Though he was once Hollywood’s highest paid screenwriter, Dalton Trumbo (who penned Roman Holiday and Spartacus) reach a heightened level of fame in the 1940s. Unfortunately, it wasn’t for his award-winning writing. Trumbo was a member of the American Communist Party, and after an investigation by the Un-American Activities Comitee, was sentenced to a year in jail.
He, along with nine other screenwriters, became part of the infamous Hollywood Ten. Blacklisted and unable to work with any film studio for over a decade, Trumbo began writing scripts under various pseudonyms.
Bryan Cranston portrays the scribe in the Jay Roach-directed Trumbo. Though set against the glitzy backdrop of the Hollywood Golden Age, the film captures a portion of American history that is certainly painful to revisit. After a successful run on the festival circuit, the movie finally hit theatres this past weekend, and we were on hand at the NYC premiere to chat with the cast.
Hear what they had to say about the film in the video above and be sure to catch Trumbo, as it’s now playing everywhere.