Exclusive — ‘Chappaquiddick’ Producer Mark Ciardi: This Film Isn’t for ‘the Right or the Left, It’s for the Truth’
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“Now Mary Jo Kopechne has a voice, where she never had a voice before,” said film producer Mark Ciardi of his latest movie, Chappaquiddick, which opens Friday in theaters.
Ciardi joined Breitbart Senior Editor-at-Large Rebecca Mansour and special guest host Patrick Courrielche on Thursday’s edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Tonight to discuss his latest film’s depiction of the events surrounding Ted Kennedy’s 1969 car accident on Chappaquiddick Island on Martha’s Vineyard, in which 28-year-old Kopechne was killed.
He explained the film’s genesis, saying, “I didn’t develop the project. The script was finished. It came to me through a manager friend of mine Chris Fenton, who’s one of the producers on the film with me, and we had a meeting at a new company, kind of private equity, and we’re looking for great projects, and he said, called a couple of weeks later, ‘Listen, I’ve got this great script. These young writers wrote it.
First script.’ He goes, ‘I have no idea how the town’s going to respond to it. It’s about Ted Kennedy and Chappaquiddick,’ so we said, ‘Send it over. Let’s take a read,’ and we read it and fell in love with it. The script was so good and so mesmerizing. It’s such a thriller and page-turner.”
Ciardi described the film’s setting, which begins a day before the Chappaquiddick incident and ends six days after. “It’s amazing how compelling that narrative is when you just look at the facts,” he said, casting the film as neither politically left or right. “[The writers] used the inquest. It wasn’t off of a book. We went with the facts that we knew, and didn’t make a movie for the left or the right. It’s for the truth, and what’s great about that is how audiences on both the left and the right — and reviewers, especially — are praising the movie.”
Mansour concurred, saying, “It’s not an ideological film but an honest film.”
Ciardi stated, “It’s a very tight line to walk because it’s a pretty bad incident that happened. A girl died at his hands, and his actions after proved pretty incredible, not in a great way.”
“You really did have some great actors in this,” said Courrielche. “Knowing this town I’m surprised you were able to get the level of talent you got.”
The film stars Jason Clarke as Ted Kennedy, Kate Mara as Mary Jo Kopechne. Clancy Brown, Bruce Dern, Ed Helms, and Jim Gaffigan round out an all-star cast.
Ciardi stated, “It’s a very tight line to walk because it’s a pretty bad incident that happened. A girl died at his hands, and his actions after proved pretty incredible, not in a great way.”
“You really did have some great actors in this,” said Courrielche. “Knowing this town I’m surprised you were able to get the level of talent you got.”
The film stars Jason Clarke as Ted Kennedy, Kate Mara as Mary Jo Kopechne. Clancy Brown, Bruce Dern, Ed Helms, and Jim Gaffigan round out an all-star cast.
Courrielche asked Ciardi if his views on Kennedy changed after working on the film: “Did you have any thoughts going into it, and once you got into the project, did that change at all as the project started to unfold?”
Ciardi replied, “Yeah, I probably had sympathy, I guess, for Ted, until I really dove into the facts, and again, lay them out, and see how the timing went on everything. Even the speech at the end, it was masterful in that it saved his political career, and he went on to serve 40 years in the Senate. Obviously, this event stopped him from being president, almost a sure victory.”
Courrielche asked Ciardi if the Kennedys or others had directed political resistance toward the film. “How has the [Kennedy] family responded to this? Have you guys gotten any feedback from them, or was there any resistance?” Courrielche asked.
“No. Obviously, we did not reach out to them. It’s not flattering. It’s nothing the family would want reenacted in any way, but no push-back, either,” Ciardi explained. “There were some actors that I think probably liked the script a lot but felt they couldn’t go there. But we got a great cast. When we’re shooting in Boston, in Chappaquiddick, there was no push-back, either, [from] teamsters, anybody.”
“I was a little bit, maybe, concerned. Over the last month or so is when we felt some pressure. Our distributor Byron Allen brought it up at our premier, that there’s people out there that don’t want you to see this movie,” Ciardi continued. “Is that directly from the Kennedys? I don’t know. He didn’t go into names, but he said that there’s really pressure that he’s felt and has heard and knows happened.”
Ciardi said the film received positive reviews from what he said were “more liberal publications” such as the New York Post, Village Voice, the New York Times, and Vanity Fair.