Filmmaker Wim Wenders.
WIM WENDERS: MILLION DOLLAR BABY
By
Alex Simon
Editor’s Note: The following article appeared in the February 2001 issue of Venice Magazine.
One of the world's most influential and innovative filmmakers, Wim Wenders was born Ernst Wilhelm Wenders August 14, 1945 in Düsseldorf, Germany. The son of a doctor, Wenders was one of the leading directors of the young German cinema of the early 70's, making an astonishing feature debut with The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick (1971), a moody psychological study of a man losing his mind, which employed three frequent themes that would go on to punctuate much of his later work: alienation, wanderlust, and American pop culture. Having directed nearly 40 films, just a few highlights of Wenders' career include: Kings of the Road (1976), The American Friend (1977), Lightning Over Water (1980) a tribute to his mentor, director Nicholas Ray (Rebel Without a Cause), Hammett (1983), Paris, Texas (1984) for which he won the Palme D' Or at Cannes, Tokyo-Ga (1985), Wings of Desire (1987) for which he received Best Director at Cannes, Until the End of the World (1991), Faraway, So Close! (1993), Beyond the Clouds (1995) which he co-directed with the legendary Michelangelo Antonioni, The End of Violence (1997), and the documentary The Buena Vista Social Club (1999).
With such a vast, and diverse filmography to his credit, one never knows what to expect next from Wim Wenders, and his latest, Million Dollar Hotel, certainly serves up the unexpected in spades. The story of disparate characters in a skid row Los Angeles hotel, the story revolves around Jeremy Davies, whose best friend has mysteriously jumped (or been pushed) to his death from the hotel roof. The man's wealthy father brings in the Feds (Mel Gibson) to investigate. Throw into the mix a wild bunch of characters (and actors) played by the likes of Jimmy Smits, Milla Jovovich, Peter Stormare, Bud Cort, Amanda Plummer, Donal Logue and Gloria Stuart, and you have what has to be one of the wildest cinematic rides of the year. Oh, and did we mention that Bono (yes, that Bono of U2 fame) wrote the film's original story?
Wim Wenders sat down with usat his Hollywood Hills production office recently. It was a suitably surrealistic environment with scaffolding covering all the buildings, construction workers pounding away, frazzled-looking office and production workers doing their own thing and in the middle of all the chaos comes Wenders, tall and patrician in his dark suit, exuding an air of European elegance and élan. Much like the angels in Wings of Desire he seemed amused by the frantic activities of the mortals scurrying around him. Without further adieu, a few thoughts from a cinematic immortal...
Tell us about the genesis of Million Dollar Hotel.
Wim Wenders: Years before I got involved, the real moment this movie was born was when U2 shot the video for "Where the Streets Have No Name" here in Los Angeles in the late 80's. They shot it downtown and Bono found the Frontier Hotel, which is the former Million Dollar Hotel. They shot on the roof and he was very taken with the hotel, thought it was the most incredible thing he'd ever seen. He even came back after they were through and started to write a story that would take place in the hotel. (Guitar player) The Edge had a bet with Bono that he could jump from the hotel roof to the next building, which was about a ten foot jump. So the idea of that jump started something in Bono's head, and he shared the story with his screenwriter friend Nicholas Klein, and they worked together on the script. Soon enough, they were looking for a director. Bono said "I know the right guy," although he didn't give it to me saying "I think this is a script you should do," because he knew I'd probably say 'no,' since I've never worked from an existing script. So Bono was very smart and sneaky, came to see me in Berlin and said "I've got this project that I'm in trouble with. We don't know if it's a studio picture or an independent. It would be great if you could help me out and read it and maybe help us choose a director." And that was a very smart approach...and at the end I was about to give him my short list for directors, and Bono didn't want to hear it. He just smiled because he knew I was hooked, and I was. Bono stayed involved all through the process of making the film. He was great.
You got an amazing cast together.
You can say that again. I don't think I've ever gotten such an amazing group together in front of my camera. And not just Jeremy and Milla and Mel, who were great, but the residents of the hotel who were surrounding them. I found this incredible ensemble. I knew from the beginning it had to be an ensemble film because it had from the very beginning a certain resemblance to the ensemble of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Because the hotel's more an asylum more than anything else. For the people really living there it is very much an asylum, with 800 people living there while we shot. We had one floor to ourselves, but the rest, the lobby, the elevators, the staircases, we shared with the residents of the hotel.
Tell us about working with Gloria Stuart (Titanic), who's been around Hollywood almost since sound came in.
That right, since the early 30's. I did not even dare to offer the part to Gloria. I thought of her, but thought I was way out of line. Gloria showed up on her own in the casting office one day, and said she wanted to read for the part. She read and it was obvious she was the one, gave a very funny reading together with Jeremy. I think basically she wanted to be able to say for once to say all the curse words she was never able to say in those old movies! (laughs) She went at it with a vengeance. She was very, very funny.
How was it working with Mel Gibson?
Mel hadn't thought about being in the film originally, but had an option on it to direct himself before I got involved. He's really fabulous in it. We had him for just three weeks and he had to work very, very hard. Usually he works for 30 weeks. He worked his ass off every day. He was fantastic. It really wasn't easy, though. After a few days of shooting he turned and mumbled "This is more difficult than Hamlet." (laughs) And he knew what he was talking about.
Let's talk about your background.
I was born right after the war ended in Germany. My father was a surgeon. We moved quite often, until he became head surgeon at a hospital. Catholic. Middle-class, although the first few years of my life we were very poor. After the war, the lowest paying jobs were assistant jobs...Had heavy-duty American influences in the 50's. The only radio I listened to was the American Forces Network. Rock and roll was the only music I liked.
When did you fall in love with film?
When I was a kid, I inherited an 8mm projector from my father. We were very poor then, had no toys really. So there was just this projector and this little box of film reels, all about one to three minutes long: Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Charlie Chaplin, early Disney. They were my father's films from when he was a kid, they were all scratched up, but were all little treasures, you know? So I was a favorite at all the birthday parties of my friends, with this little hand-cranked projector. I had an 8mm camera when I was 8 or 9 years old, and made movies all through my childhood, but never thought of doing it professionally. I studied medicine, but didn't finish. Then I studied philosophy for a while, and finally went to Paris to become a painter. Then in Paris I discovered the cinematheque, where you could see a movie for 25 cents a show, and they showed the entire history of world cinema. I saw five to six films every day, from German silents to American classics. I saw in one year more than a thousand movies and became totally addicted, and got a crash course in cinema. From then on, painting was over and I wanted to make movies.
