HK Magazine: What did you know about Johnny Cash before you started?
Mangold: Well, I was learning. I think so many people have talked about making a film about Elvis, or a film about some way to get into this world at Sun [Records] and kind of the birth of rock ‘n’ roll at this moment. But in a way it started to occur to me that John was the ultimate ambassador into this kind of world. People call him a legend and an icon, but he really was one of our great artists, and in a way he always stayed human. He really, in the negative sense of what an icon is, never became one. He was a real man. He existed in flesh and blood and he wasn’t some kind of thing on a T-shirt and that you sold. He was about his music and I always thought it’d be easier to make a movie about this moment if you’re following someone who was a real person who never became something like Mickey Mouse.

HK: Reese Witherspoon said initially when she signed on she didn’t know she was going to be singing like that.
Mangold: That’s full of it. She knew she was going to sing. I told her she was going to sing. She just didn’t know I was going to make her sing. But the truth is, she’s great.

HK: How did you decide that Joaquin and Reese were Johnny and June?
Mangold: In the case of Joaquin, my producer Cathy Konrad just put his face in front of me from the L.A. Times. He was in a story from “Gladiator” and there was this beautiful picture of him with slicked-back hair, half in light, half in dark, and we both just had breakfast and talked about whether he’d be right for it and we decided he was. For Reese, we were at a wedding reception for the actor Breckin Meyer that Reese was holding. And I just ended up at a table with Reese where we were talking and she started telling me these stories about how much she loved Dolly Parton and how she was from Nashville. I was sitting there watching her talk, and I was thinking “My God, now that there’s Joaquin and knowing his age, she’s perfect.” What was also striking me as perfect about her is that John has these two aspects that Joaquin perfectly captures in many ways, soulful aspects, which are a very dark side, intense side, but also an extremely humble and shy side. Reese is similar to June. June is very responsible, disciplined, very organized, and is the person who ran the Cash household. And that was the end of the whole process. No agents, no nothing. It was that simple.

Plus: Here is our movie review for Walk the Line