The Butler
Short description
The Butler follows Cecil Gaines, a man born to a sharecropping family in the segregated American South. After leaving that world behind, he builds a career in domestic service and reaches the White House, where he spends decades as a butler serving presidents from the 1950s onward. The film sets his working life against the civil rights movement unfolding outside, and against his own household: his wife Gloria's drinking and the disputes with his eldest son Louis, who takes a more confrontational path than his father. The tension between Cecil's discretion in the White House and the changes he witnesses around him shapes the story.
The film is based on reporting about Eugene Allen, a real White House butler, and was directed by Lee Daniels from a screenplay by Danny Strong. It is his fourth feature, following Shadowboxer, Precious and The Paperboy. Forest Whitaker plays Cecil, with Oprah Winfrey as Gloria, David Oyelowo as Louis, and John Cusack, Jane Fonda and Cuba Gooding Jr. among a credited cast of 53.
Released in August 2013, The Butler was made for about 30 million dollars and took roughly 177 million worldwide, a strong return on its budget. On IMDb it holds 7.2/10 from around 124,000 votes, and on TMDB 7.3/10 from about 3,000 votes.
What's left behind the scenes
- US President Barack Obama admitted that he shed tears while watching the film. “My eyes well up at the thought not only of this butler, but of an entire generation of talented and skilled people who were unable to fully realize their potential due to segregation and discrimination,” Obama said.
- The character of Cecil Gaines (played by Forest Whitaker) was based on Eugene Allen, who served as a butler in the White House for over 30 years under 8 presidents: Harry S. Truman (1884-1972), Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969), John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917-1963), Lyndon Johnson (1908-1973), Richard Nixon (1913-1994), Gerald Ford (1913-2006), Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan (1911-2004).
- The original script included a meeting between the main character and Barack Obama. Lee Daniels considered asking Obama himself, the acting president, for permission to film him, but filming took place during the height of the 2012 election campaign, and Daniels cast an actor to play Obama, then completely cut those scenes, inserting archival footage of Obama into the film instead.
- Some episodes of the film differ from what actually happened. In the film, the protagonist steals food in a hotel, is caught stealing, is hired as a waiter at the same hotel, and comes to the attention of a White House administrator, making a good impression. In reality, the prototype of the protagonist simply applied for a job at the White House and was hired. The film states that one of the protagonist's sons died in Vietnam, and the other joined the leftist black organization “Black Panthers”; in fact, the first son returned safely from the Vietnam War and got a job at the State Department, and the plot about his alcoholic wife's infidelity was also invented by the filmmakers.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