Your first feature, The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick was an amazing portrait of madness.
That was exactly thirty years ago. I wouldn't know how to do that film today. We were just sort of inventing our own filmmaking techniques as we made it. I was heavily influenced by Hitchcock when I made that film, in terms of how he used film language, his framing, his pacing. Hitchcock was my filmmaking hero then, he and Anthony Mann. Although the content of the film was anything but Hitchcock.
Kings of the Road is both an homage to road movies and one of the best of the genre.
We shot it in chronological order with no script, just an itinerary...I like to find the story and the characters through improvisations and every now and then it's nice to let somebody loose, like Peter Stormare in Million Dollar Hotel, singing "I Am the Walrus." That was all improvised. Peter didn't even play piano and he said to me "Give me a day." The next day at the end of the shoot we had just half an hour left. So we decided to try it. Bud Cort was in the scene, and had nothing to do but sit there and get drunk as his character and listen to Peter sing. At the end of the scene, Bud was so moved that he demanded Peter accept the gift of his gold watch because he said "I've never been in a better scene in my life as an actor." So sometimes through improvisation, you can get things you never dreamed of.
Is casting the most important part of the filmmaking process?
Yeah, very much so. With your casting, I would say 80% of your decisions are made, much more so than by your directing actors on the set.
The American Friend was the first film I ever saw of yours. I didn't realize 'til much later that the Dennis Hopper character was the same "Tom Ripley" character from The Talented Mr. Ripley. That film also featured two legendary directors, with whom you became very close, in supporting roles: Nicholas Ray and Sam Fuller. Tell us about them.
That's how I first met Nick Ray. The script demanded a number of scenes in America. What we did not have in the script is the character in the Patricia Highsmith novel who is the painter of all these paintings. In the book, he's already dead. So I met Nick Ray through a mutual friend in New York, and then again through Dennis. So Nicholas and I wrote the part of the painter in the script almost overnight, and it was a reunion for Nicholas and Dennis. I remember Sam Fuller came into the room, and they met for the first time. That was a great moment to see the two of them shake hands for the first time. Isn't that extraordinary? These two men who were so much alike, both in person and in the sorts of films they made.
Lightning Over Water was a wonderful tribute to Nick Ray, who was dying at the time of its production. What was he like?
Nicholas had wasted a very precious part of his life through drug and alcohol abuse and his career in Hollywood had ended because of that. He was down and out for a number of years, then got himself back together, started to teach acting and filmmaking. He was a great teacher. He regretted, I think, that in the public eye he was regarded as the guy who had failed and ended up in the gutter. He very much wanted to correct that image and was longing to make another movie, and that became, in the end, Lightning Over Water. As we were making it, it became very obvious that he wasn't going to live long enough to finish it. He co-directed with me in the beginning, but then the cancer took over and the script was re-written by his illness. The film then became about his death, and that 's what he wanted in the end: he wanted to die working. Nicholas was one of the greatest men I ever knew, and one of the most youthful. It's no mistake that he discovered James Dean.
What's your favorite Nick Ray movie?
Wind Across the Everglades (1958), which isn't so well known, or maybe The Lusty Men (1952), which we referred to in Lightning Over Water. Of course, Rebel Without a Cause (1955) is a great film, too.
Tell us about Sam Fuller (The Steel Helmet, The Naked Kiss, 40 Guns).
I had the privilege of knowing Sam during the last 30 years of his life, and worked with him as an actor in four of my films. Sam was one of my best friends, and a great adviser, and the greatest storyteller I knew in my life. In the hundreds of hours I spent with him, he never repeated the same story, which is an incredible feat. He could read a script and instantly put his finger on what was wrong. He'd written so many scripts. He told me he wrote whole books in two nights, scripts in a week.
What's your favorite Sam Fuller film?
Probably The Naked Kiss (1964) or Shock Corridor (1963). I also like a lot of his later work, like The Big Red One (1980), which is an extraordinary war film and White Dog (1982), which was so unfairly attacked. If you ever needed help or advice from Sam, all you had to do was knock on his door. He was a great guy.
Tell us about what happened with Hammett, which was a troubled production.
Francis (Coppola), who was the producer, and I went through some hard times during the production, which lasted four years. We went through about 40 drafts of the script with four writers. I shot the film twice. First, I shot it on location mostly, in San Francisco, and in the course of shooting did change a lot of the script and in the end, was suggesting a very different film than the one we'd set out to do, but which made sense based on all the changes I'd made. Francis wasn't so sure about the whole thing, but I made it the same way I made The American Friend, and the rest of my films: based largely on intuition and changes that I made during the shoot. So we had one last scene left to shoot, and Francis wasn't sure that was the ending the studio would accept, we were shooting for Orion at the time. So he wanted to wait to shoot the ending until after we edited it. He said "If you can convince me based on your cut that this is the right ending for this picture, then we'll shoot it." So I went and edited it, and when I showed it to him, everyone realized that it was more about a writer than a detective story, which is what people thought it was about. So they wanted more action in it, and basically demanded a total re-shoot. I had to wait another year to shoot the new ending and everything else that went with it because Frederic Forrest, who played the lead, had gained so much weight for One From the Heart (1982), that we had to wait another year for him to slim down again so he'd match what he looked like before. In the end, we wound up re-shooting almost all of it, and only about 10% of the original remained. All the other parts were re-cast for the second version as well, new crew, all down the line. Two different films.
What did you take away from it all?
Well, the amazing thing was that Francis and I stuck by each other and ended up having a great deal of respect for one another. And just the fact that we finished it, I think, was a tremendous achievement. I think of all my films, it's the least personal, but I still think it's a good film. Contrary to many stories out there, Francis did not take the film away from me and re-shoot it himself. He didn't do a single shot himself.
Tell us about the genesis of Wings of Desire.
