Author Lehane says S. Philly could have subbed for Brooklyn in 'The Drop'

TORONTO - It's a good example of how international the movie business has become that a Belgian director (Michael Roskam), his stars from Great Britain (Tom Hardy), Sweden (Noomi Rapace), New Jersey (James Gandolfini) and Belgium (Matthias Schoenaerts) met the media in a hotel room in Toronto to discuss a movie set in Brooklyn written by a guy from Boston.

The guy from Boston (Dorchester, actually) is author Dennis Lehane ("Mystic River," "Gone Baby Gone," "Shutter Island"), who set "Animal Rescue," the short story "The Drop" is based on, in his usual Boston-area, working-class neighborhood, but was told by producers that they thought he had become a victim of his own success and that blue-collar Boston was played out.

So they gave him some options, one of which was to shoot the movie in Philadelphia.

At the Toronto International Film Festival last weekend, Lehane said that he typically writes about "northern, parochial, immigrant communities" such as Dorchester, so when his home town was taken out of the equation, the producers recommended "Brooklyn, South Philly and parts of Chicago. Although they're not interchangeable, they're close enough," he said.

Citing unemployment, gentrification and the disappearance of the church as a unifying central force, Lehane said, "There's not much different from parts of Brooklyn and parts of Dorchester."

Also working in Brooklyn's favor? Lehane had spent three months there writing for HBO's "Boardwalk Empire."

Lehane is known primarily as a novelist. "The Drop" is the first time he has adapted one of his own works for the screen.

"This was just a short story," he said. "I didn't spend 2 1/2 to five years carrying it around like a novel. All I had to do was expand it. It's far more palatable to do that than to take a 400-page novel and cut it to 132 pages that will play in Peoria. I don't have that skill set. I can't adapt my own books."

And even after cutting his teeth on "The Wire" and "Boardwalk Empire," Lehane still doesn't see himself as a writer for the screen, as he still thinks more in words than pictures.

"This is a visual medium," he said. "You have to cut all the fat away. [Roskam] shot my script for 'The Drop' and still had a three-hour cut.

"But it's really freeing to write scripts. I don't have the pressure of playing God. Here I'm a painter painting a room. They say magenta and I give them magenta. But I give them my magenta."

"The Drop" is the last film of James Gandolfini.

Director Roskam said of "The Sopranos" star, "Sometimes life and movies, they meet. You make the film as if it could be your last. That's how you work on it."

Roskam said he was editing the film when Gandolfini died, and it played with his judgment. First he wanted to make sure he put every good scene with the actor into the film, then he watched the film and thought he'd gone overboard.

"You can't take advantage of this tragic moment," he said. "And when people watch the film, you don't want people to think it's his last film."

Matthias Schoenaerts ("Rust and Bone"), who worked with Roskam on the acclaimed "Bullhead," said that the biggest difference between working on a foreign indie and a studio film like "The Drop" is that with the studio film, "If you want your character to wear red shoes, you're going to have to talk to 15 people to defend that choice."

If you seek a sense of how Roskam views his own film (as opposed to Daily News film critic Gary Thompson's take), he called it "a Christmas fairy tale . . . but darker.

"It's as if Frank Capra directed 'Taxi Driver.' "