Double Feature

Niels Mueller had nothing to do with his film being screened at
AFI FEST. After premiering at this year’s Cannes Film
Festival and securing nationwide release in January in addition to
a Los Angeles release in late December (just in time for Oscar
eligibility), “The Assassination of Richard Nixon” has
bigger fish to fry.

The film stars Sean Penn, Naomi Watts and Don Cheadle in a story
of a man who blames the president of the United States for the
anguish in his personal life and resorts to plotting
assassination.

And while it’s obvious the ensemble cast of the film is
full of talented actors, the collaborative effort of UCLA alumni
behind the scenes is something equally deserving of public
praise.

For director Mueller, who graduated from the UCLA School of
Theater, Film, Television and Digital Media in 1989, the film will
be his directorial debut in addition to the fact that he co-wrote
the screenplay with another UCLA graduate, Kevin Kennedy. Two
prominent directors, as well as friends of Mueller from their days
at UCLA, helped put him on the map. Brad Silberling, director of
the upcoming “Lemony Snicket’s A Serious of Unfortunate
Events,” gave Mueller his first directing job for a
television pilot, while Alexander Payne, director of
“Sideways” and “About Schmidt,” found
Mueller a producer which ultimately led to the casting of Penn.

“The friends I made in class proved to be the most
meaningful relationships in my career. For those in film school who
want to make connections in the industry, just look at the people
sitting next to you in class,” Mueller said.

While he encountered success with the screenplay for the 2002
sleeper hit “Tadpole,” it was the script for “The
Assassination of Richard Nixon” that really garnered the
attention of Hollywood insiders.

“After film school, you do anything you can to cling to
the edge of film business,” Mueller said. “I worked in
duplication, transferring film to video, but I continued writing
because I knew that would ultimately be my salvation.”

The story of Sam Bicke, the would-be assassin of Nixon, is
actually based on a true story. But how Mueller discovered the
incident and decided to write a movie about it is a narrative in
and of itself. In 1984, a security guard walked into a San Ysidro
McDonald’s and began shooting randomly, killing 20 people and
wounding 16.

“The McDonald’s massacre horrified me and I began to
wonder how someone could lose all empathy for other people and
resort to indiscriminate violence,” Mueller said.
“Ultimately, I started to explore a character like
this.”

He began to write about a man planning to murder Lyndon B.
Johnson, a president he presumed no one had tried to assassinate.
The original title of the film, “The Assassination of Lyndon
B. Johnson,” chronicled the tale of a dejected salesman,
separated from his wife and family. After much research, Mueller
discovered this exact description fit Bicke, the only difference
being that he was planning to assassinate Nixon during the
Watergate scandal.

Mueller then changed the name of the film and included
Bicke’s real assassination plot ““ namely, hijacking a
plane and flying it into the White House. Although Mueller finished
the script and had Penn signed on two years before the 2001
terrorist attacks took place, by the time filming was underway,
many studios were afraid to touch the project due to its newly
topical nature and sensitive material.

“I always knew there was an aspect of social
commentary,” Mueller said. “But the world depicted in
the film is more a mirror of today than of 1999 when I wrote the
script.”

The director credits his impressive cast to the appeal of Penn.
The actor committed himself to the project immediately after
reading the script in 1999, and because so many other actors want
to work with him, it was not difficult to attract Watts, Cheadle
and Jack Thompson to the film as well.

“These are actors that completely inhabit the roles they
play. On set, you palpably feel that world, and I felt like I was
always invading private moments,” Mueller said.

Fresh off an Academy Award win for last year’s
“Mystic River,” there are already rumors that this film
could bring Penn a best actor nomination this year.

“I knew the film would succeed if I had a committed
actor,” Mueller said. “And Sean just gives one of his
greatest performances.”