I had been away from Germany for eight years. After Hammett, it was time to go home. I was rediscovering my own country, so to speak. It's a film that's very much about how I connect with Germany and my childhood. It was made without a script, with lots of notes, and one big wall full of ideas. It was made very much the way you would write a poem. It was very much made on instinct, and really doesn't have much plot to speak of, if you think about it. I did it with a great old French cinematographer called Henri Alekan who was 80 years-old at the time, and really put his stamp on it.
You worked with Antonioni on Beyond the Clouds. How was that?
It was a very wonderful and strange experience because he had a stroke ten years before the film and had lost his ability to speak, but not at all his intelligence or his mind. He was as sharp as ever. He was never able to put a film together after that, because the insurance companies figured a director who couldn't speak was too big a risk. So finally, the only way he could make a film was with a stand-by director. He approached me, and I agreed. They came up with a concept of Michelangelo shooting four episodes of the film, and I would be his assistant and the stand-by director in case he couldn't do it. Afterwards I was to do a framework that would tie these four stories together. Well, from day one, Michelangelo proved that a lack of speech was no handicap for him at all. I didn't have to step in once. I was really more of a first assistant director, a voice and an organizer. It was an amazing thing to see a director who can't speak insisting on what he wanted, and getting it!
Any advice for first-time directors?
I think the hardest thing, and it's getting harder, is to have a vision and see it through to the end. It sometimes takes years now before you get to make a film. It's difficult today not to drop the ball with all the pressure and expectations that are placed on young filmmakers today. It's hard with all that to sometimes hold onto the ball, and see their vision through. At the end they don't know why they want to make it anymore, because there are so many elements. So make sure you know why you want to make it, and try like hell to hold onto that ball while you do.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Wim Wenders: The Hollywood Interview
Willem Dafoe: The Hollywood Interview
Actor Willem Dafoe.
"BEHIND THE SHADOW:
Willem Dafoe on portraying cinematic legend/enigma Max Schreck, being directed by Steve Buscemi, and how one prepares to play the Son of God"
by Terry Keefe
Editor’s Note: The following article appeared in the February 2001 issue of Venice Magazine.
Max Schreck. It’s a name that to film fans conjures up the unforgettable images of the cinema’s very first vampire, played by German actor Schreck in director F.W. Murnau’s 1921 silent horror masterpiece “Nosferatu”. Schreck holds the dual distinction of being both one of the most recognizable figures in film history and also one of the most enigmatic. Besides "Nosferatu", few, if any, of Schreck's films even exist anymore and almost nothing is known of his life.
Willem Dafoe. It’s a name that to film fans conjures up unforgettable images of his acting performances in some of the best films of the past 20 years. And it is Dafoe who has brought the mysterious Max Schreck back from the grave in Lions Gate Films’ “Shadow of the Vampire”, a deliciously macabre tale of historical fiction about the making of “Nosferatu”. The film’s hook is that Max Schreck was an actual vampire hired by F.W. Murnau for the purposes of realism. Dafoe turns in a terrific performance as the vampire Schreck in a role that might have been very one-note in another actor’s hands. But throughout his entire career, Dafoe has specialized in adding layers of depth and humanity to challenging characters. Along the way, he’s also been unfairly saddled with the image of an actor who specializes in playing odd or peculiar roles. A closer examination of his career reveals a deeper truth - that he’s a daring artist who simply refuses to be satisfied with the creation of the bland or ordinary.
Willem Dafoe was born on July 22, 1955, in Appleton, Wisconsin, the second youngest of eight children. After leaving the University of Wisconsin, Dafoe made his way to Manhattan in the late 1970's where he became one of the founding members of the Wooster Group, a now-famous theater company which has been a pioneer in incorporating experimental elements of multimedia into the theatrical language. Dafoe still performs with them today.
Dafoe made his screen debut as a featured extra in Michael Cimino's legendary cinematic disaster "Heaven's Gate". Things could only go up from there and they did, as Dafoe was cast as a beatnik biker named Vance in Kathryn Bigelow's little-seen 1982 feature "The Loveless". Dafoe's next big role was also as a biker, of a very different sort, as he played the evil Raven in Walter Hill's underrated rock 'n roll fable "Streets of Fire" in 1984. But if Raven was a great villain, he was only a warm-up for Eric Masters, the counterfeiter/painter that Dafoe portrayed in William Friedkin's brilliant "To Live and Die in L.A.", which was released in 1985. Masters is the perfect L.A. villain - a talented artist who also happens to be a merciless killer - and Dafoe colors Masters with so many realistic mannerisms that he becomes far, far scarier than the average criminal antagonist.
Then came the film that changed everything for him, Oliver Stone's "Platoon" in 1986. The shot of Dafoe as Sergeant Elias, riddled with bullets and his arms stretched towards the heavens, would become the defining image of the film. And "Platoon" would finally bring Dafoe both worldwide fame and an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. It's perhaps ironic that Dafoe's good-hearted Sergeant Elias is derisively referred to as a "water-walker" by another character in the film, because the next major role Dafoe would take would be as Jesus in Martin Scorsese's "The Last Temptation of Christ". This choice as a follow-up to "Platoon" is all the evidence you need of Dafoe's daring as an actor. While it's true that this was a lead role in a film directed by Martin Scorsese, "Last Temptation"'s controversial subject matter was guaranteed to offend many, and for an actor who had only just broken through with mainstream audiences, it was a risky move. But it was also very characteristic of the path Dafoe's career would take during the next decade. With the possible exception of 1997’s “Speed 2: Cruise Control”, rarely will you see him in a big studio blockbuster that was done just for the exposure or the paycheck. The one thing you can always count on from a Willem Dafoe project is that it will be interesting, at the very least, and usually much more than that.
His next film after playing the Son of God would be an acclaimed teaming with Gene Hackman as a pair of mismatched F.B.I. agents investigating a hate crime in 1988's terrific "Mississippi Burning", directed by Alan Parker. Other notable performances include "Wild at Heart" (1990, as the vicious hit man Bobby Peru, for director David Lynch), "Clear and Present Danger" (1994, as government operative John Clark), "Tom & Viv" (1994, playing poet T.S. Eliot), "The English Patient" (1996, in which he was the mysterious war veteran Carravagio), "Affliction" (1997, as Rolfe, the long-suffering brother of Nick Nolte's Wade), and "American Psycho" (2000, playing Kimball, the police detective hounding the serial killer of the title).
