ith virtually nothing to his credit Michael Seitzman is definitely a name we are going to become more familiar with as he has managed a wonderful and emotional script for North Country as well as has some projects in the future involving such names as Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt.

Michael adapted North Country from the book "Class Action: The Story of Lois Jenson and the Landmark Case That Changed Sexual Harassment Law," written by Clara Bingham and Laura Leedy Gansler. The book tracks the true story behind Jenson vs. Eveleth Mines, the first sexual harassment class action in America, which permanently changed the legal landscape as well as the lives of the women who fought the battle.

In only 20 minutes Michael managed to fill more than just a page with conversation so instead of boring you any further let's dive right into the mind of one of Hollywood's true up-and-coming screenwriters.

Question: What is the true story behind North Country?

Michael: The case the movie is about is Jensen vs. Eveleth Mines. The movie takes its cues from several different cases of the period, there were a lot of mines, and there were a lot of women who were starting to work at the mines, and there were several other corporations right around the same time. Remember there was the Anita Hill at that time, the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas hearings that triggered a lot of other events.

I did a lot of research and came up with a lot of incredibly compelling stories. Fictionalizing it was a decision based more on being fair to as many people as I could but also honoring our responsibility as makers of narrative filmmaking as opposed to making a documentary.

Question: So this is a composite of several different people?

Michael: Yeah, the key women in the movie are composites of a number of people, because a lot of people had different experiences that were all incredibly compelling, but they didn't all happen to one person.

My rule in the writing in terms of the fiction versus fact was that if there was an abuse or something that happens in the mine or the courtroom on screen, that had to happen in real life. What I didn't want to happen was somebody walks out of the movie and says, "Well you know, they glammed it up for us," or, "they were heavy-handed with us." The truth is, those things really did happen, somebody really did turn somebody over in their Porta-John. They really did those things.

Everything that you see happens at the mine on screen happened in real life. I really wanted to honor the relevant truths of the movie.

Question: How did this come about for you?

Michael: I saw the authors of the book on television and I just thought it sounded like my kind of story. So, I called them up and Clara Bingham and I had lunch and we talked about it and at the time she had been made an offer from a TV network to make a TV movie out of it. Because I think on its surface, when you just hear sort of the one-line it might say TV movie, but I just felt like there was something else there. Not only that, I kind of resent the fact that we've become an industry where if you want to tackle an issue that somehow that become the domain of television, and if you want to shoot off fireworks that's for movies. I feel it is unfair for a big segment of the audience and especially unfair to a writer who wants to sit down and tell a great story and thinks it exists on a large canvas.

A lot of what this movie is about a sense of place and I think there's no better way than to get a sense of place than on the big screen, it's so enveloping. We tend to think of movies now as a place for roller coaster rides, but there's another reason why you have that giant screen in front of you. It's supposed to draw you into its world, so you forget the world that you just left and you enter that world. On television, in a little box, nothing against television, but in that box you are still in your world watching another world.

Question: Were you able to relate at all to the material while you were writing it?

Michael: I related to the conversation Clara [Bingham] and Laura [Leedy Gansler] were having on television, they were talking about it and for whatever reason it appealed to me. I felt like the issues were universal. The thing is, at its heart the movie is so much more than that buzz word "sexual harassment," the real story, and the story I think we told in the film, is about something more universal, which is the right to go to work and put in an honest day, and at the end of the day you get a check, and that's yours. You hold it up and you say, "I did this, this is mine. I made this and now I'm going to put food on the table for my kids, a roof over their heads, a blanket over them at night," and we're all entitled to that. I don't think we're entitled to the moon, but I think we're entitled to certain things in a just and developed society.

There's always somebody that is your doorway into the movie, there's a person onscreen that represents you, the audience. Charlize's character Josey, she's supposed to represent us, she experiences pain, we experience pain. She experiences triumph, we experience triumph. If we are really going to connect with that character, if we are going to walk into the movie with her, then we need to really feel what it feels like to be her, therefore she has to feel things that are universal to us.

Question: Did Charlize Theron bring to life the character that you wrote?

Michael: Yeah, I think that she elevated it. A lot of people who aren't in the film business don't realize how much goes into it, how many different people put their DNA in the dish let's say. I put a little bit in and then somebody else puts a little bit it and you hope that you grow something out of it. Given all the things that can go wrong during the gestation of a movie the question isn't: Why does Hollywood make so many bad movies? The question is: How does anybody ever make a good movie? Given all the things that can go wrong during that process.

I think this movie was charmed in that respect. All the right people came together and all seemed to feel the same way. Look at the disparate people involved, you've got a New Zealander (Niki Caro) that directed, a South African (Theron) that starred in this very American story, a male Jew from New Jersey who wrote it and I love this film, I am incredibly proud of it. I'm really proud of this diverse group of people who all seem to see it the same way.

Question: How did this become a studio movie?

Michael: [Warner Bros.] is a great group of people.

Question: You are making three movies with them aren't you?

Michael: Four, by the time we are done it will be four. Yeah, they just responded to it.

Question: You are working on DiCaprio's new film?

Michael: The Chancellor Manuscript is a 30 year-old novel, it's about a writer of fiction, a Ludlum-esque writer who's writing a big muscular thriller that he thinks is a work of fiction and it turns out to be full of facts and everybody wants to kill him and then he essentially becomes a character in his own story.

Question: The Sparrow is for Warner Bros.?

Michael: The Sparrow is for Brad Pitt for Warner Bros. That's based on a book by Mary Doria Russell also called The Sparrow, it takes place in the not to distant future, we've heard radio signals coming from another planet and while the UN is arguing over whether to send a mission, the Vatican does and they send a group of priests and they make first contact.

Question: So Brad is gong to play a priest?

Michael: Yeah, he is going to play a young priest. It's a terrific book.

Question: Are you interested in directing The Sparrow?

Michael: No, I was really only interested in directing Storming the Court. The Sparrow is such a gigantic canvas and frankly I am just not capable yet of directing something that big.

Question: Then Storming the Court?

Michael: Storming the Court I am writing and directing, it's a book that's going to come out from Scribner next month, the author's name is Brandt Goldstein and it's a fantastic book. It's the true story of Yale Law School students who sue the federal government successfully in the early 90s on behalf of the Haitian refugees on Guantanamo.