“Our Brand” screened on the second night of the Toronto Fest, and its star Sandra Bullock told the audience that the role had been written for a man, but she asked producers George Clooney and Grant Gaslove and Grant Heslov to consider changing it to a woman. “George could have played the role, but maybe I could have played it better,” she deadpanned.
Clooney added that the shift in the script was surprisingly easy, and “it made us realize that there could be a lot more male-written roles out there” that could/should be rescripted for women.
Clooney and Heslov had seen the Rachel Boynton-directed 2005 documentary of the same title, and commissioned Peter Straughan to write a script that fictionalized the events, but retained the premise of U.S. political strategists working on a Bolivian election. Once Bullock got the eight-years-in-development project in motion, they signed on director David Gordon Green.
Green said he likes working with actors, and enjoyed their improvs, such as on a bus sequence. An audience member asked if the rear end sticking out of the bus window was really Bullock’s, which inspired some quips from her and Clooney on the topic of tushes, joking that it was really his bum doubling for hers.
The film opens in the US in October.