This past fall, Dafoe starred in "Animal Factory", the second film to be directed by Steve Buscemi. Dafoe plays Earl Copen, a lifer con who is the top dog in the prison yard, and who enters into a relationship with Edward Furlong's much-younger character Ron. It's a definite love story, but the film skirts the usual genre conventions by keeping the relationship almost entirely cerebral. "Animal Factory" is based on the book by Edward Bunker, a former con turned writer-actor who many also remember as Mr. Blue in "Reservoir Dogs".
Which brings us to the present and "Shadow of the Vampire", directed by E. Elias Merhige from a screenplay by Steven Katz. As mentioned earlier, little is know of the real-life Max Schreck and this has led to endless speculation about his true story by fans of "Nosferatu" throughout the years. The most famous quote on record about Schreck is that a prominent German film producer once referred to him as "an actor of no distinction". And then there's the name - the word Schreck in German loosely translates as "shriek" or "scream", and it seems likely that it wasn't the man's real moniker. "Nosferatu" is shot almost like an early documentary and the film has a creepiness that stays with you for days. All of these factors provided fertile ground for "Shadow of the Vampire"'s take on what really happened during the making of "Nosferatu". In fact, watching the original again after seeing "Shadow" is a very unsettling experience. You're left thinking "what if?"
As Schreck, Dafoe is a quivering, scheming mass of long claws, fangs, vanity, and loneliness. Remarkably, Dafoe creates a Max Schreck who is not only scary and sad, but also very funny. Although he's uncomfortable in front of the cameras at first, Schreck soon becomes something of a prima donna, asking for more make-up and questioning parts of the script. Dafoe also re-creates the real-life Max Schreck's original performance beat-for-beat in the "film within the film". It's a multi-layered, tour-de-force performance worthy of an Oscar.
In January, Dafoe began shooting the much-anticipated "Spider-Man" with director Sam Raimi. He'll play yet another icon in this one: Norman Osborne, who any good comic book fan knows is also Spidey's arch-nemesis -the sinister, pumpkin bomb-throwing Green Goblin. One imagines that the make-up required for "Shadow of the Vampire" will have been a good warm-up for what Dafoe will be wearing as the Green Goblin - in the comics, the Goblin is covered with green scales, has pointed ears, and flies around Manhattan on an airborne "goblin glider"! And it’s a safe bet that because it’s Dafoe behind the mask, the Green Goblin will have a lot more depth than your typical wisecracking comic-book villain. We sat down with Willem Dafoe this past December to discuss his career and all things Schreck.
Can you tell us about your preparation to play Max Schreck?
Well, there wasn't a lot I could do until I got in the make-up, in the costume. I read about Murnau. I looked at his films. I certainly acquainted myself with "Nosferatu", because I had to be well acquainted with the film...I had certain sequences that I knew we were going to replicate that I had to know very well. Also, I knew I wanted to have an accent, so I got some Slovakian accents from the Tatrus Mountains (in the South of Poland) and listened to them, then scored out an accent with a dialogue couch in New York. And then just made certain adjustments for clarity and what felt right. And through that, I found the voice, which of course had to be invented because there's nothing to copy in that case. Then it was really about dealing with the costume and the make-up, which was everything because that became the key, that became the mask, that became the mode to find the character, because it was so extreme that it informed everything you did.
When you finally did get into the make-up then, did you have to spend a lot of time finding the character further or was it immediate?
It was fairly quick. We did some tests. Then every morning of the shoot, I'd be the first one there. And it was three hours of make-up, which was always a great preparation for the day. Because you're sitting there every day for three hours and you have to be quite still because some of it is quite delicate work. And you look in the mirror and it was a process of seeing 'you' as you know yourself, what you identify with individually as yourself, starting to recede away and having this other character come forward, as you became more and more obscured. So you start to look less like yourself and then you start to feel less like yourself and then you start to even think less like yourself, because you're encouraging that transformation willfully. Then you apply yourself to the story and certain impulses come.
When I tried to find out more about the original Max Schreck, the only thing I really learned is that he was once referred to as "an actor of no distinction". Is that pretty much what you found out?
That's pretty much it. But to tell you the truth, I didn't feel that compelled to find out that much about him because, although any information can be useful, I was most interested in the Max Schreck of the performance, of the performance as Count Orlock. That's what I was dealing with. The other part was really the invention of Steven Katz' screenplay.
I was just curious about what you thought about Max Schreck as an actor.
Oh, I think he's great. You know....traditionally, silent film acting is considered hammy and unsophisticated and amateurish. But if you kind of let go your criteria for what is 'acting', which is usually based on our notions of realism and naturalism, there's some very beautiful things that happen (in Schreck's performance). In his awkwardness, there's a grace. There's a poetry to his simple actions. We aren't handing out prizes here, and it's particularly not important when the guy's been dead for so long. So whether he's a good actor or not, I don't know. But I do know that in watching him, there is some poetry.
How was working with your director, E. Elias Merhige?
It was great. An actor wants a good set-up. He gave me a good set-up, and he kept me on track. And then some. He's very supportive. He's very passionate about what he does. He paid alot of attention to the technical aspects of it, to create the conventions in the "film within the film" sequences. He's quite ambitious and quite driven and I think on some level he identified with Murnau (laughs). But in other ways he's not at all like Murnau, because he's very sweet and very warm.
You recreated Schreck's performance flawlessly for those "film within the film" sequences. How many times did you watch "Nosferatu"?
We had it on the set. I mean, we watched it a lot, but then...we had a cassette of it available always. And sometimes we'd huddle around it and there'd be debates about actually what we were seeing. We would get together and it would be amazing how some people would see different things than other people, watching the same thing. It was a lesson about perception. And sometimes we'd argue about what we actually saw. Because the rule was that, as much as possible, we'd try to recreate those moments.
Murnau and the Vampire are very similar people. It's very hard to say who's the real monster and also who's really directing the project.
As Schreck says in the movie, "We are not so very different, you and me." (laughs)
I wanted to talk about another film of yours that was just released, "Animal Factory". Could you tell us a little bit about working with the director Steve Buscemi?
