Click here to listen to the interview (12:04)

Joe Wright's radical version of ANNA KARENINA is perfectly in keeping with his love of classic literature, and his knack for perfectly distilling the one art form into the other. When we spoke on November 11, 2012, his incisive use of dance to demonstrate the class distinctions of imperial Russia was the first thing I wanted to discuss. We moved on to the actual procsess of paring away Tolsoy's novel, where both Wright and screenwriter Tom Stoppard think Tolstoy went wrong, and why Wright will be taking on the theater next year, with both a light Victorian comedy, and a biography of Patrice Lumumba.