Jonathan Demme, Liev Schreiber and Meryl Streep: 'The Manchurian Candidate'

David Stratton talks to Jonathan Demme, Liev Schreiber and Meryl Streep about the re-imagining of 'The Manchurian Candidate'.

JONATHAN DEMME: We, obviously, showed at script level and, hopefully at every level, tremendous respect for the earlier picture. That was just organic to all of us involved in the process, certainly Dan Pyne and myself. But we were determined to not try to repeat any of the specific strengths of the original movie. So some of the definitive, great set-pieces of the first film, we don't have in our film.

Dan Pyne replaced the notion that Communism was the great global threat with the notion that perhaps multinational corporations that profit from war pose the greatest threat of all to mankind today.

DAVID STRATTON: So were you thinking specifically of Halliburton?

JONATHAN DEMME: Well, you know, Halliburton was, You know, we researched Halliburton, we researched Bechtel, we researched the Carlyle Group. They're out there, this appalling idea that there are companies that profit — not just profit but profit enormously — through war.

And even more horrifyingly, sometimes holders of our highest elected offices in America can be amongst the leaders of the very corporations that are profiting from war, even as they look to the horizon and speculate on additional wars that need to be fought, in the name of what?

And, indeed, invoking fear in us, as the American population, to give them free rein to do whatever they would do. Which takes us right back to Richard Condon's basic idea that American people are always subject to the possibility of being brainwashed through fear into accepting any actions that their leaders claim to be vital.

LIEV SCHREIBER: Initially, when I'd heard that they wanted to remake 'The Manchurian Candidate', I thought, "I pity the guy who plays Laurence Harvey's part "and I pity the woman who plays Angela Lansbury's part."

But then when I read the script, I realised that what the film-makers had done was gone after the original story by Richard Condon, which is, I think, a kind of wonderful, timeless piece. And I wouldn't be surprised if it repeats itself again in another 40 years.

After reading the script, I was fairly confident that there was no way that we were going to risk imitating or reverberations of the earlier movie. It was placed firmly in a contemporary setting, and a very timely one at that, I thought.

MERYL STREEP: Thank God I had never seen the original — because I was a kid when it came outand then somehow missed seeing it, subsequently. And I thought about seeing it and decided not to because I'm so suggestible.

So I just really looked elsewhere for models and images to make Eleanor Shaw and had a great deal of fun playing a villain.

DAVID STRATTON: Some people have suggested that, in part, it's influenced by Hilary Clinton. Well, in England everyone thinks, every single journalist — and, believe me, I have met, like, 100 — says, "It's Maggie Thatcher, right?"

DAVID STRATTON AND MERYL STREEP: (Both laugh) Yeah.