Sure. Steve's an old friend and I only mention that not to name-drop, but that does make a difference in this case. I've known him for many years. I knew him when he was a fireman, before he was an actor...he was a New York City fireman in Little Italy. And he was doing his comedy sketches with Mark Boone Junior in the clubs. And I went off to do "Platoon" and he filled in for me at the theater, at the Wooster Group. And then I've known him through the years and we've kept in touch. And when this project came up, he said he wanted me to do it and I thought it was a beautiful story. It was fun being directed by someone you knew very well because you could skip to the chase on alot of stuff. And he directed me like an actor, because the language is there. I also felt like sometimes it was almost as if he was doing the role, but he was doing it through me.
Let's talk about your background a bit. You were raised in Wisconsin and you're the second youngest of 8 children. That's a big family - were your parents or any of your siblings also artistic?
They're all artistic but professionally they did other things. It's the old story - I'm the actor but when we get together for a family reunion, they're all far more talented than I am (laughs).
When did the acting bug get a hold of you?
When I was quite young...I was in school plays, and I was in summer stock. Then I went to Europe for a little while and I went to New York. And 23 years ago I started working with the Wooster Group and I still work with them now.
It seems like it's a great balance creatively to be able to do both the Wooster Group and the films.
It is. Sometimes it's frustrating because sometimes I feel like I'm cheating one world when I go to the other one. It's like having two lovers. But at the same time, being with one makes you better for the other one (laughs). Not sure if I should say that - get me in trouble! (laughs again). No, for me, sometimes it's hard because you have two masters. But sometimes it's good because when you go back and forth between the two it always forces you to find out why you do what you do. It really is a great insurance against falling into a routine.
One of your first major film roles was in 1985, when you played Eric Masters in William Friedkin's "To Live and Die in L.A.". It's a terrific film which was kind of overlooked at the time it came out.
It was. It's actually a film that directors have responded to. And I think I got alot of work in my early days from that movie. That was a very important movie for me. People, key people, really responded to it. It was seen as a failure. It was an independent at the time, when independents seldom got that kind of release, with a prestige director and basically an unknown cast. But the thing that I remember about it was that a lot of the reviews said the same things and I think it was ahead of its time, because they basically said, "We don't know who to root for. Everybody's so horrible in this. There's no one that we can identify with. This is a crummy movie because you've gotta have someone to identify with. These people are so corrupt." Well, I think Billy Friedkin somehow prefigured the coming of the kind of love affair with the anti-hero that someone like Quentin Tarantino knew so well and audiences responded to.
In 1986, you filmed a role that really catapulted you into the national spotlight, that of Sergeant Elias in Oliver Stone's "Platoon". Could you talk about the production a little bit?
I just remember meeting Oliver and thinking, "God, I don't know anyone in Hollywood like this guy!" (laughs) I loved the preparation for it, the training, it was very tough. We had people that really cared about what was being conveyed, so there were really high stakes in making the movie, Vietnam Vets that wanted their story to be told. So the training and the whole movie was done in a spirit, a very intense spirit. I loved making it. But I thought, because you've got to remember the climate at the time, I thought, "This movie is not going to see the light of day. There aren't any big stars in it. It's the kind of war movie that could be seen as depressing to some people. It could have political problems for some people. This is going to get misidentified and wind up on a video shelf next to kung-fu movies." I really did think that. And that's no judgment on what I thought we were making. It's a judgment on how I thought it would get to an audience.
The next major role you took after “Platoon“ was “The Last Temptation of Christ“. Did you have any reservations about taking the role?
No. And I've said it before, I don't know why I didn't (laughs). No, I didn't because the way Marty approached me...saying what kind of Christ he wanted it to be. I thought, "I'm the perfect guy to play this." And I think that movie probably had a profound influence on me, professionally and in my life. It was a great experience. It was a movie where I really felt used, I mean “used” in the best sense of the word. As an actor, I want to be used. I want to use my body and my mind, my voice, whatever I've got, for something. And Marty had this beautiful story to tell. He made this movie in his head for many years, and I felt privileged to be involved in it. It was a deeply felt experience, and when I finished it, I felt really spent. And that's such a good feeling.
What type of preparation did you do to play Jesus?
As little as possible. I mean, the thing that I'm always struck with is that it was more a process of elimination rather than accumulation. Because you wanted to cleanse yourself of any kind of expectation. The whole notion of the way the story goes, Jesus is a very reactive character. He's dealing with what is being presented to him. So you want to be in a place where you could receive that without knowing the outcome too much, you wanted to be very open-hearted and open-minded about it. So it's like sometimes I think I like to start from a place of not knowing, probably end up at a place of not knowing too (laughs) but in that one (Jesus) deeply there was an aspect of him that was like an innocent, so I didn't want the overview. I didn't want the information. I just wanted to deal with it as it was presented to me. And because it was so well-designed and it was framed so beautifully, that was a good place to be.
You made a lot of comic book fans, including myself, very happy when you agreed to play the Green Goblin in the "Spider-Man" film that you're about to shoot with Sam Raimi.
I'm excited about it. But there's not a lot I can say about it right now. Not purely for secrecy, but because I'm just starting. There's a lot of comic book fans we've got to make happy. The stakes are high (laughs).
Taylor Hackford: The Hollywood Interview
Director Taylor Hackford.
TAYLOR HACKFORD:
GIMME SOME PROOF
By
Alex Simon
Editor’s Note: The following article originally appeared in the December 2000/January 2001 issue of Venice Magazine.
Taylor Hackford was born in Santa Barbara on December 3, 1944. Raised by a single mother, Hackford went to college at USC, where he graduated with a degree in International Relations in 1967. Soon after, Hackford joined the Peace Corps, and lived in Bolivia for two years. After returning home to the States, he got an entry-level job with Los Angeles' PBS affiliate, KCET, and quickly worked his way up the ladder to cameraman and investigative reporter.
