The Soloist Questions

1. Who produced 'The Soloist'?
2. What did Steve Lopez question about the film from the start?
3. When did the producers meet Nathanial?
4. Where were the real life locations of the film?
5. What was Susannah Grant's aim when screen writing?
6. Why was Joe Wright apprehensive about making the film?
7. What does Robert Downey Jr say about the role of Nathanial?
8. Why did Joe Wright want authentic locations and authentic people in his film?
9. How long did the set designers have on location to build the set?
10. What process did the actors go through to ensure that the acting was authentic?
11. What comments are made about the ending by Susannah Grant and Russ Krasnoff?


1. The Soloist was produced by Gary Foster and Russ Krassnoff.
2. Steve Lopez was quite interested about the film being made, but he always questioned how they would end the film as he is still friends with Nathaniel in real life.
3. The producers met Nathaniel straight after the first meeting they had with Steve Lopez agent. Normally Steve's agent would turn down offers from producers but felt that this was perfect and wanted to introduce them as soon as possible.
4. The real life locations in the film were the Disney Concert Hall, The tunnel where Nathaniel used to play his music, the LAMP centre and skidrow, where the homeless people slept was a real life location, but not the actual place where the homeless people slept, it was just down the street as the producers did not want to upset these homeless people.
5. When writing The Soloist, Susannah Grant's aims were to show Americans about homelessness, and that not everybody is born homeless, they all have some sort of story.
6. Joe Wright was apprehensive about making the films as he felt he didn't know America that well, but he felt reassured by having well known American actors such as Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr.
7. Robert Downey Jr was full of praise for Jamie Foxx and he says that the role of Nathaniel had a "high degree of difficulty". He says that having to learn to talk like Nathaniel does with his skitsofrenia was very tough, but he felt that he did it perfectly as he didn't try to hard.
8. Joe Wright wanted an authentic location in the film as he wanted the realism to be portrayed perfectly. He also wanted to do something for the real homeless people as working on a film is not something that anyone can do.
9. The set designers had 4 weeks to build the set on location.
10. The actors went through a long process to make sure the film was authentic, with the homeless people and other actors they all went on team building exercises to get to know each other, and to get to know habits and traits of the homeless people.
11. Both Susannah Grant and Russ Krassnoff said that the ending was honest, and again related back to the realistic aspect of the film. "The ending was honest, that talks about and continues".