About the Director, Cast and Movie

Director:

     Doug Liman, the director of Fair Game, claims that his favorite types of movies to work on are "spy" movies, which explains his directing history of Fair Game, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Jumper, and The Bourne Identity. All of these movies are about undercover related or secret activity. He also directed the TV series The Heist (2006) which follows a team of crooks trying to rob banks, yet another action-packed, suspenseful project. Liman's statement stands strong based on a majority of his work; he likes secret mission-based movies.

     From the article, Doug Liman on Fair Game, Bourne, and Why Real Spies Don't Have Sex, Liman talks about how he used what he learned from filming Bourne Identity to coach Naomi Watts on how to better play the part of a CIA agent. All of the stories and filming he works on seem to be closely knit according to his style of work.

     During the documentary voice over in the Special Features Menu offered on the DVD of Fair Game, Joe and Valerie mention how Doug Liman ran the script past them for approval before they started filming the movie. This showed his desire to remain as close to the real story as he could. Because of the fact that Valerie could not, by law, talk to the screenwriters about her covert career, her part of the story had to be constructed from other sources, including former intelligence officers. Liman spoke on the matter saying "she would never betray the agency".

   Liman was fascinated with the relationship that Joe and Valerie had. He spent about a year researching their conversations and many conversations with former and current CIA officers who had been in contact with Valerie or who were present during the scandal. Liman asked questions like; how does Valerie balance having twins with a job that sends her out of the country where she can't tell anyone where she's going or when she's coming home?

     In an interview with Jenni Miller of CineMatical, Liman was asked how he got his hands on information that was still classified in parts of Valerie's biography; Liman answered by saying that the script was written before the movie was filmed, and a lot of times that isn't the case. Liman recalls asking Valerie for more in-depth information from her book and news stories. She professionally replied, "I can't tell you that; I could go to jail. But here are some people you can talk to, and they may know people who might be willing to talk to you." Liman's producers were well connected and got him in contact with people inside the intelligence community. The script is largely based on interviews.

     When filming this movie, they held themselves to "a journalistic standard", Liman tells Miller, "Having two sources, one of the sources was a book written by a journalist we respected, and that would count as one of the two sources."

     The first draft for Fair Game was originally three hours long and more documentary-like according to this Washington Post article. It was so packed with detail that it could and would have ran the full three hours, but was condensed down to 104 minutes.

Political Influence on Fair Game:

     According to an article from Daily News on Fair Game and the perceived motivations of director Liman's intentions when making this movie, Daily News concludes that he "handled the facts with intelligence and artistic integrity".

     Partisans are likely to cast doubt on director Liman's motivations in dramatizing this story, not to mention those of the outspokenly liberal [Sean] Penn. But Liman and his screenwriters, Jez and John-Henry Butterworth, handle the facts with intelligence and artistic integrity.

     They don't simply re-lay details, but contextualize them, giving thoughtful consideration to shifting media standards, corruption of power and the insidious new clout that even false accusations carry in the internet era.

     Those hoping for a documentary-style analysis will be disappointed. Liman condenses or skips over several key factors, including the essential roles of journalists Robert Novak and Judith Miller. But it's no easy feat to keep audiences on edge while retelling a familiar story, or to shock us as old outrages come tumbling into the light once again.

Fair Game (2010) was said (according to IMDB) to be filmed in:

• Amman, Jordan
• Atlantic Ave & Court St, Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA
• Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA
• Cairo, Egypt
• Essex House - 160 Central Park South, Manhattan, New York City, New  York, USA
• Long Island, New York, USA
• Malaysia
• New Rochelle, New York, USA
• Washington, District of Columbia, USA
• White Plains, New York, USA

     Going back to the interview Liman agreed to do with Jenni Miller, Liman speaks of the set he was seeking for the filming of Fair Game: ". . .for 'Fair Game' it was really important for me that we go to the real places. Not only did we go to the real places, but because Valerie Plame was a consultant, I could ask her -- I said, ‘Well, hypothetically, if you were going to Jordan, what hotel would this operation be based out of?’ And Valerie would sort of couch us onto some of the details that wouldn't affect national security, but just give the film an air of truth. And in fact, the hotel that we shot in in Jordan, in Amman, the Grand Hyatt, is in fact the same hotel that Valerie operated out of. . .Only a small part of this film takes place in Iraq but it was really important for me to go to the real place, to show people ... what Iraq really looks like, not how we fake Iraq in some other country. I also wanted to just see the country with my own eyes because although this is a film about abuse of power by the president of the United States, that abuse of power was about going to war, and I wanted to see with my own eyes what we did, what was going on in Iraq." Liman tried to capture and portray as close to the real events as he could according to Plame's account.

     
     Above is an interview clip from the American Civil Liberties Union with Liman about the government and citizens of a democracy and how he feels about the story of Valerie and Joe Wilson.

     Liman expresses his thanks for Naomi and Joe's cooperation in making this movie and his appreciation for those in this line of work; "you know, this film is really a celebration about the people who go to work every day at the CIA, in the shadows, whose names we will never know. The contributions to our safety we will never know. Who will probably never get any public recognition… and in the case of Valerie Plame (who was an NOC). They are the most super-secret of the spies and the CIA. Millions of dollars are spent to craft their identities. And the NOC’s have no visible ties to the U.S. Government. This shows his respect and true interest in the story behind his film 'Fair Game'.”