After winning an Academy Award for his short Teenage Father (1978), Hackford made his feature directing debut with The Idolmaker (1980), a stirring drama starring Ray Sharkey as a Brooklyn hustler who makes teen idols out of local street kids in 1950's New York. An Officer and a Gentleman, two years later, was one of the biggest box office hits of the year, making stars out of leads Richard Gere and Debra Winger, and solidifying Hackford's reputation as an accomplished cinematic storyteller. Against All Odds (1984) was another hit, telling a modern film noir story against the backdrop of bookmaking, real estate and pro football in contemporary L.A. White Nights (1985) was a cold war thriller starring Mikhail Barishnikov as a defected Russian dancer who finds himself back behind the Iron Curtain when his plane goes down. Hackford formed New Century/New Visions productions in 1988, producing films for other directors like La Bamba (1987), as well as his own projects like the documentary Chuck Berry Hail! Hail! Rock and Roll (1987) and the romantic drama Everybody's All-American (1988).
1993 saw Hackford's most ambitious project come to fruition. Blood In, Blood Out (aka Bound by Honor), was an epic, three hour story of three cousins (Benjamin Bratt, Jesse Borrego, Damian Chapa) from the barrio of East L.A. and the wildly divergent paths their lives take. An intimate study of a culture on the streets, as well as the subcultures that exist within America's prison systems, the film was dumped by its distributor, Disney, after the L.A. riots broke out, fearing that it would cause copycat violence in theaters. It has since found a second life as a major hit on video and cable TV. Dolores Claiborne (1995) was Hackford's filmization of Stephen King's novel dealing with family skeletons, small town repression and murder. He followed this by co-producing, and re-assembling Leon Gast's brilliant documentary When We Were Kings (1996), about the legendary Muhammad Ali-George Forman "Rumble in the Jungle" boxing match in 1974 Zaire. The film won an Oscar for Best Documentary. The Devil's Advocate (1997) was a satiric thriller starring Keanu Reeves as a neophyte lawyer who goes to work for a sinister law firm, run by Old Nick himself (Al Pacino).
Hackford's latest is the thriller Proof of Life. Starring Russell Crowe as a professional hostage negotiator/retriever who is enlisted by Meg Ryan to free her husband, an American engineer stationed in South America, played by David Morse, who has been kidnapped by a band of extremist rebels. A riveting thriller expertly performed by the fine cast, which also includes Pamela Reed and David Caruso, the Warner Bros. release is currently playing throughout southern California. Taylor Hackford, who resides in London with his wife, the esteemed actress Helen Mirren, was in town recently and took time to sit down with us to reflect on his past, present, and future.
How did you get involved with Proof of Life?
Taylor Hackford: I saw an article in Vanity Fair called "Adventures in the Ransom Trade" by a guy named William Prochnau about the kidnapping and ransom, or k & r, business that's becoming prevalent in Eastern Europe and especially in South America. It's really a business that's come about as a result of the changing world economy, and it's a multi-million dollar trade in those regions. And the amazing thing is, the people who are sent from the west to work in countries such as these, especially from Fortune 100 companies, they're automatically covered by their firms with kidnap insurance--usually without their knowledge. After all, why would you tell an employee, whom you want to keep happy, that he or she has a high probability of being kidnapped? When I read the Vanity Fair piece, I was just blown away by the dramatic possibilities there. This was a story that I'd never seen before. I called my creative partner, Tony Gilroy, who I'd collaborated with on Dolores Claiborne and The Devil's Advocate, and told him that we should really come up with a story around this, so we did.
Russell Crowe proved again in this film that he's both an actor and a movie star.
I had seen Russell in L.A. Confidential and was just blown away by his work. There was something really special going on behind his eyes. But L.A. Confidential was also a period piece, and Russell very convincingly evoked a man of that period in the film. Our film was contemporary, so I wasn't quite sure if he'd be right for it or not. Among colleagues in our business, there's sort of an unwritten rule that we can look at each other's works in progress if there's an actor that we have our eye on. At that time, two friends of mine had just finished films with Russell: Ridley Scott with Gladiator and Michael Mann with The Insider. Both let me see footage from the films while they were still in post (production). As soon as I saw how Russell so brilliantly played these two completely diametrically opposed characters, I knew that this was our guy. He's got it all.
It was also nice to see Meg Ryan playing a more dramatic role.
Meg is a truly gifted comedienne, but that's also sort of typecast her as America's sweetheart, and when that happens, it's tough to show your true range as an actor. I've known Meg for a long time, and knew she was anxious to do more dramatic work. I think this is the best dramatic work she's done since When a Man Loves a Woman. Meg really crosses the spectrum here: she's vulnerable, she's tough, she's smart, she's romantic, she's volatile. It was a tremendous experience watching her work and grow into her character.
Let's talk about your background.
I was born and raised in Santa Barbara by a single mother, who was a waitress. My mom's been my biggest inspiration in my life. I grew up very blue collar, but being blue collar in Santa Barbara wasn't so bad! (laughs) I was always very active in sports and student government at Santa Barbara high, then I went to USC and graduated in '67 with a degree in International Relations. I was very active in student government there also, and was Student Body President my senior year.
When did you fall in love with film?
My senior year at 'SC, I started hanging out with a lot of film students, and really started thinking a lot more about movies, and in a very different way than I had previously. That's at a time when there were about a dozen arthouses in L.A., most of which are gone now, and I saw films by people like Truffaut, Kurosawa, Goddard and really realized what the medium was capable of achieving. Prior to that, I was never one of these kids that grew up in a movie theater, because I had so many other interests, so it all changed for me then.
After graduation, you joined the Peace Corps.
Yeah, I went to Bolivia for two years and really fell in love with Latin culture. I'm of Scottish descent, but I think there must have been a Latin in my bloodline somewhere. I also hung out a lot with Latino kids growing up in Santa Barbara, so the interest in the culture had been there early on. Then I returned to L.A., to go to law school at 'SC, but after two weeks, I dropped out, lost all my tuition, and realized that I was supposed to make movies. I didn't have any film school background, so I went to the PBS station, KCET, who knew me from when they'd done an interview with me as Student Body President at 'SC. They gave me a job in the mailroom and I worked my way up to cameraman and eventually investigative reporter. I was there for several years, won a few awards for investigative journalism, then left toward the end of the 70's when the emphasis was shifting from hard news to "human interest" and "happy" news. Then I did a short film called Teenage Father, which was an educational film for high school kids, and it wound up winning the Oscar for Best Short Film. That's how I got my first agent and was able to get my foot into the door of Hollywood.
Then you did your first feature, The Idolmaker, starring Ray Sharkey, who died of AIDS in 1993. What was he like?
