After "Hannibal" et al., seeing another serial killer flick was about as pleasant a prospect as being buried alive. It was a nice surprise, then, to find that director Patty Jenkins had made an intelligent, genre-defying film grounded in reality. Jenkins, who also wrote the screenplay, has been riding a high ever since her debut feature earned Charlize Theron the Oscar for Best Actress. (It must be doubly satisfying since Jenkins says she was initially "ridiculed" for her casting decision.) In Tokyo to promote her film, Jenkins discussed the problems inherent to depicting a larger-than-life killer.
How long did you work on the script?
I wrote the script in June, two years ago. I originally thought of the idea about six years ago. I'd seen the story and followed it when it broke in 1990. Later I realized how Aileen's story was related to all these '60s and '70s films I'd been watching, like "Badlands" or "Bonnie & Clyde." It [shows] how someone ends up going down that road. Because she wasn't Ted Bundy, she wasn't just sexually perverse. But it seemed like such a bad, hard idea to start your career with, I never pursued it.