The film is adapted from author Kathryn Stockett’s 2009 bestseller and takes place in Jackson, Mississippi during the ‘1960s just before the Civil Rights Movement. The story centers on Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan (Emma Stone), a recent college graduate that embarks on a career as a domestic columnist for a local newspaper. Disgusted by the way her community treats African-Americans, especially those who work in their homes as maids, Skeeter decides to write a tell-all book about the women of Jackson and how they really treat “the help.” She ends up getting advice from her best friend’s maid Aibileen Clark (Viola Davis), which eventually begins a friendship that will dramatically change both of their lives. Skeeter’s relationship with Aibileen, and her friend Minny (Octavia Spencer), begins to have a positive effect on the local community but puts Skeeter at odds with her former friend, the secretly racist Hilly Holbrook (Bryce Dallas Howard).

A few weeks ago, I had an opportunity to speak with Chris Columbus about The Help and the production of the film. The producer spoke candidly with me about his level of involvement on the project, adapting the novel; balancing its difficult subject matter, casting the movie, and when we might see him return to directing. Here is what he had to say:

To begin with, looking back at your impressive resume of work it strikes me that while you are best known as a writer and director, you have now produced just as many films as you have written or directed. Can you talk about the criteria that you look for when choosing projects to work on, how you decide what you are going to produce as apposed to what you might direct, and how The Help fell into all of that for you?

Chris Columbus: The Help basically was a relationship that I had with Tate Taylor for the last six or seven years. Tate did a small film called Chicken Party, which I responded to, and I would meet with Tate ever couple of months when he would come by to the San Francisco offices. Then he did a small independent feature called Pretty Ugly People, which we supported. A few years ago he said, “For my first big Hollywood picture I'd like to make this into a film,” and he handed me an early manuscript of The Help. He said, “My best friend wrote it and she said I would be the perfect director for it, so why don't you take a look at it?” So everyone over at 1492 Pictures read the project and fell in love with it and we agreed at that point to support Tate as a director for it. These were fortuitous situations because the book then, as you well know, went on to become incredibly successful and I think it's probably still on the New York Times bestseller list. So for us it was a great way to connect with not only a new, incredibly talented filmmaker, but also a great new piece of material.

The fact that you were interested in making this into a movie long before it became the success that it is now; do you think that speaks to why the book is so special?

Columbus: A lot of studios passed on the project and I have to give credit to Steven Spielberg and Stacy Schneider who not only they fell in love with Tate's script but they also believed in him as a director and in us producing the film. For us it was a big step forward in terms of being really active hands on producers. Michael Barnathan, Mark Radcliffe, and I, the three of us, and our company is really designed for all of us to work on different films at different times. The three of us camped out in Greenwood, Mississippi for five months really actively producing the film. It was an artistically very gratifying experience.

Can you talk about your day-to-day duties on the set as a producer?

Columbus: We were involved from day one in terms of casting. We were all very involved in every decision of the movie including hiring the director of photography, the production designer, who we were going to cast, and then being on a set looking at locations. I mean we were very, very involved.

The film boasts a very impressive group of actresses; can you talk about assembling the cast and the incredible performances that they all give in this film?

Columbus: Well, I think that we were lucky enough and fortunate enough to get everyone we wanted in the film. Tate has a very strong point of view, which is fantastic because he knows this world and he's lived this world. The first thing Tate said to us was, “Octavia Spencer is going to be playing Minny and Allison Janney is going to be playing the mother.” We said, “Wait! Don't you want to look at other people?” But he knew that they would be able to deliver very strong performances. So they were cast early on. Tate met with Emma and we started to look at some of Emma’s work. We'd only seen her up to that point in Zombieland and then I think Superbad. So we saw an early cut of Easy A and suddenly we realized her incredible ability to fluctuate between comedy and drama, and we realized that she's a fantastic actress. So Emma got the role of Skeeter and Viola was the first person anyone ever talked about in terms of playing Aibileen. She was always our number one choice and we just were lucky enough to have her schedule work out so she could be in the film. Viola was an easy choice from the beginning and Bryce came in and auditioned a few times. I mean you know she's the sweetest, nicest person in the world and really turned in I think a performance that is slightly reminiscent of Louise Fletcher in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. We knew she was the right choice and we were fortunate enough to get people like Cicely Tyson and Sissy Spacek in the film which, to get people of that caliber coming in to do supporting roles was just wonderful. Jessica Chastain was wonderful in The Tree of Life and I think she is wonderful here in this film. I think this is a star-making role for her. She transforms herself, which is I think the best thing you can say about any actor or actress. She absolutely transforms from the person she is into this very believable, emotionally complex human being. Her performance is outstanding, it's someone Tate saw and immediately knew he wanted her in the film.

The subject matter in the book involves some difficult issues yet the film deals with them in a positive and upbeat way, can you talk about the challenges of balancing the novel’s uncomfortable material while at the same time still making the film entertaining for audiences?

Columbus: I think the thing that attracted us to the film in the first place was that it was not a history lesson. We've had enough films made, certainly great documentaries like Eyes on the Prize really gives us a sense of what happened during that particular time. I think the fact that you're dealing with the internal struggles and conflicts of these maids, how they deal with the women they work for, and how they deal with these children who they have to leave at a certain time, to me that was the lynch pin of the story and is what made it just absolutely different than anything else I had seen that was done during the civil rights era. It takes a very difficult, very large canvas and focuses on the everyday lives of these people while this civil rights situation is looming heavily in the background. It's always there, but it never feels like you're being spoon fed history and I think that's the key to why it's so satisfying and I think emotionally satisfying for an audience. The great news about The Help is that the strongest thing about the film is the film itself. We screened this picture close to three hundred times for audiences because the word of mouth is so strong about the film. We realized every time we screened the film, no matter what part of the country we screened the film in, people are very moved by it. They talk about it, they tell their friends they want to see it and men love the film. That was part of our reason for wanting to release the film two days earlier (on Wednesday rather than Friday). So the word of mouth … particularly in the age we're living in right now where word of mouth is so essential and it gets out immediately, we felt that we had a strong film and we could rely on people talking about it.

Finally, what's next for you as a director? Will you be going behind the camera again with another project anytime soon?

Columbus: Yeah, I don't know what it's going to be. I'm almost finished with adapting this incredibly fascinating book called The Cyprus House by this writer Michael Koryta. It's a different genre for me. I try to mix it up so life stays exciting. At 1492 we're producing a lot of films. We partnered with CJ Entertainment, a Korean company, who are funding several films that we're going to be making. So we're doing an American remake of a Norwegian film called Troll Hunter. We hired that director (Andre Overdal) to direct an original film for us called Carpe Demon: Adventures of a Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom and we've got project after project that we want to do. You know I realize that over the next several years I want to be making as many films as possible. I think when you see … not that I'm seeing the end coming, I've got hopefully thirty more years, but there's nothing like an oncoming train to get you focused.

The Help opens in theaters everywhere today!