Ray was a wonderful guy. He was incredibly smart, incredibly talented, but he had very dark roots. He came from Brooklyn, and I went back with him to his old neighborhood when we were researching the film. Ray insisted we travel in a limo, which I didn't want to do, so he could arrive in style. At one point, Ray screams for the driver to stop, and he jumps out of the car, starts talking to this guy in his car. It turns out that this guy was the football star of Ray's high school and an old pal, and he'd just come from court where he'd been sentenced to Attica for dealing heroin. And here Ray's telling him that he's starring in his first movie, living in Malibu with his beautiful girlfriend, and so on, and I'll never forget the look on this guy's face. He was this really handsome Italian guy, and you could just see him thinking "Wait a minute, I was the star. I was the big man on campus. How come Ray is a movie star and I'm going to jail?" The Idolmaker did well critically, but didn't make any money, and Ray had a lot of powerful people blowing smoke up his ass, telling him that he was going to be a big star after the film hit. Well, he never was, and I think that really tore him apart. I've met a lot of people over the years who have been destroyed by drugs, some like Keith Richards are able to beat it. Ray didn't. I miss Ray every day. He was a great friend.
An Officer and a Gentleman was the film that really set your career in motion.
Yeah, that was a script that had been around for over ten years, that nobody knew what to do with. In those days, Paramount was led by these very type-A people who were all in competition with each other, and here I was stuck in the middle! Don Simpson, who was head of production, gave me the script. Jeffery Katzenberg, who ran the studio itself, wanted me to do White Dog (eventually directed by Sam Fuller, 1982). I liked Romain Gary's novel much more than I liked the script, so I decided to do An Officer and a Gentleman, which I thought was a terrific script and a really hard-edged, blue collar love story. It's so funny to me know when people tell me how tender and soft it was, because it's not! It was full of sex and profanity and was about very gritty, edgy people. It was a tough film to make, with all the strong personalities involved--Don Simpson actually tried to fire me two weeks into shooting--but we stuck it out and I'm very proud of the final result. I think it still holds up.
Against All Odds also holds up well as a real touchstone film of the 80's.
I was a big fan of Out of the Past (1947), which is sort of viewed by many people as the ultimate film noir. (Screenwriter) Eric Hughes and I wanted to make a film noir in the sun (laughs), and we used that film as a model, so it's really not a true remake in that sense, although it would be fair to say Against All Odds was inspired by Out of the Past. I loved the idea of doing a detective story where the protagonist isn't a real detective. In this case, he's a pro football player who's saying "What do you mean you want me to find this girl? I would never do something like that." And he's forced to become a detective in order to survive the situation he's in. That was also a time right before all the sports books became big in Vegas, and people were betting millions on pro football through bookies every weekend.
White Knights is notable for being one of the only films shot (partially) in Russia at the height of the cold war, and also as the place where you met your wife. What was that first meeting like?
Well I had been a big admirer of Helen's work for a long time, although we hadn't actually met until White Knights. I thought her work combined incredible depth, intensity and unmatched sexiness. We met on the set, became friends, and then the relationship just progressed from there. We've been together fifteen years, and there's nothing quite like finding your true soul mate. I've been trying to find another film for us to do together, but so far, nothing has come to fruition.
Chuck Berry Hail! Hail! Rock and Roll is one of the best documentaries ever about a rock musician.
Thank you. I loved doing that film and it was fascinating watching Chuck and Keith Richards interact. I mean, Keith was so sweet and deferential to Chuck, saying "I stole every lick he ever played," and Chuck just shits on him through the whole thing! It really gave me a lot of admiration for Keith, I mean he is the backbone of the Stones, no question. Mick Jagger is a great performer, a very smart businessman, but without Keith holding things together, that band never would be what it is today. Chuck Berry is a very complex, very brilliant guy who's been through some hard knocks, but has endured. I loved going back to my public TV roots and doing a documentary. I had a great experience putting When We Were Kings back together, also. I hope to do more documentary work in the future.
Everybody's All-American was a heartbreaking portrait of the American dream collapsing, another terrific film.
I loved Frank Deford's novel and it reminded me a lot of guys I had known who all peaked in high school or college and the rest of their lives could never measure up to that one brief moment of glory they had had as kids and young adults. Dennis Quaid was really brilliant in the lead, I thought. It was also about a much simpler time that's now past, although that football fever in the south still very much exists.
Blood in, Blood Out is an overlooked masterpiece. How did the project develop and why did the studio dump it like they did?
Floyd Mutrix wrote the original script but it was really Jimmy Baca, who's one of our greatest poets, that contributed the most to the story. Jimmy's from the streets, he did time, and he really knows that world inside out. I really saw it as a story about the birth of a crime family, but unlike The Godfather, this family is born within the prison system. We got permission to shoot inside San Quentin. The warden there was a Latino, and he thought we were telling a really terrific story that ultimately had a very positive message for young Latino men. I was very lucky to get a great cast: Benjamin Bratt in his first major role, Jesse Borrego, Damian Chapa, Delroy Lindo, and Billy Bob Thornton in his first movie role.
Were you ever scared, shooting inside Quentin with real inmates playing roles?
Sure, there were a few moments initially where we were all a little nervous, but I was able to use that in a lot of the work that the actors did. We literally took each of the actors, Billy Bob and Tom Towles went over to the white guys, Damian to the Latinos, Delroy to the blacks and we said "Here's your guys," and we left them there. Everyone knew that we were there to make a movie and that the warden supported us, so it was fine. It's the warden's house and his rules, and the cons know that. As far as what happened with the release, it came out right after the L.A. riots, and Disney refused to release it, fearing that gang violence would break out in theaters. I understand why they did what they did, and I'm not bitter about it, because I got to make the movie and it's out there, but I think it really would have been a successful film had they given it a wide release, especially based on the huge impact it's had on cable and video. It was originally supposed to be part one of a two-part film that I started, but wasn't able to complete after what happened with the first. So I've got hours of great scenes that would be great on DVD, where Jimmy, Jesse, Ben, Damian and I could do a commentary track. It was one of those great life experiences, making that film. That's why I do what I do. None of my films are in the same genre and I want to move into new territory each time because I view each film as a two-year odyssey of new experience where I can keep growing.
