SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Now to a heist at a museum. Not the Louvre. Not millions of dollars' worth of crown jewels. This is a less sensational crime and fictional. "The Mastermind" is a new movie set in the 1970s in Framingham, Massachusetts, where James B. Mooney is an unemployed carpenter and the brains behind the theft of several American modernist paintings. But unlike the heist at the Louvre, this one doesn't go as planned.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE MASTERMIND")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) See, James, we've been told that you're mixed up in this robbery at the museum.
JOSH O'CONNOR: (As James Blaine Mooney) Well, that's bizarre. Where'd you hear something like that?
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (Character) Well, we got one of the suspects in custody right now.
O'CONNOR: (As James Blaine Mooney) I sure don't know how you got down this road, but you got the wrong idea. I'm afraid you got some bad information.
SIMON: Ah, but they didn't. Josh O'Connor plays J. B. Mooney in "The Mastermind." He joins us now from London. Thanks so much for being with us.
O'CONNOR: No worries. Thanks for having me, Scott.
SIMON: How did you arrange to publicize the film for the Louvre robbery?
O'CONNOR: I know. Turns out that the publicity team are working all hours and will do anything for people to go and see this movie. Yeah.
SIMON: (Laughter) It is, I gather, sort of drawn on an actual burglary that occurred in 1972 in Worcester, Massachusetts, right?
O'CONNOR: Right. Well, kind of. I mean, sort of around that time, there are a number of incidents that Kelly and I were looking at.
SIMON: This is Kelly Reichardt, the director.
O'CONNOR: Yeah, Kelly Reichardt, the director, read an article about this particular incident where two girls were eyewitnesses to this robbery. And so it was kind of loosely around that.
SIMON: Tell us about James Blaine Mooney, J. B.
O'CONNOR: Well, he comes from a middle-class, suburban white family in Massachusetts. We find out through the film that he's a sort of art school dropout. There's this sense of him that - in my opinion, that he's sort of not achieved quite the heights that he would've liked. You know, the - as you rightly said, this film, although it's set in the '70s, it's very specifically set in the fall of 1970. In the background of the film, anti-war protests for Vietnam, America, I think, at that point, were in Cambodia. There's this sort of this backdrop that goes - runs through the film but James Mooney's really very unaware of. And that sort of plays into this dynamic of a changing world and Mooney feeling as though he needs to make a name for himself, which is where this brilliant idea to steal art from the Framingham Art Museum sprouts.
SIMON: Is it a brilliant idea? Well, I mean, exactly "Ocean's Eleven" type of skulduggery.
O'CONNOR: It's certainly not "Ocean's Eleven," and it's certainly not a great idea. You know, Mooney, I believe, genuinely thinks it's a kind of flawless idea. It's also a point of pride for him. He's not stealing Picassos or he's not stealing Rembrandts. He's stealing Arthur Doves. There's a sort of ego there of kind of, I'll steal the artists that only real artists know about. The other thing to note, Scott, is that if you've ever read about the Isabella Gardner Museum robbery, which is sort of a well-known one...
SIMON: Yeah.
O'CONNOR: ...You know, it's kind of hilarious. I mean, back then, the security was completely different. So in the case of the Isabella Gardner Museum, cars literally pulled up. They walked in through the front entrance and cracked on and took paintings and got in the car and off they went. It's hard for us now, although maybe not so hard after the Louvre.
SIMON: Oh, yes. At the Louvre, they backed up a truck with the ladder on it. Yeah.
O'CONNOR: I know. I know. But, you know, at the time, it wasn't a crazy idea.
SIMON: You told The Independent - I'll quote your own words to you - "with any character, you start off by believing that what they're doing is just and right." This one too?
O'CONNOR: Absolutely. My dad is an English teacher at my school, and he sort of was responsible for introducing me to the theater in some ways. My parents took me to the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon in the U.K, and on the way there, my dad would explain Shakespeare's plays. And one of his great ideas and thoughts was about Shakespeare's villains - you know, Edmund, Iago, Richard III. All these characters, they don't think that what they're doing is wrong. They think that what they're doing is liberating or right or just. You have to believe your intentions are good as the character. And so, likewise with Mooney, you have to believe that this idea is flawless and great and will work out for everyone.
SIMON: That didn't crack at any point in the filming?
O'CONNOR: Well, there's a phone call about three-quarters of the way through the film. Kelly would be killing me right now for revealing that, but there is a phone call back to his wife.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE MASTERMIND")
O'CONNOR: (As James Blaine Mooney) I wanted to say that I'm sorry. I know it probably doesn't help anything or even mean much to you. But I am. I really screwed up. And I don't have to tell you. I know that. I just - I wanted to say it is all.
You know, there was a moment when I was reading that phone call and preparing that scene where I thought maybe he cracks and maybe he realizes it's all gone too far. It's all a mess. Kelly rightly just pulled me back 'cause Mooney's - he hasn't got foresight in the way that you might imagine.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE MASTERMIND")
O'CONNOR: (As James Blaine Mooney) Terri, I know it doesn't make much sense, but everything I've done, it's been for you and the kids. And me. Yeah. Yeah, me too. True enough.
So, yeah. No. I didn't think - at any point, did I think as Mooney, that there any doubt necessarily. Really, the only point where I think it's gone too far is right at the end of the movie.
SIMON: Very telling scene that I found that goes by quickly. J.B. is reading the newspaper account of the robbery, and it turns out to be much more horrifying than what actually happened.
(LAUGHTER)
SIMON: Is the suggestion that we mythologize these robberies to make them seem romantic and grand?
O'CONNOR: Well, we do. I mean, there's no doubt about that. You know, I use the Isabella Gardner Museum as a reference a lot because I just think what's so funny is how unremarkable it is. You know, it's seemingly sort of quiet and almost silly. And the newspaper, you're right to pick up on that. It definitely serves a purpose for, like - for Mooney to be able to look at it through other people's eyes. You know, it's obviously very different to the reality of it.
SIMON: I remember I was fortunate the last time we interviewed you. You had portrayed Prince Charles in "The Crown," and I asked you if you were concerned that when the time came for you to be knighted, like many other great British actors, the man we called prince then might hold it against you. He's the king now. Any concerns?
O'CONNOR: No.
(LAUGHTER)
O'CONNOR: No concerns. I mean, no concerns insofar as, first of all, I doubt that it would come my way. Second of all, I don't think I'd accept. And thirdly, I certainly don't think, regardless of both those things, that Prince Charles would hold it against me. I have actually an awful lot of respect for King Charles, as he rights it, from playing that part. I mean, I am still a republican, hence, not accepting a knighthood. And I mean republican in the British sense rather than the American sense. But I - just because of my sort of political views, I hold nothing against the person himself. I actually have a huge amount of admiration for him. And one of the things that really kind of got me to play that part in the first place was this notion that this is a young man who's waiting for his mother to die for his life to take meaning. And the truth of the matter is that that is devastating for a real human, and that position is devastating.
SIMON: Film is called "Mastermind." Without giving away too much, ironic?
O'CONNOR: For sure. It's one of my favorite titles for a movie. James genuinely thinks he is. And so if he were to title the movie, it probably would be that. So, yes, he is a mastermind until he's not.
SIMON: Josh O'Connor, who stars in the new movie "The Mastermind," out now. Thanks so much for being with us.
O'CONNOR: Thanks, Scott. I appreciate it. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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