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Deborah suggested he consider writing the script as a movie. “You’ll win an Academy
Award,” she told him.
Haggis contacted his friend Robert Moresco, who had been a writer on Haggis’s series
EZ Streets. He told Moresco, “I don’t think anybody’s going to make this, but it’s a great
story.” The two men began working in Haggis’s home oce, next to the laundry room.
They wrote a first draft in two weeks. Haggis decided to call it Crash.
The title refers to a fender bender that sets o a chain of events, revealing the
contradictory elements of the characters and the city they inhabit. In the dizzying
seconds after the collision an LAPD detective suddenly realizes what’s missing in his life.
“It’s the sense of touch,” he says in the movie’s opening lines. “In LA no one touches
you.… We’re always behind metal and glass. Think we miss that touch so much, we
crash into each other just to feel something.”
Haggis insists on turning his heroes into villains and vice versa, such as the racist
white cop who molests a tony, upper-class black woman in one scene, then saves her life
in another. Haggis felt that by exploring such complexities he was teasing out the dark
and light threads of his own personality.
For the next year and a half, he struggled to get the movie green-lit. He was still a
rst-time movie director, and that posed an obstacle. Moreover, the script called for an
ensemble cast with no single starring role—always an obstacle in Hollywood. Haggis
nally interested a producer, Bob Yari, who agreed to make the movie for $10 million if
Haggis could assemble a star-studded cast.
Don Cheadle was the rst to sign on, both as an actor and a producer, and his name
added credibility to the project. Matt Dillon and Tony Danza came aboard. Heath
Ledger and John Cusack agreed to work for scale, as everyone did. Still, the project
dragged on. Finally, Haggis was told the movie was a go. He then sent the script to
John Travolta and Kelly Preston, who he thought would be perfect as the district
attorney and his wife.
“That’s great, because now we really need them,” one of the producers, Cathy
Schulman, told him the next day. Heath Ledger had dropped out and Cusack was not far
behind. Once again, the movie would need more big-name stars to get the nancing.
Haggis immediately sent a note to Preston, telling her he was withdrawing his oer. As
a matter of pride, he felt it was wrong to use his friends in such a way—especially other
Scientologists. Preston was miffed, since he had failed to explain his decision.