(L-R) Johnny Depp, director Marc Forster and Kate Winslet consult on the set of Finding Neverland, about playwright J.M. Barrie's creation of Peter Pan.

"What's it like, Neverland?" a close friend asks J.M. Barrie (Johnny Depp), creator of the family classic Peter Pan, in the new film about the creation of his famous play, Finding Neverland (currently playing across the United States; it opens Wednesday in Cincinnati). It's up to director Marc Forster to show us Barrie's wondrous fairyland, which brings children and adults alive.

Yet fear, segregation, death, all human tragedies, are the themes in Forster's previous films, including his best to date, the death row drama, Monster's Ball. Billy Bob Thornton is the star of Monster's Ball, playing Hank, the guard in charge of the executions at the Georgia penitentiary. Halle Berry won a Best Actress Oscar as Leticia, a waitress trying to raise her son while her husband (Sean Combs) sits on death row. Hank and Leticia end up comforting each other, but little about their lives is pleasant.

Finding Neverland, is worlds apart from Monster's Ball -- and not just because London is far removed from backwoods Georgia. This film is uplifting, often buoyant, much like Peter Pan, a sharp contrast to the grim Monster's Ball and Forster's first film, the equally grim Everything Put Together, a drama about sudden infant death syndrome. Told that his latest film is a drastic change for him, at least thematically, Forster reluctantly agrees.

"This movie is a celebration of creativity more than a strict biopic," he says, speaking recently from the Miramax offices in New York City. "And I did not want to make a biopic. I was interested in a story about imagination and the transforming power of creativity."

The key to all his films, Forster says, is showing the truth within each character, no matter the background or back-story. Monster's Ball captures the American South in a manner that is believable and in-depth, and the same thing can be said about 1904 London in Finding Neverland.

Amazingly, Forster is a German-born Swiss. Yet, it's not so much where you're from that matters with storytelling. It's what you're able to see and determine in the places you go.

Johnny Depp is Forster's Halle Berry of the moment -- meaning a head-turning actor whose outstanding performance brings extra attention to his film. Much about Barrie suits Depp's personality. Barrie was something of a public eccentric, someone who valued the power of imagination and childlike wonderment above everything else.

Forster agrees that the wonderment of Depp's performance is how he shows the heartache and the joy in Barrie, someone famous, but also unhappily married and childless. But his friendship with Sylvia Llewelyn Davies (Kate Winslet) and her four sons provides the inspiration for Peter Pan, Barrie's chance at a happier life.

Davies was still married when Barrie befriended her, but Forster and screenwriter David Magee (who adapted Allan Knee's play The Man Who Was Peter Pan) make her a widow in the film. Forster read the script and then set out on his own research. He's confident about the accuracy in the script changes, that they still reflect the core truths about Barrie. He's also completely at ease that the changes were the right ones to make for the film.

"I did not want to make a movie about a pedophile," Forster says emphatically. "First, I do not believe he was a pedophile. He was an asexual man. He did not like touching other people or being touched.

The changes were made in the script to create focus in the story and to focus on the characters who were integral to the creation of Peter Pan.

"Yes, Sylvia's husband was still alive, and there was a fifth child. But I wanted to capture the spirit of how he (Barrie) created Peter Pan, the creative spirit. I was not interested in a dark story. I was not interested in making a bio picture about Barrie's life and the before and after, because the before is clearly dark and sad. For me, it's all about inspiration and the transforming power of imagination.

"I think I am interested in Barrie the man, but I'm not interested in Barrie only as a man -- if that makes any sense to you."

Monster's Ball enjoyed the benefits of a high-profile cast -- Berry, Thornton, Combs and Heath Ledger, and the same is true of Finding Neverland. Joining Depp and Winslet in Foster's family-friendly period drama are Dustin Hoffman, as the American producer Charles Frohman, Julie Christie as Davies' stern mother, and Radha Mitchell (the lead in Everything Put Together) as Barrie's disinterested wife.

Everything Put Together is a true independent production, a digital video story that is intimate and makes art out of its small production costs. But as far as Forster is concerned -- beyond financial backing and distribution deals -- all his films, even those with celebrity casts, are independent in that he retains creative control.

"Everything Put Together was truly independent, but Monster's Ball was shot for only $3 million over 29 days. There was no creative involvement by the studio and no previews.

"Lions Gate (distributor and producer of Monster's Ball) is traded on the stock exchange, but I do consider them an independent distributor.

"Finding Neverland was offered to me by Miramax, which is owned by Disney. Its budget was tight compared to other Hollywood projects. I was worried because of the Miramax reputation and the book by Peter Biskind but was lucky. They (Miramax) did not pay any attention to me and left the film alone. Harvey (Weinstein, president of Miramax) was busy and there were no executives on the set. When I went to New York to preview the movie I was prepared for the worst, but he liked the movie."

Forster says Finding Neverland was finished in 2003 but sat on the shelf for over a year to avoid last year's live-action Peter Pan movie.

Finding Neverland finally screened earlier this fall at the Venice and Telluride film festivals and audience response has been enthusiastic.

"Something that interests me," he says before hanging up the phone, "something that comes up in my films, is the certain way that I think about mortality. It comes again in Stay, my next film, about a psychologist and his patient, although it's a very different film for me.

"It's probably something that happens in my subconscious level, not in a conscious way."

After tackling tough subjects like sudden infant death syndrome, racism and capital punishment, Forster wanted to stretch himself in a different direction. Clearly, it was time to show a brighter side of life. ©