{"id":397456,"date":"2026-04-25T19:31:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T19:31:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/397456\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T19:31:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T19:31:13","slug":"sleepers-director-barry-levinson-is-still-perplexed-by-controversy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/397456\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Sleepers\u2019 Director Barry Levinson Is Still Perplexed by Controversy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t[This story contains spoilers for the 30-year-old Sleepers<\/a>.]<\/p>\n

\n\tNearly 30 years later, Sleepers director Barry Levinson<\/a> still believes that the discourse surrounding his star-studded drama lost the plot.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBased on Lorenzo Carcaterra\u2019s book of the same name, Sleepers begins in the late 1960s, chronicling four teenage friends whose mischievous quest for a free hot dog goes terribly awry when they nearly kill an innocent bystander. Consequently, they\u2019re sent to the Wilkinson Home for Boys where they endure 6 to 18 months of sexual and physical abuse by four guards.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe New York-based film then jumps to 1981. Two of the four friends \u2014 John Riley (Ron Eldard) and Tommy Marcano (Billy Crudup) \u2014 spot their former lead abuser, Sean Nokes (Kevin Bacon<\/a>), in a restaurant and gun him down on the spot. Their remaining friends \u2014 Lorenzo \u201cShakes\u201d Carcaterra (Jason Patric), now a low-level clerk at The New York Times, and Assistant District Attorney Michael Sullivan (Brad Pitt<\/a>) \u2014 vow to exonerate the imprisoned pair and expose the corrupt institution that ruined their lives.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn today\u2019s context, a 1996 film that brings down a dangerous ring of child predators feels ahead of its time, but at the time of its release, there was more emphasis on poking holes in Carcaterra\u2019s claim that Sleepers is based on his own true life story. The author maintained that the core of the tale is authentic despite fictionalizing names and dates. In any event, Levinson still believes that this inquisition undermined the larger point being made about institutional abuse.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhy does film get caught in this cycle of whether something happened or didn\u2019t happen? It\u2019s a story. It wasn\u2019t the craziest, weirdest thing you\u2019ve ever imagined,\u201d Levinson tells The Hollywood Reporter in support of Sleepers brand-new 4K\/Blu-ray release. \u201cI never quite got that noise that was made at that time. It, in some ways, took away from what the piece was. It doesn\u2019t need to be authenticated in that regard for us to pay attention.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe other controversial aspect involved Robert De Niro<\/a>\u2019s Father Bobby and the false alibi he gave on the witness stand to help the childhood friends he mentored. A number of critics rejected the idea that a priest would ever lie, especially after putting his left hand on the Bible and swearing an oath. But one of the film\u2019s often-overlooked details is that Father Bobby and his best friend also spent time at Wilkinson in their youth. If Bobby wasn\u2019t a victim himself, his friend certainly was. So his reluctant commitment to perjury was not just about helping two men get away with vigilante justice; it was equally about bringing down anyone that had anything to do with covering up Wilkinson\u2019s ongoing abuse.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201c[The discourse] got caught up in whether or not a priest would ever lie on the stand. You can certainly have that, but that\u2019s not the point of the movie. It was a much broader piece than that,\u201d Levinson says. \u201cIt\u2019s not a film that was trying to advocate this or that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBelow, during a conversation with THR, Levinson also discusses the major studios\u2019 deprioritization of mid-budget movies like Sleepers, as well as whether he sees himself making another movie.<\/p>\n

\n\t***<\/p>\n

\n\tDo you remember what pulled you in the direction of Sleepers after releasing two films (Jimmy Hollywood and Disclosure) in 1994?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t[Co-founder of Propaganda Films] Steve Golin gave me the book. He wanted me to take a look at it and see if I was interested in developing it. That\u2019s really where it began.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tGeoffrey Wigdor\u2019s Young John, Joe Perrino\u2019s Young Shakes, Jonathan Tucker\u2019s Young Tommy, Brad Renfro\u2019s Young Michael in Sleepers.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Warner Bros.<\/p>\n

\n\tGiven how heavy the material is, was Sleepers a tough sell to the studio?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tI don\u2019t remember it as being that, but I can\u2019t give you the details thinking back 30 years.<\/p>\n

\n\tThere are countless reasons why you\u2019d hire John Williams, but was part of the idea that he\u2019d be able to provide glimmers of hope within this dark story?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tI didn\u2019t think of it in those terms. He\u2019s a great composer, obviously. I thought that he could do quite well with this material, and I felt it needed a touch of [Leonard] Bernstein in a way. It needed just a little hint of it in the air, thinking of New York. So I had a conversation with him, then he responded to the material, and I was thrilled. He\u2019s really a marvel.<\/p>\n

