“This wasnt one that I did for money, thats for sure.
This is one I did for passion.”
Dustin Lance Blackhas been thinking aboutUnder the Banner of Heavenfor a very, very long time.
Seth Numrich and Andrew Garfield in ‘Under the Banner of Heaven’.Michelle Faye/FX
“It’s a bit surreal,” Black tells EW of finally bringingUnder the Banner of Heavento TV.
Did we find a way to get a story like this to screen?
Did we find people courageous enough to participate?'"
‘Under the Banner of Heaven’ creator Dustin Lance Black.Rob Latour/Shutterstock
For Black, adapting Krakauer’s book presented both creative and personal challenges.
“This is one I did for passion.
I did it because I believe it’s a necessary message right now.”
Why did you decide to structure the show through Pyre’s eyes?
How did the past plant the seeds of a crime that would take place in the ’80s?
I wanted the viewer to be as active as the reader had to be.
I looked into the actual investigation.
The more I looked into it, the more it was clear that there is a true-crime thriller here.
This case was not solved overnight.
It was 10 days of trying to figure out, who did it?
Why did they do it?
And where are they?
There just wasn’t room to tell all those stories.
When did you shift from writing this as a feature film to a miniseries?
I worked incredibly hard for a very long time to crack it in a two-hour format.
People today don’t want to see a drama that’s over two hours.
It was those steps towards fundamentalism that led to the bloodshed.
I needed enough room to tell that story honestly.
Well, it’s not true.
So, you might want to ask yourself, who wrote those rules?
Why did they write those rules?
Who do they harm today now that we do know better?
And don’t we owe it to ourselves and our children to do better?
When you know better, you might do better.
That’s the lesson of this true-crime thriller.
As a writer, how did you figure out how to structure that and when to deploy those flashbacks?
How did you want to approach Brenda’s story?
I looked at her and her family with admiration when I read the book.
A pretty loving, egalitarian Mormon home, if that’s possible.
I felt like I knew her once I read all of that.
It was as if I was able to interview her.
Brenda was courageous enough to ask questions, to challenge assumptions of what the roles of women should be.
The fact that she was murdered is heartbreaking.
It’s tragic, it’s gruesome, it’s wrong.
And I wanted to get that out of the way as soon as humanly possible.
Why can’t women ask the leadership of their church a question?
Part of that is because it’s all men, and those are the rules that men have made.
And is this a problem exclusive to the Mormon church?
When I talk about courageous women asking questions and challenging assumptions, it goes beyond the Mormon church.
Or do I pray to a misogynist?
Did you have any hesitation about diving into this narrative?
I grew up as a devout Mormon, and I loved my Mormon home.
But I had to put those questions on a shelf because that’s what we’re taught to do.
It’s not too dissimilar a story in some ways.
But it would be many years before I got answers to any of my questions.
This book was one of those lightning strikes.
I challenged the book, as well.
I loved helping write that, but I didn’t create it.
Was there anything you learned from Krakauer’s book or your own research that really surprised you?
I learned a tremendous amount.
Before the book, I think I was resigned to just not knowing.
I wasn’t going to church anymore.
I think for most mainstream Mormons, almost all of Mormon history is a surprise.
When I was growing up, there were absolute flat denials that polygamy ever existed within the Mormon church.
But those surprises are a relief.
There is such comfort in finally understanding.
I hope that like the book, some mainstream Mormons might [watch the show].
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
