Brian Helgeland has adapted great works like L.A. Confidential and Mystic River for the screen. Now he tackles a film remake, The Taking of Pelham 123. Updating the New York subway thriller to modern day, the film features Denzel Washington negotiating against an ex-convict corporate crook played by John Travolta.

Crave Online: What did you want to keep from the original and how did you want to update it?

Brian Helgeland: It was just an idea of, we wanted to have a character that had done something. The best way for me to describe it is, I write R-rated action dramas and every year that goes by, it gets to be a smaller and smaller world you have to work in. So when I sat down, you have to think about how to get the studio excited, how to sell them something and it’s a little bit of a heist, in a way, getting this movie made, and this might answer some of these questions. If I write and I’m interested in that situation of two guys, who are on opposite sides of an issue, an antagonist and protagonist, and it’s like, “Do you want kind of a play between them, a character play in this whole thing that is going on?” I knew that Sony owned the rights to Pelham, and I really love the original film and the last thing that I want to do is go in and muddy around what they did so well. But if you look at, in this case anyway, making this movie is a little bit like trying to pull off a heist, trying to put the pieces together, get the getaway car driver and get the safecracker and all that stuff. The idea for me at the start was that using that as the title and being something that the studio feels comfortable making rather than just a nameless sort of orphan idea that you might have on your own. But, let’s try to keep that together and use Pelham as a way to springboard your own crime movie that you might have wanted to do. So I started out talking to Todd Black, who is a producer and try to put together the pieces. The idea was to always stay away from Pelham, the original, in the particulars, because we stated that well and we couldn’t do it better than they had done it. But we have that same situation as before, a hostage situation, one guy in the train with the hostages and another guy outside dealing with them over the radio. That’s kind of weird for us, the similarities end because we took our guys in the direction we want to take them from there rather than in the direction that they necessarily go in the original movie with the nature of that idea limiting some of the places that you can go, and you’re going to have overlap. That’s kind of the long-winded answer but that’s the thing, to use it as a way to do our own crime movie but have a thing that is recognizable and give it some kind of beat, if it was music, and the original film as the bass.

Crave Online: What did you want to say about New Yorkers through this story?

Brian Helgeland: For me, what I started to realize while we were making it was that the city was really comprised of the people that keep it up and running. When we would go on our research, John Turturro’s character is based on the guy who is the head of New York’s Hostage Negotiation Team, his name is Jack Cambria. He came in one day and I just sat with him and went through all the dialogue of Turturro’s character and he said, “I wouldn’t say that. I would say this. I wouldn’t say that way, I would say it this way.” And basically he wrote the dialogue for Turturro’s part. That, to me, was like the city. And we had that over and over again, whether they were train people or the criminal element in the story. That to me, always felt like what New York was. It took all those different people, lumped them together, and it kind of becomes one great big person.

Crave Online: Did you research the MTA a lot?

Brian Helgeland: We did research as far as what the police response would be, but I think we tried to stick to the union response. You know, if you are on the other end of the phone, all you’re thinking about is the guy you’re dealing with and the passengers. Once you get past the “Is this a terrorist situation or not,” we just tried to be true to how the people would react in a hostage situation.

Crave Online: How did you conceive James Gandolfini’s character of the Mayor?

Brian Helgeland: We started with Guliani, and when Gandolfini read it he wanted it to be more of a boomer. So we tried to incorporate all of the “how can he wear $3,000 suits on for a dollar a year?” All of those kind of elements gave John a foil for his anger towards the city, it’s personified by the mayor. Yeah, we had fun with it, because the part wasn’t really a part. Tony, is his indomitable style, sent the script to Gandolfini and said, “Hey, do you want to play the mayor.” And Gandolfini said, “There’s no part for mayor. I just have two lines.” Tony said, “Well yeah, but if you do it, we’ll come up with something.” So he took a leap of faith and we kind of invented the part. I think it was Denzel who said, “This is the mayor of New York, so it can’t be Joe Blow playing the part. We need somebody with some weight.”

 Crave Online: Was naming Washington’s character Walter an homage to Mattheau?

Brian Helgeland: Yeah. Actually, Walter Mattheau gave me my Academy Award. He gave it to me so I figured that’s the least I could do. I remember sitting, it was Jack Lemmon and Walter Mattheau giving the award. I was sitting there thinking, “If I win, I hope it’s Mattheau who gives it to me” because I always loved Mattheau. Nothing against Jack Lemmon but I won and I went up and Mattheau gave it and Jack Lemmon gave Curtis his. Yeah, we named him Walter because of that. My dog’s named Walter also.

Crave Online: How is the Robin Hood script?

Brian Helgeland: It’s done. I’m done with it so they’re shooting. They’re about five, six weeks in.

Crave Online: Was that a fun one to do?

Brian Helgeland: Yeah, it was okay. It was interesting because it just depends sort of where you arrive in the process. It’s interesting. It’s tricky because it’s Robin Hood; it’s been done many, many times so you have to try to think of a new way to do it. It’s realistic.

Crave Online: Have you seen a cut of Cirque du Freak?

Brian Helgeland: No, I haven’t. That got really rewritten by the director so I don't think it’s the same movie that I wrote.