\n\tDid you cast the kids or the adults first?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s a good question because I can\u2019t remember specifically. We most likely looked for the adult versions of the characters first, and then figured out what kids could play the young versions of them.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tBrad Pitt as Assistant DA Michael Sullivan in Barry Levinson\u2019s Sleepers<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Warner Bros.<\/p>\n

\n\tBrad Pitt was in high-demand coming off of 12 Monkeys and David Fincher\u2019s Seven. With Fincher being a co-founder at Propaganda alongside Golin, did his involvement give you the inside track on casting Pitt?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tI don\u2019t think it was related, as I remember. But again, looking back 30 years, I can\u2019t give you the real scoop in that regard.<\/p>\n

\n\tSleepers was your first of five collaborations with Robert De Niro. Did you sense pretty quickly that you\u2019d be working together for many years to come?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tTo be honest, no. I was thrilled to use him, but I didn\u2019t foresee beyond the first time we worked together. It was great, but I didn\u2019t know what I would be doing and how that would fit into what Bob would be up to. So it was somewhat by chance that we started to connect. And then, on occasion, he would mention something just as he and his [producing partner] Jane Rosenthal did about Wag the Dog [the following year]. So it was just something that began to fall together periodically. The work that came up just made sense for Bob.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tRobert De Niro as Father Bobby in Sleepers.<\/p>\n

\n\tSleepers was the second of four films that you and Dustin Hoffman<\/a> made together. Had the two of you been looking for the perfect follow-up to Rain Man?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tNo, we weren\u2019t looking. I wasn\u2019t looking and neither was he. When I wrote the screenplay, I just thought, \u201cDustin would be a good choice here. I\u2019ll see if he wants to do it.\u201d Again, it was so long ago, but I think we had to find this window that he could work in. He might have been about to go do something else, or he was working on something else just prior to this. But I just thought that there was something for him here.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn contrast with Pitt\u2019s stillness, I love how he\u2019s constantly flipping pages and walking around and fidgeting in the courtroom. It was a nice touch considering the character was in the throes of an alcoholism and wanted no part of this highly orchestrated case.<\/p>\n

\n\tYeah, the physicality of it \u2014\u00a0as opposed to just sitting there \u2014 shows that the guy\u2019s got some issues. How do you do that without somehow spelling it out in some grand fashion? So it\u2019s a physicality that seemed appropriate to what we were doing.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tKevin Bacon as Nokes in Sleepers<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Warner Bros.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe timing of Nokes\u2019 (Kevin Bacon) killing is such an interesting choice. Most movies would\u2019ve saved their villain\u2019s comeuppance for last and made a meal out of it. I\u2019m assuming you were staying faithful to Lorenzo Carcaterra\u2019s book, but did you ever receive a note about killing a different guard first before working your way up to Nokes?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tI don\u2019t remember that, no. When I wrote it, it somehow just seemed appropriate. You could certainly do another version, but then you would have more murders in the piece, as opposed to happenstance. [John and Tommy] happened to be in the same bar where Nokes was eating. So if there had been another killing to set up the later killing [of Nokes], then you\u2019re going to go down the road of revenge. That cycle wasn\u2019t the point of it all.<\/p>\n

\n\tI read some old reviews that questioned Father Bobby\u2019s decision to lie, and they didn\u2019t point out that he, too, had spent time at the Wilkinson Home for Boys as an adolescent. He saw firsthand how that place destroyed his best friend. So his eventual lie on the stand wasn\u2019t just about John (Ron Eldard) and Tommy (Billy Crudup) beating a murder charge; it was about exposing this evil institution. I think that motivation got lost in some of the reviews.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tYeah, it did. They didn\u2019t focus on the overall piece. They went into one corner and missed the overall thematic design to the whole film.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen the film came out, there were a lot of things that came to light, in general, about child abuse at some of these facilities. But [the discourse] got caught up in whether or not a priest would ever lie on the stand. You can certainly have that, but that\u2019s not the point of the movie. It was a much broader piece than that, and you can make your own judgment on it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tSometimes, you do a movie, and it gets caught up in a stream of things that go all over the place, and they don\u2019t focus on what the movie is. It\u2019s not a film that was trying to advocate this or that. It\u2019s an overall story that you get involved in, and you can discuss the pluses and negative aspects of what took place.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film ends with a legal disclaimer that calls into question the validity of what we watched. Do you still believe the author of the source material?<\/p>\n

