shooting a different movie. So, the actors were really terrific. And we had a cast of Brit actors. I’d say all of the parts except for the five main parts are all Brits. And they’re great. We were just so lucky.

K: Going back to Chris, every time I watch the show over again, he gets better in it. I think one of the reasons he’s so good is that he boxes, and he’s disciplined like a boxer. And you have to be disciplined to go into that world and keep everything on track.

G: And not be a headcase about it. He’s joking around and doing stuff, and then it’s action and ‘boom’, and then right after we cut he’s back joking around.

Q. What kind of research did you guys do? You’ve got the book and the script, did you do more? Did you, for example, look at the life of being an airman in the Second World War?

G: We did general research, a lot of it with our production designer, just to make sure that everything felt real. We did a lot of work, George and I spent time in those planes, to see what it was like, the space, and how we could shoot it. Those planes are tiny, and you can’t believe those guys went up and did this stuff. If you took three or four pieces of tinfoil and put them together, that’s what the body of the plane feels like.

Q. Does that give you a new level of respect for what these guys went through?

G. Oh my God, you can’t believe it. And then you think, on top of it, that these kids are 18, 19 years old. He should be scared. He’s sane! So we wanted to create a space for the actors that felt very real, it didn’t feel like a set. We took over an old air base and completely dressed it, to the point that, if Kyle’s in a scene and he opens up his drawer, his memos and stuff are in there, the little things that make everything real.

K: Everything was done so well – the costumes and the set design. The tents felt real, like they’d been in Korea or Vietnam or even World War II.

G: Those tents were from a movie George and I did called Monuments Men.

K: They were great. You didn’t have to act, you put on your costume and all of a sudden you’re there. And, as Grant says, it was an airfield. So you’re walking from your trailer – actually, they gave us bicycles, we’d ride our bikes, and then you’re in the middle of the set, and you don’t see anything but the set. So you’re living there now. It was easy to fall into the world.

G: And the weather in Sardinia, it’s hot, you hear the cicadas, it helps.

Q. Did you watch the Mike Nichols film of Catch-22 at any point?

G: I have seen it, but it was some years ago. Once we were doing this, I didn’t watch it, but I remember it pretty well. There’s a couple of things, as a director, that I stole from that film. One is there’s a shot of planes taking off that he did, and it’s one of the most beautiful shots that I’ve ever seen in a film. He was lucky, he had like 20 or 25 planes. We only had two. So I had to recreate that shot, some of it digitally. And he did something with sound that George and I love. There’s certain scenes when, as the actors are talking, he has planes flying over and you can’t hear what they’re saying. We loved that. So those are our homages to him, because he’s one of our favourite film-makers.

Q. Why do this as a TV series as opposed to a film?

G: I re-read the book before this, and in some ways it was more devastating than when I’d read it as a young man. But the book is all over the place, it’s non-linear, it’s telling a story and jumping around time and characters, it’s very dense. So doing it in six hours really allows you to untangle it and give the characters a real arc. And it allows you to care about these young guys, so that, as we lose them along the way, it hopefully hits you in the gut. In two hours, you don’t have the time to get emotionally involved. We wanted it to have some real emotional heft as well as the satire. By the time you get to the fifth and sixth episodes – the fifth is probably the darkest episode, and the sixth is the most emotional.

Q. Kyle, in terms of your body of work, where do you put this? How do you feel about this project?

K: Oh, it’s way up at the top, of course. It really, honestly, truly is. It was a great experience, it’s a great piece of material, and the final result is amazing. And I met some great people.

G: Out of interest, what is the top? If you take Catch-22 out of it, because that’s not fair, what is the thing for you that you were most proud of?

K: I can tell you the thing that I am most proud of is one day actually going to the Cellar Theatre at the University of Georgia and actually having the balls to ask for a script. I’d never done anything. And I knew there was a play, A Comedy of Errors, and I got the script, and I took it over to the graveyard with my dictionary and I studied it all, and I went and auditioned, and I got the lead role! One day, when I’m drawing my last breath, I’m gonna think “Goddamn, I’m glad you did that.”

Q. Because that’s what changed everything?

K: The applause in the Cellar Theatre changed my life.