David Mamet talks about politics, his new movie, and life in Los Angeles

Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright David Mamet has mastered many media, including television, film, novel, and essay. The writer/director is putting more muscle into his latest film, Redbelt. It mixes Hollywood with the Brazilian martial arts sport jujitsu, which is quickly becoming all the rage. Mamet describes Redbelt as more of a fight film than an action movie. Radar sat down with the director to talk about movies, theater, and living in L.A.

RADAR: Your new movie, Redbelt, combines Brazilian jujitsu (a martial art and combat sport that focuses on ground fighting) and a little bit of Hollywood.
DAVID MAMET: Our hero, who is kind of a poor and a genius fighter, gets mixed up with some Hollywood types and has some adventures because of it. A lot of fights in it, a lot of drama.

Jujitsu is gaining popularity in the States. You say it's not like karate in that it's not a striking form, but more similar to wrestling. So it's one of those testosterone-driven sports people love to watch.
It's fun for everybody to watch. Just about everybody in the world likes seeing some sort of ritualized combat because it's essentially dramatic. You get to root for one side and hope your side wins.

What made you want to do this subject?
It's one of the things I do in my spare time.

You said you never know if a movie or a play is going to be a hit.
Nobody knows.

Do you have a good idea?
No. Sometimes one thinks one has a good idea but one is never right.

It seems like when you finish something you might think, "I love this, it's going to do well."
Oh, yeah, you always say that. It's very seldom true.

Right now you also have a comedy, November, playing on Broadway. It's set a few days before an election with a conservative incumbent president (played by Nathan Lane) called Charles H.P. Smith. What prompted this latest drama? Were you in the mood for a little Bush bashing?
It's really not about Bush. I think it's fairly clearly not about Bush, but about turkeys. We had a Thanksgiving here a year ago when a friend came and she'd just been on a plane that had flown from Washington, D.C., to L.A. with two turkeys and their handlers that took up all of first class. And it turned out the president had pardoned these two turkeys, and the Disney organization, I believe, had bought them, and was planning to have them lead the march at Disneyland on Thanksgiving Day. And I said, "Well, why two turkeys?" And my friend explained that one of the turkeys got sick last year and almost died. So this year they have to have a head turkey and an alternate turkey. [Laughter.] So I said, well, that's the funniest thing I ever heard, so I just sat down and wrote a play.