Director discusses 'Laramie Project's' impact

"The Laramie Project" director Moises Kaufman

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(CNN) -- In 1998, gay college student Matthew Shepard was murdered in Laramie, Wyoming. Shepard's death focused national attention on crimes of hate, and moved a New York theater group to explore the crime and the town where it happened by conducting extensive interviews with Laramie citizens. The result was the play "The Laramie Project," now an HBO movie.

"The Laramie Project" premieres this Saturday night on HBO. The film's director, Moises Kaufman, talked to CNN anchor Paula Zahn on Friday from Los Angeles, California.

PAULA ZAHN: You had the challenge of not only directing this play, but turning it into this movie. Walk us through what you were concerned about as you had to make that transformation.

MOISES KAUFMAN: Well, it was interesting. As you know, a month after Matthew was murdered, I took my theater company to Laramie. And for the next year, we conducted interviews with people of the town. From those interviews, we constructed the play called "The Laramie Project." And we ran that play in Denver, and then we moved it to New York. Then, from that play, we made this movie, "The Laramie Project."

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It was interesting. You know, theater is a very different medium from film. Theater relies more on words. Film relies more on imagery. But I think it was a wonderful opportunity to kind of get the story out to many more people.

ZAHN: Well, you certainly didn't have any problem attracting some big stars to this. Tell us a little bit about who's going be involved, and what the allure of the project was for them?

KAUFMAN: Well, the list of the actors is really magnificent. It's a great group of actors. We have Amy Madigan, and Peter Fonda, and Christina Ricci, and Steve Buscemi, and on and on. It's a really, really wonderful group of actors.

We were very fortunate, because the play had been running for a while by the time we decided to make the movie. So many of these actors had the opportunity to see the play and hear about it. So when news got out they were making the movie, several of them contacted us to say we wanted to be involved in this. So that was really wonderful.

The other two things I think deal with the fact that Good Machine was making the film, which is, as you know, one of the best independent film-making companies, and HBO. So we had a really, really wonderful time casting the movie.

ZAHN: There's a lot of scenes ... that kind of go straight to the heart. What do you think will be the overarching message of the movie?

KAUFMAN: Well, it's so interesting, because over the past two weeks, we've been doing screenings around the country. And so many people who see the movie (are) saying ... "This reminds me so much of my town, you know, we recognize so many of the people in the movie." And perhaps that is the most important thing about the film, is that it makes people think about their towns, and what are there attitudes and how do they think and feel about what is happening; not only in relationship to homosexuality, but in relationship to all people who are different from them.

ZAHN: Hate to close with this, but I really need to ask you a business question. At a time you were going to put on the air, NBC was also going to air a Matthew Shepard special. Because of this, (HBO) moved the air date up to this weekend. What was going on? Was this an attempt by NBC to try to make it very difficult for you to get any audience at all?

KAUFMAN: Well, I think there several things. I think that -- as you know, we opened the Sundance Film Festival, and then we went to the Berlin Festival, and there was a certain momentum. But I must say that it was very shocking when I found out that they had scheduled it for the same night as us. But having said that, I think that it's something that is in the consciousness of the country right now. And I think that is it for the better. The more work that is done about this, the more it will encourage dialogue.

ZAHN: We are going to leave it there this morning. Moises Kaufman, good luck with the debut on television, at least this weekend. Appreciate your joining us this morning.