Blue Moon true story: How Richard Linklater tackles Rodgers and Hart story with "fanciful imagination"

Whenever the greatest songwriting collaborations of all time are discussed – certainly as far as musical theatre is concerned – the partnership between Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein III is invariably one of the first to come up.

The pair dreamed up a number of musicals which are now considered undeniable parts of the canon, with the likes of Oklahoma!, The King and I and The Sound of Music all standing among the most beloved shows of all time.

But of course, this was not Rodgers's first songwriting partnership. For years before, he had worked closely with Lorenz 'Larry' Hart on several Broadway productions, with the duo creating classic American songbook standards like The Lady Is a Tramp, Manhattan, Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered and My Funny Valentine.

The ending of that partnership, right when Rodgers's new collaboration with Hammerstein was on the ascendancy, is now the subject of a new film from director Richard Linklater, which is named after perhaps Hart's most iconic number: Blue Moon.

The film is all set on one evening after the Broadway premiere of Oklahoma!, and sees Ethan Hawke take on the role of Hart, with Andrew Scott on impeccable form as Rodgers, and Margaret Qualley stepping into a key role as Elizabeth Weiland – a Yale art student with home Hart was besotted.

The script by Robert Kaplow (Me and Orson Welles) is actually adapted from letters between Weiland and Hart, although Linklater stresses that the film is "inspired by", rather than based on, those letters.

"The source is Larry's life," he explained. "And certainly you get to know a lot about that – these letters do exist. They're from her, and, you know, she's kind of self absorbed, but she's referencing time she spent with Larry.

"So Robert just took that as an inspiration for a big jumping off point to express something else. This whole thing's kind of a fanciful imagination of what could have happened on this night? It did happen [in that] there was this night Oklahoma opened. Larry Hart was there. He went with his mum. And what was he feeling? So, you know, he takes a run at that."

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One of the things that was so fascinating about Hart – and makes him a great subject for a film – is that you could ask two different people for their opinions on him and get what appeared to be two diametrically opposed answers.

The inherent contradictions in his personality are illustrated at the very beginning of the film, when two quotes from his contemporaries briefly flash up on screen.

The first of those quotes comes from Hammerstein, who describes his fellow lyricist as "alert and dynamic and fun to be around".

The other comes from Mabel Mercer – an iconic cabaret singer – and declares Hart as "the saddest man I ever knew".

Perhaps unsurprisingly, this seeming contradiction within the real Hart was something that Hawke was excited to dig into.

"There's some old expression I remember reading once about the correlation of opposites," he explained. "Like, a very overweight person who is beautiful in their movement – a great dancer who's heavy – is a really fascinating thing. And I started seeing Larry Hart as this amazing example of the correlation of opposites."

He continued: "He's the smallest person in the room and the largest person in the room. He's gay and in love with a woman. He can be bitter and jealous and warm and encompassing and empathetic, and he's experiencing a positive and a negative at every moment.

"And so yes, that question was the key to him, I thought, and the quotes at the opening of the movie says everything."

Much like Rodgers and Hart, Linklater and Hawke have been close creative collaborators for a number of years, with Blue Moon marking the ninth time they have worked together on a feature film, following such classics as the Before trilogy and Boyhood.

And Linklater explained that working on a film about a breakdown of a creative partnership had given him a newfound "appreciation" for his own dynamic with the actor.

"Ethan's still the same guy I met when in 1992 largely, and I probably haven't changed that much either," he said. "If one of us took on a huge addiction and their life fell apart, it might be different. But, you know, we're just kind of... there's a commonality."

"I do think our appreciation of what artistic intimacy is and how violent it would be to lose it, I think we're maybe sensitive and keyed into that," added Hawke. "But Rogers and Hart collaboration was so intense because they didn't work with anyone else. It would be like if we'd never made a movie with anybody else!"

Blue Moon is now showing in UK cinemas.

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