Photo By Neil Davidson

Elijah Wood stars in Liev Schreiber's big-screen adapation of Everything Is Illuminated.

The personal connection actor and first-time filmmaker Liev Schreiber quickly made with Everything Is Illuminated author Jonathan Safran Foer is his grandfather's sense of humor and a favorite joke Schreiber calls "shit brown."

"When I was a kid, my grandfather used to get really drunk, and he would corner me and force me to ask him what his favorite color was," he says, speaking recently at the Toronto Film Festival. "When I would ask him what his favorite color was, he would reply 'shit brown.' And then he would laugh by himself for an hour with tears streaming down his face. That was his sense of humor, and I loved it. I thought it was so bizarre. And the fact that it wasn't particularly funny, for me, made it even better."

As Schreiber got older, he discovered an irony and darkness behind the joke that was compelling.

"The kind of ecstatic gratification he got from muttering the scatological thing to me was revealing," he says. "I know people say that it's a Jewish sense of humor, but I've come to believe it is a survivor's sense of humor. It's a survivor's sensibility. You present the fact that if life is excrement, then you have a choice. You can accept that or through irony transcend it and use it as a fuel for life and art. For me, it was important to try to articulate that culturally in the structure of the film."

Schreiber is a familiar face thanks to numerous stage roles and acclaimed work in recent films including director Jonathan Demme's remake of The Manchurian Candidate. His unbearable task of the past few years, a project he could not give up despite its numerous challenges, was adapting Foer's 2002 novel into a feature film.

Schreiber had limited resources, budget and production time to adapt Foer's story of Jonathan (Elijah Wood), a Jewish-American author obsessed with family mementos who travels to the Ukraine to learn about his late grandfather's life. Today he is knee-deep in his latest responsibility as first-time director: tirelessly promoting the film on a press tour.

Schreiber admits that he and Foer share similar family immigration backgrounds, but their connection revolves around the dark humor expressed by their grandfathers. Schreiber started writing an Illuminated-like tale after his grandfather's death in 1993 only to meet Foer while narrating stories from The New Yorker magazine's Young Fiction series.

Schreiber always saw his family history as unique until he met Foer. They spoke and compared stories, reflecting on similar interests and experiences. Foer finally agreed to let Schreiber adapt his novel into a film. You don't say no to a kindred spirit.

Everything Is Illuminated received more than its share of acclaim. Asked by reporters if he felt comfortable making the necessary changes to adapt the book into film, Schreiber responds with confidence.

"If the author does their job right, they give the reader ownership of the material, and the reader develops a very private, very intimate relationship to the material," he says. "Regardless of whether or not they like the film, they feel their personal history was exploited to make that film, and they react against it. But I also have a personal history that came from that material. And if you don't make the movie, then you're saying it's OK for that material to stop. If it can have a broader platform to exist as a film, if one or two people are inspired to read the book after seeing the film, fantastic."

Schreiber was born in San Francisco and studied at Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., before going to the Yale School of Drama. He was committed to follow in the footsteps of his stage-actor father, Tell Schreiber.

At 38, Schreiber is trim, with short dark hair that emphasizes his full face and wide eyes. He's dressed business professional and leans into the round table shoved into a the room's center with the seriousness of someone facilitating a board meeting.

Schreiber's passion for Illuminated, says lead actor Elijah Wood, is what committed him to the project.

"I love the script, and I love the character of Jonathan," Wood says, speaking earlier in the day. "He's different from anything I've done before. I love the relationship of these three characters and this tiny car driving across the Ukraine."

After discussing the story with Schreiber, Wood was ready to commit.

"He had such a clear vision, and I wanted to go on that journey," he says.

The result of that vision is a companion work, a feature film that stands alongside Foer's book and re-creates his story in a different medium. It also marks the debut of a new filmmaker, an emotion Schreiber can pinpoint with crystal clarity.

"The first time I felt experiencing what a filmmaker experiences is the realization that film is an animal," he says. "It becomes an animal, and you are in a cage with that animal holding a chair trying to get it to do tricks but with the deep sense of respect that it's a lethal animal and it has a mind of its own.

"At his best, a director locates talent, isolates it and illuminates it. He chooses good crew and great actors and isolates their abilities and illuminates them. You edit and isolate the best footage. Then you go on press tours, and you only talk about the best elements of the film." ©