\n\tI think for the most part. But why does film get caught in this cycle of whether something happened or didn\u2019t happen? It\u2019s a story. It doesn\u2019t need to say \u201cthis is a true story\u201d at the beginning, but that was from the book. It didn\u2019t have to have that. But to say that none of these things could ever happen? It wasn\u2019t the craziest, weirdest thing you\u2019ve ever imagined. So I never quite got that noise that was made at that time. It, in some ways, took away from what the piece was. You don\u2019t have to agree with it. It\u2019s not advocating anything other than, \u201cThis is the story that\u2019s being told.\u201d It doesn\u2019t need to be authenticated in that regard for us to pay attention.<\/p>\n

\n\tEven if it\u2019s not literally true, there have been countless cases of institutional abuse to where it\u2019s spiritually or emotionally true.<\/p>\n

\n\tRight. Films get caught up in certain things, periodically, for reasons that you question, and that happened when Sleepers came out. It still did very well here. In Europe, it was huge because it didn\u2019t get caught up in any of the controversy. I\u2019m still not even sure why there was a real controversy.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe majority of your films including Sleepers fall in the mid-budget range that the major studios no longer make at the volume they once did. Has it been tough for you to watch your bread and butter disappear over the years?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tYeah. In general, taking me out of the mix, what\u2019s happening right now is that there\u2019s too much emphasis on the blockbuster, as opposed to, This [smaller] movie can make some money for us, and we can keep moving along. Instead, they\u2019re going for the extravagant piece that costs $150 million or more, but that zone of movies around $40 million can ultimately succeed. It can also expand your audience rather than sharpening the audience to a smaller number. So my take on it is that I don\u2019t think you can survive by just working in one area predominantly. It narrows your audience year by year. That\u2019s a mistake.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tI\u2019m just somebody who\u2019s trying to write and do movies. I\u2019m not an executive who has to look at the economics of the business. But certain people I\u2019ve spoken to haven\u2019t been to a movie in four years because they\u2019re not interested in the movies that do well. Therefore, they\u2019re looking for something else. So there\u2019s pros and cons, but I just don\u2019t know how you survive when you start limiting your audience.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe loss of the mid-budget film has also been cited as one of the reasons why younger movie stars haven\u2019t emerged in droves. That range used to be a launchpad or proving ground for a lot of future stars. Well-established stars like Pitt still have their place, but now the IP or the high concept is the star.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tI think that\u2019s a good argument. I mean, what\u2019s the other reason? I\u2019m not sure. There are television people that emerge, as opposed to in the past, but it\u2019s true. Where\u2019s a breakout movie star? There are not many compared to what there used to be, that\u2019s for certain.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe movie business is also facing [streaming series] and the internet. Those are two other entertainment areas where a lot of people spend hours and hours. And they\u2019re not paying close attention to whatever they\u2019re watching or doing on the internet [due to cell phones]. You\u2019re not going to get storytelling if you\u2019re texting for hours at a time. Sometimes, you go into a restaurant, and you\u2019ll see two people on their cell phones at the same table. They\u2019re with each other, but they\u2019re elsewhere at the same time. So I can\u2019t figure out that whole behavior, and we\u2019re looking at a breakdown of sorts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tHollywood, in general, has a problem with all of those other devices at work, but I still think you cannot function in one [budget] area alone, which is where the emphasis is.<\/p>\n

\n\tDo you have another movie in you?<\/p>\n

\n\tYeah, there\u2019s two or three projects that I have. We\u2019re ready to go out and see if we can make them. They\u2019re not particularly expensive films, one is probably $20 million and the other is $15 million. I can work quickly. I made The Humbling with Al Pacino for $2 million, and we shot it in my house. I shot another film, The Bay, for $2 million. So I have no problem working in all ways as long as I know the story that I want to tell. So we\u2019ll see what\u2019s going to happen. The business is going through a radical shift, and whether or not all these takeovers take place, it\u2019s a big guessing game of what\u2019s beneficial or not. These are the times we\u2019re in.<\/p>\n

\n\tThere\u2019s a notable director who insists that filmmaking is a younger man\u2019s game. I presume you reject that notion?<\/p>\n

\n\tWell, I don\u2019t think age is the issue. It\u2019s the ideas. What ideas do you want to do? Are they completely out of fashion? But if you\u2019re basically dealing with the world we\u2019re in, what\u2019s the story that you want to tell? I don\u2019t think it\u2019s based on anything other than that.<\/p>\n

\n\t***
Sleepers is now available on 4K\/Blu-ray.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[This story contains spoilers for the 30-year-old Sleepers.] Nearly 30 years later, Sleepers director Barry Levinson still believes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":397457,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[202215,33932,93487,156,25113,409,111,139,69,59125,46869],"class_list":["post-397456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-barry-levinson","tag-brad-pitt","tag-dustin-hoffman","tag-entertainment","tag-kevin-bacon","tag-movies","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-robert-de-niro","tag-sleepers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397456\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}