Song Sung Blue Director Craig Brewer Says Studios Kept Rejecting Movie

Before shooting started on “Song Sung Blue,” Craig Brewer gathered Hugh Jackman, Kate Hudson and the rest of the musical drama’s cast together to read through the script. The actors expected to spend hours fine-tuning their performances and rehearsing key scenes. Instead, Brewer went up to his two stars and gave them a few evocative notes.

“I said, ‘Kate, I could use a little more sunshine and Hugh, I could use a little more rain,’” Brewer remembers. “I’m very much into them interpreting that however they want to.”

Over the course of his career, Brewer has worked with some formidable actors, from Terrence Howard (“Hustle & Flow”) to Samuel L. Jackson (“Black Snake Moan”) to Eddie Murphy (“Dolemite Is My Name”), and he believes that the most important thing he can do as a director is stand back and let his stars make their magic.

“They’ll make jokes about my direction, because it’s a little funny,” Brewer admits. “I’ll come up and say, ‘Kate, I think you’re hollering at the clouds, but I think it’s more of a prayer.’ And then she’ll grin and I’ll walk away. I’m being like Sam Phillips, who discovered Elvis and Johnny Cash and B.B. King and Howlin’ Wolf. His whole thing was you’ve got the talent in front of you. Don’t mess it up. Make sure that the mics are in the right place, make sure the drummer can keep a beat. But otherwise, you’ve got to capture this energy that’s right there in front of you.”

Whatever he’s doing, it seems to be working. “Song Sung Blue” has landed Hudson in the thick of the Oscar race and given Jackman some of the best reviews of his career. Since the film debuted over Christmas, it has earned more than $25 million (a solid result for an indie) and, more importantly, has an A CinemaScore, suggesting word-of-mouth is strong. But there were times when Brewer was convinced he’d never be able to bring the true story of Mike and Claire Milwaukee, a husband-and-wife Neil Diamond tribute act, to the screen. Studios scoffed that audiences wouldn’t be interested in a story about a lower-middle class couple, struggling with deferred dreams and too many bills. It’s the same song Brewer, whose shown an affinity for blue collar stories, has heard time and again, and one he’s hoping his latest film disproves.

How did you find out about Mike and Claire Sardina?

I came across this documentary, which was barely distributed anywhere, about Mike and Claire. The only way you could watch it was to email its director Greg Kohs and he would burn a DVD for you. But anytime I’d have friends over, I’d show it and people would just be really moved by it. The story felt aligned with the ideals of “Hustle & Flow,” where it’s about people that are marginalized or forgotten about. People that others would call “nobodies.”

After “Dolomite Is My Name” came out, I went for a meeting with the producers, John Davis and John Fox. When they asked me what I wanted to do next, I told them about this Neil Diamond cover band made up of a couple that got together in their 50s. And there’s this really tragic car accident that sets the family back. They’re dealing with addiction. They’re dealing with with alcoholism. It’s just a family trying to survive. They were immediately supportive. They said, “We’re making it. We just know that it’s going to be really hard.” And boy, were they were right.

Did you have trouble getting a studio to support it?

Everyone said no, and they were very, very vocal in saying no. Even places that I had made a lot of money for were like, “We don’t think audiences are going to like these people. Just look at the way they’re living.” And I’d say, “What do you mean, ‘the way they’re living’?” They’d say, “Well their house is cluttered and dirty.” I was like, “Well, wait a minute. Hold on. These are some magical people. These are the type of people that I’m related to. This is like my grandmother’s house.” But Focus did get it. And Peter Cramer, a top executive at Universal, their parent company, came back from a wedding and said he saw all these young people who went berserk when “Sweet Caroline” played, so that helped.

Was there a regional bias at play?

I always face that. My whole career has been focused on two avenues, Southerners and African American stories. Every studio that you meet with immediately tells you how limited those audiences are. They go, “Well, African American stories don’t travel overseas” or “we’re not going to make anything that remotely talks about the South because of the accents.” And I was like, “OK, ‘Forrest Gump’ had some Southern accents.” And they’re like, “That’s different.”

So here I thought, there’s no Southern accents in it. It’s not particularly diverse. It’s about this white couple. Yet, that mentality still existed. They worried audiences weren’t really going to be into the story of these people in Milwaukee.

How did Hugh Jackman get involved?

