May 19, 2006 - On Friday just before noon, director Richard Linklater accompanied by producer Malcolm McLaren (yes, the Sex Pistols impresario!) and screenwriter Jeremy Thomas and the cast (made up of Ethan Hawke, Greg Kinnear, Wilmer Valderrama, Claudia Talancon and a magnificently reserved Catalina Sandino Moreno from Maria Full of Grace, among many others ? some, like Bruce Willis, gave a one-scene performance) gave a press conference in the Palais Des Festivals? main press room about Fast-Food Nation, part of the Selection Officielle.

The tone between speakers and the press was polite and subdued, no major shockers here, and even a little silliness from the critics gathered inside, like the question from the Icelandic journalist who asked Ethan Hawke if he would come to an Icelandic film festival if he offered him a matching red carpet and Renault? Huh? Hawke, nonplussed, replied, "Yeah, call me, we?ll set a date.? Fast-Food Nation coming soon to a Reykjavik theatre. Not so near you.
This was Linklater?s first foray in documentary filmmaking - Bad News Bears (2004) and School of Rock (2003) are some of his more recent features. When asked how he came into picking up the project, he explained that screenwriter Jeremy Thomas had approached him about the book and proposed to adapt it to the big screen, and that he would write the screenplay. Linklater had read the book already and was left with a lot of questions about it. Still, he told the journalists assembled that he wanted to move away from the book and let the characters speak their own story.

Smart move, read between the lines, I say. And in today?s slew of ideology-weighted major features it is refreshing that a filmmaker would want to ensure some detachment from all too obvious political message of a film like Fast-Food Nation.

Most of the questions from the audience were fielded by Linklater, leaving the rest of the cast transfixed on someone or simply gazing into space. Malcolm McLaren sat looking dismayed with his entourage, but in that wonderful, regal sort of way the English have.

A reporter from Columbia asked Catalina Sandino Moreno what likenesses, if any, she had found between her part in Fast-Food Nation and Maria Full of Grace. She explained that her character Maria Alvarez from the latter movie was vaguely hoping for a way out though how was unclear, whereas her part in Fast-Food Nation was primed and poised and had a plan to get out. When asked if he had written the part with her in mind, Linklater commented that he hadn?t, and that it did not seem smart to write specifically with one actor in mind. When he first met Moreno he had his doubts, but within two minutes he thought she was perfect.

Greg Kinnear gave one of the more insightful answers when responding to a reporter?s question about his own character?s changing through the movie. He explained that during the reading of the script, he saw his part as the conscience-free executive being reshaped into a human by the general injustice depicted in the film (cruelty toward animals, unfair treatment of workers in slaughterhouses) to the point that he would smash his coffee mug against the carved wood and glass conference table and say, ?I?ve had enough! I must stand up and do something about this.? But that is not what happens at all, he says, and we must realize why. Kinnear reminded us these are people with families to support, who are part of a bigger system, even if they have the same questions about its integrity as we do. A fair point, indeed, which had some of his co-panelists nodding in agreement.