The true story that made Rupert Goold jump from stage to screen

For more than a decade, Rupert Goold has been one of theatre-land's most exciting talents. His Macbeth, starring Patrick Stewart, landed three prestigious gongs for direction – an Evening Standard, a Critics' Circle and an Olivier – before transferring to Broadway, where a further six Tony nods awaited. He has subsequently ushered in some of the most exciting new plays in British theatre, including Enron, Chimerica and a musical version of American Psycho, starring Matt Smith.

Around these parts, he's probably best known for directing Michael Gambon in Harold Pinter's No Man's Land at The Gate in 2008. "I remember that time I came to Dublin, I had had a very heavy year of work," says Goold, who directed Six Characters in Search of an Author, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot and King Lear that year. "But when the Gate ring you up and give you the chance to work with Michael Gambon and Harold Pinter, what are you going to do? It was a career dream."

Trip to Hollywood

One wonders why Goold would swap full houses and acclaim for the madness of film, but, at 43, he has just completed True Story, his first Hollywood picture. "I always think of a quote from My First Movie, which is an anthology of lots of different movie directors writing essays about their first movie," says Goold. "In his essay Ang Lee says, 'You know, I have friends from film school in their 40s who still think they're going to make their first movie.' For me, it was a case of now or never."

True Story is based on the 2005 memoir of the American journalist Michael Finkel. It chronicles his strange relationship with the Oregon killer Christian Longo, one of the FBI's 10 most wanted fugitives in 2002. Having fled to Cancún in Mexico after killing his family, Longo ended up assuming Finkel's identity just after the writer had been fired by the New York Times for partially fabricating a feature on the African slave trade.

Goold's screenplay, co-written with David Kajganich, focuses on the relationship between Finkel (played by Jonah Hill) and Longo (James Franco). Both actors have dramatic form and Academy Award nominations. But together they're better known for the stoner comedy This Is the End. True Story utilises some edgy casting chemistry, but it works to splendidly chilling effect.

“James was on board first,” says Goold. “He’d known about the project for a little while. He’s a very interesting guy with a very interesting public persona. Nobody’s sure if he’s an actor or an artist or a poet. Nobody’s sure if he’s gay or straight. That ambiguity and remoteness was very useful for this role. And Jonah is always likeable and empathetic, even in potentially narcissistic roles.”

As the film opens, Finkel is dismissed from the New York Times just as Longo is captured in Mexico. When a reporter for the Oregonian contacts Finkel for a comment on Longo's theft of his identity, the disgraced journalist is intrigued enough to set up a meeting. The two men subsequently correspond for many months. They each become the perfect audience for the other. Throughout, Longo remains evasive about his guilt.

“I’m drawn to the idea of nemesis,” says Goold. “Like with the relationship between Iago and Othello, how in life we have rivals who define us. I think perhaps that’s especially true for men. Men can have seemingly antagonistic relationships yet they define one another. Both these men are classic over-reachers. And just as they’re at the apex of their lives, they lose everything.”

True Story studiously avoids lurid and gruesome details pertaining to the Longo case. The murders are represented impressionistically. The drama draws on psychological and philosophical inquiry, not violence. It is a true crime film, but not as we know it.

“We all luridly focus on murders and murderers but not their victims,” says Goold. “That’s one of the questions that the film asks: why?”

Tellingly, Goold did met Finkel but not Longo.“In my version of the film, Longo is a kind of a mirror,” he says. “He consumes everyone who comes into contact with them. He manipulates them. I think of him a little bit like the devil in that respect. He makes the unacceptable seem perfectly reasonable. I was more interested in his influence on Finkel.

“I’m just like Finkel. I’m middle class. I’m liberal. When somebody talks about evil I presume they had a bad upbringing or that there’s a particular set of circumstances. So I was interested in this story as a moral parable or ecclesiastical composition. How we talk about good and evil.”

• True Story is out now

TRUE CRIME FILMS: FIVE OF THE BEST

Badlands (1973): Terrence Malick based his seminal debut feature on the real-life murder spree of Charles Starkweather and his girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate, in 1958.

Goodfellas (1990): Martin Scorsese's adaptation of the non-fiction book Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi, who co-wrote the screenplay with the director, chronicles the rise and fall of Henry Hill, an associate of the Lucchese crime family. Arguably Scorsese's masterpiece.

Bonnie and Clyde (1967): Arthur Penn's landmark biographical film probably says more about the 1960s counterculture that produced it than the Depression-era outlaws Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker.

Heavenly Creatures (1994): Before Peter Jackson went to Middle Earth, he made this superb Sapphic drama based on the 1954 Parker-Hulme murder case in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Bernie (2011): Richard Linklater married documentary and fiction to recreate the 1996 murder of 81-year-old millionaire Marjorie Nugent in Carthage, Texas, by her 38-year-old companion, Bernhardt "Bernie" Tiede.