[Universal Pictures chairperson] Donna Langley was having a meeting with Hugh Jackman, and she goes, “Hey, do you like Neil Diamond, because we’ve got this project with Craig Brewer.” He loved Neil’s music and we connected. He watched the documentary and he just got it. I don’t know if it was his Australian upbringing or whatever, but he’s like, “I know people like this. These are people that work hard. They’re in the middle of this country. They’re always kicked in the face and second guessed, and they’re the strongest people out there. They’re what this country is about.” He was speaking my language.

What made you think of Kate Hudson for this role?

I’ve known Kate for decades. I met with her on “Black Snake Moan.” I went to her house to try to get another movie that I wrote called “Maggie Lynn” and also another Southern movie called “Mother Trucker” that I was trying to get going with her. Those movies never got made. So for years, we’ve been trying to find something, but I hadn’t seen Kate in a long time. When a movie has an anchor like a Hugh Jackman and there’s going to be a love interest, studios and casting directors and producers make a list of, here’s the 10 actresses that mean something right now. And there’s even 10 names after that that are in a sub bracket. I’m going to just be honest with you, Kate wasn’t even in the top 20 names. But Hugh calls me and says, “Are you watching the ‘CBS Sunday Morning’ interview with Kate Hudson?” I pull up the video on YouTube, and there’s Kate, and she’s saying, “I’m getting tired of Hollywood trying to make up their mind about me. I’m gonna go into music.” And it was like there she is. There’s Claire.

Obviously her life is very different from Claire, but did Kate Hudson relate to feeling undervalued or misjudged?

There is something really resilient about Kate. Hollywood is not kind for actresses that get to a certain age. She was so brave. There’s times in this movie where she’s got to look so tired and wrecked. And I said, “Kate, I want to come into this extreme close-up on you, but if you’re uncomfortable, let me know.” And she’s like, “Absolutely not. Bring in that camera. I need people to see the lines on my face. I need people to see this. I need women to see that I’m real here.”

Hugh Jackman is a huge star, but this feels like he may be entering a different phase of his career with “Song Sung Blue.” It’s more of a character role than a leading man part.

Hugh would agree with you. He’s almost like a mad dreamer in this film. As a viewer, you think he’s probably not going to be playing big casino gigs with a choir and with a big orchestra like he wants, but you understand his passion. When life begins to rear its tragic head, you see a much different Hugh performance. He’s really struggling, and he doesn’t know if his enthusiasm or his optimism is going to fix this situation that he’s in. He was up on a tightrope with this performance.

You’re making a movie about Snoop Dogg. What’s your approach?

The big thing that’s interesting to me is I’ve got a 17-year-old daughter and a 23-year-old son who know Snoop Dogg. But I don’t think they know the Snoop Dogg that I remember in the ’90s, when I was coming out of high school. No one was like Snoop. He was like a Rollin Crip, you know. He was from the streets. He was living out of his car and broke when he became famous and still hustling. That was a new type of presence out there in the world.

The late John Singleton produced “Hustle & Flow.” What was his impact on your career?

I remember seeing “Boyz n the Hood” in Oakland, Calif., at a time when there was a lot of this conversation about Black youth in America. That movie was so riveting, but it was entertaining. You didn’t feel like you were being preached to. It felt real. It felt honest and true. And when I was writing “Hustle & Flow,” I was drawn to the Scorsese, Spike Lee, Singleton films. When John read “Hustle & Flow” and responded to it, my father had died unexpectedly of a heart attack at 49. I was in need of a mentor. I needed a big brother, and he was really that for me. He financed the movie out of his own pocket. And he told me, “Don’t think of yourself as a white director or a Black director. You’re a Memphis director, and you’ve got to capture the rhythm and the attitude of your city and your life.” He really was somebody that touched a lot of a lot of young filmmakers. He gave a lot of people their start.

Were you a fan of Neil Diamond before you made “Sung Song Blue”?

Yeah. But like a lot of people my age, I had this attitude where it was my dad’s music. I wouldn’t say he was in Lawrence Welk category, that was more like your granddad’s music. But “Hot August Night” was on our turntable growing up. It wasn’t really until later in my life that I really began to listen to the lyrics and realize that there’s a lot of sadness in his music. His songs are about such isolation and such loneliness. I finally understood what made Neil so great.