Contagion Screenwriter Speaks on Box Office Victory

'Steven and I talked about having one character sort of tracing the virus back in time and that was Marion’s (Cotillard) character. She was going to be doing the detective work. But then we also needed a character who’d be sort of marching through time going forward with the virus and that became Laurence’s (Fishburne) character. And then we wanted kind of a proxy for a human being and how they would experience a virus… So we knew we were going backwards and we knew we were going forwards and we needed a proxy. Then when I started doing research I just was fascinated by -- because H1N1 had happened -- how there’s this other voice that starts approaching on the consciousness about these things and that’s where Jude’s (Law) character came in. Jennifer’s (Ehle) character was born out of the fact that I met Dr. (Ian) Lipkin and I saw how interesting the research was. I guess at that point I thought, “That’s a lot of people. Probably can’t afford anymore.”'

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