Griffin Dunne and Max Korman – Building a Mystery
Griffin Dunne and Max Korman
Building a Mystery
by Jay S. Jacobs
Louis I. Kahn was one of the most distinctive architects of the last century. The Philadelphia-based designer created such timeless structures as the Salk Institute in La Jolla, the National Assembly Building in Bangladesh, the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, the Phillips Exeter Academy Library in New Hampshire and the Yale University Art Gallery.
Yet, for all of his success in his field, Kahn never felt that he was properly appreciated, particularly in his hometown. A complicated, contradictory man, Kahn’s life was also surveyed in the 2003 documentary My Architect: A Son’s Journey by Kahn’s son Nathaniel Kahn, who was born out of wedlock and as a child barely knew his father before the architect died. (Kahn had three children with three different women – one with his long-time wife and two with co-workers who became his mistresses.)
He died of a heart attack in the men’s room of New York’s Penn Station in 1974, returning from yet another business trip, this one to India. When the body was found, Kahn had scratched out his address on his passport and had no other identification on him, so that his corpse was left in a public morgue for three days before they figured out who it was.
The new film Joy Will Prevail takes a look at a smaller, more intimate story in the acclaimed architect’s life. It tells of his friendship with Philadelphia builder Steven Korman in the years leading up to his death and the building of his last home for Steve – The Kahn Korman House in Fort Washington.
It makes sense that this particular story resonated with first-time writer-director Max Korman, because Steve was his grandfather and Max grew up in the home. Therefore, while the new film does discuss other projects and his eventual death, it mostly revolves around the one project.
Korman chose actor Griffin Dunne to play the architect. Dunne has had a long, storied career in Hollywood which has spanned over four decades. He starred in such classic films as An American Werewolf in London, After Hours, My Girl, The Dallas Buyers Club, Ocean’s 8 and most recently Caught Stealing. He has also directed many films, including Practical Magic, Addicted to Love and The Accidental Husband.
Dunne himself was no stranger to creative families. Dunne’s father was the acclaimed writer Dominick Dunne, and his uncle and aunt John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion (who Dunne later made a documentary about) were also famous authors. Therefore, he felt comfortable in the world of Kahn, a competitive and obsessive love of art and structure.
Right before the world premiere of Joy Will Prevail, we got to chat with star Griffin Dunne and first-time writer-director Max Korman about this film labor of love.
Louis Kahn is such a big name in architecture. Were you familiar with him before getting involved with this, and what made you want to tell the story?
Max Korman: The first entry was being born. He designed this house for my grandfather, and passed it down to my dad, and I was born in that house. So it was really just being in that environment that got me into him.
Griffin Dunne: I was only familiar with him when I saw Nathan [Kahn]'s documentary My Architect. I was just blown away by it. It's one of those moments where you're watching a story about a man who could not be more removed from yourself, who led a life that could not be more removed, and you just couldn't imagine that somebody would tap on your shoulder, “Hey, you're going to play that guy someday.”
Max Korman: Yeah, phenomenal film. I watched it when I was growing up too. It's a great movie.
Griffin Dunne: It just would never have occurred to me [I’d be playing him]. So [years later] I got the script from Max, who wrote a really beautiful, very loving and complicated portrayal of this man. Very different angle than Nathan's doc. I saw it as an opportunity. First, I thought, no idea why he thought of me for this. Then I was looking. I looked at My Architect again, and I thought, I actually can see myself in there, both physically and as a creative person.
And you Max? All this happened before you were born. How did you find out about your grandfather's relationship with Kahn?
Max Korman: Just growing up, hearing it through osmosis. Just hearing stories he would tell about [Kahn], and things had been written about it, and all the pictures. I just knew this was a very important person to my grandfather.
Griffin Dunne: I also saw it as an opportunity. Not many actors get to play someone so removed from themselves. I call it a “Daniel Day-Lewis,” those parts where you look at actors who disappear behind who they're representing. Daniel's the master. So, I thought, well, this is an opportunity to take a shot at it. You never know how it's going to turn out. Certainly when you're shooting it, it was unlike anything I'd ever done. It was helped by an extraordinary makeup and hair department. It makes all the difference to put you in the frame of mind of this man, who was older than my own age. I was just lucky to have that opportunity.
He was such a complicated character. He's obviously brilliant and was very spiritual, but he could also be very difficult to people around him and cruel to people he loved. How did you portray all the different sides of him?
Max Korman: My philosophy from the get-go – and people may disagree with this, but I don't care – is that I did not want to impose a contemporary moral judgment on him. That's not the goal of this movie. It's to unabashedly celebrate him, but that doesn't mean shying away from those aspects of his personal life.
Griffin Dunne: I grew up in a creative community. I’ve seen people who choose their art over family. [That] was not foreign to me. In fact, it was quite common. When I grew up in Los Angeles, my friends, who I grew up with, their parents were all creative people and actors. Some of my friends hardly ever saw their fathers. They were always on location, extraordinary places. [And] probably doing some devilish things in their time off. So, I understood that aspect of Kahn, and really, the importance of the work. That the work is actually more stimulating than human connection.
Max Korman: I think those aspects, those flaws, are very much pertaining to the subject of the film, which is that friendship between Steve and Lou, and that work they did on this house. I didn't want to shy away from it, but this is by no means an attack [on] a historical character. It's celebrating a complex, brilliant, different kind of person.
Are there any of Kahn's buildings that particularly speak to you?
Griffin Dunne: Yeah, the Salk Institute in La Jolla. Here's another thing where you go to a place and you're marveling at the architecture, and you have no idea that some 30-40 years later, you're going to be playing the man who built this. I didn't grow up with an eye for architecture necessarily, but when I see something I love, I know it. It's very much like that with painting and modern art. Also the embassy in Pakistan is extraordinary.
And you, Max? Other than your grandfather’s house, of course.
Max Korman: I really love the Esherick House [in the Philadelphia neighborhood of Chestnut Hill], which is another house he did about a decade or so before the Korman House. It’s just so cool to see the similarities and the parallels between that house and the one I grew up in.
How important do you think it is that since Philadelphia is Kahn's hometown, that this film is having the premiere at the film festival in Philadelphia?
Max Korman: Absolutely critical because it's a Philadelphia story. It's a Philadelphia architect. He taught at Penn, a Philadelphia college. It’s just so distinctly Philadelphian. I think there's no better group of people to see it first than a Philadelphian audience.
Griffin Dunne: A running theme in the movie is that despite the buildings that Kahn built here, he never felt acknowledged by his own city. He would see commissions go to his competitors, and that might have had to do with his prickly personality. He was not an easy man to get along with. A lot of creative people revel in their own victimization. It drives them. So it is great that he's being acknowledged. It could not be a more perfect place for the movie to premiere.
Copyright ©2026 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: October 24, 2026.
Photos by Jay S. Jacobs © 2026. All rights reserved.
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