You were raised by a single mother. Was Dolores Claiborne your salute to your mom?
Absolutely. My mother was very independent, very tough, very strong, certainly the overwhelming influence in my life. Tony Gilroy adapted the book and did an amazing thing. The Jennifer Jason Leigh character didn't exist in the book. Only the past existed in the book. It opened with Dolores going into the police station, saying that she hadn't killed her employer that day, but she did kill her husband 20 years earlier, and the remainder of the story was told by Dolores in flashback. Tony realized that wouldn't be a very interesting cinematic story, so he created an original screenplay for half the film, and the other half was already there in the book, especially the character of Dolores, which was all Stephen King's. She's a brilliant character.
Any advice for first-time directors?
The important thing is to listen to everybody, and then make your own choice. You're so often humble in the presence of those who have more experience than you: your whole crew, the actors, everyone has more experience than you when you're first starting out. On the other hand, it's your movie. I didn't do this until my third day on the set of The Idolmaker. At the end of the second day, I looked at the dailies and said "I don't like this. I'm not going to be able to sit in the lobby and say, as people walk out, 'Well that wasn't my idea, it was the D.P.'s, or the A.D.'s.'" I finally had to go in and say "I'm sorry, I have to make this movie my way. That's why they hired me to make it." Billy Bob Thornton, who's a good friend of mine, called me a few years ago and said that he was directing his first movie. I said 'That's great! You must be really excited.' He says, "Taylor, can you come down to Arkansas to the set for a few days?" I said 'Billy Bob, the last thing you want is an experienced director standing around while you're doing your first movie, because everyone will be looking to me, not to you. You have to make it your movie.' And we all know how Sling Blade turned out, right? (laughs) So that process of having to finally face yourself and having a very talented group of collaborators around you asking 'What's your vision?' is what it's all about. Know what your vision is, and follow that.
Steven Soderbergh: The Hollywood Interview
Filmmaker Steven Soderbergh.
STEVEN SODERBERGH:
HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT
By
Alex Simon
Editor’s Note: The following article appeared in the July 1998 issue of Venice Magazine.
Steven Soderbergh was born January 14, 1963 in Atlanta. Raised in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, he was still in high school when he enrolled in a film animation class at Louisiana State University, where his father was dean of the College of Education. Soon he began making film shorts with equipment he had borrowed from students at the university. After graduating high school early at 17, he decided to skip college and headed for Hollywood in a frustrated pursuit of a movie career. Back in Baton Rouge, he worked as a coin changer at an arcade and in his spare time made a humorous short called Rapid Eye Movement, about his Hollywood non-experience. Eventually, he landed a job at a video production house and enjoyed some success as the director of a music video for the rock group Yes, which was nominated for a Grammy. He began writing screenplays and directed a short called Winston, about sexual deception, which he later developed into his first feature Sex, Lies and Videotape, which was the hit of the 1989 Cannes Film Festival, winning the coveted Palm D'Or as Best Film, as well as the International Critics Prize and Best Actor for James Spader. It also earned an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay. Soderbergh followed this with Kafka in 1991, a surrealistic mystery/suspense film which combined fiction with elements of author Franz Kafka's life. He followed that with an adaptation of A.E. Hotchner's memoir King of the Hill in 1993, a heart-rending coming-of-age tale set in the depression-era midwest. Despite not fairing well at the box office, it remains one of the best-reviewed films of that year. 1995 brought The Underneath, Soderbergh's take on Raymond Chandler-esque mystery, set in present day Austin, Texas. 1997 saw two Soderbergh releases: Schizopolis, a low budget, experimental comedy in the spirit of Richard Lester and Buñuel, and Gray's Anatomy, a filmed version of Spalding Gray's comic monologue.
Soderbergh's latest is one of his best, and certainly his most commercial efforts yet. Out of Sight, from the novel by Elmore (Get Shorty) Leonard, reunites Shorty screenwriter Scott Frank with the author and boasts an all-star cast featuring George Clooney, Jennifer Lopez, Ving Rhames, Don Cheadle, Albert Brooks and two huge stars (who will remain nameless) in very crucial cameo roles. Out of Sight is a treat for the brain, the eye, and the funnybone, a film which combines the best of 1970's American film grittiness and a 90's hipness that makes for one very refreshing celluloid cocktail. Universal opened the film wide on June 26. Odds are you'll want to check it out more than once. Steven Soderbergh sat down recently to discuss his latest film opus, as well as his past triumphs, tribulations and disappointments.
I'm a big Elmore Leonard fan and I thought you really captured his voice with Out of Sight, which isn't easy to do on film.
Steven Soderbergh: It's tricky. It's an odd tone. We had two things going for us: Scott Frank, who understands that tone, and we put together a cast that I made sure understood that tone.
Have you always been a fan of Leonard's work?
Yeah. I've read probably six or seven of his novels. I've seen almost all the movies that are based on his work. So I was very familiar with his work.
I was excited when I heard you were doing this film, because like Elmore Leonard's novels, most of your films have subject matters that seem very serious when you first hear about them, but they always seem to have undercurrents of humor. Even with Kafka, a writer whose work most people find to be completely bleak, but I've always found to be blackly hilarious, you seemed to find that same humor and absurdity.
I think Kafka's work is extremely funny in an absurdist way. With (the film), I think a lot of people took it much more seriously than we intended, dealing with that character and all, leaves you open to that. But we really saw it as a carnival ride.
The Underneath struck me as sort of an homage to a Raymond Chandler-type crime story, whereas Elmore Leonard definitely has a more modern take on the genre, more straightforward.
Well, ultimately (The Underneath) was kind of a mess. I didn't quite unlock it or figure it out. Some things about it are interesting, but others are...if there's a successful element to The Underneath it was finding a way to use color in the same way that noir films used to use black and white. That was the one part of the movie that worked. Everything else about the movie I can't defend. It was a failed experiment, but a good experiment to attempt. The results of that experiment were necessary in making (Out of Sight). They can't all be gems. It's a process.
I noticed you were very specific about the color palates in Out of Sight, depending on what city the scene took place in. Did you use a blue filter in most of it?
No. More often than not we shot with a half-85, which cools things off a bit. Then on some stuff we'd just pull the 85 completely, and let it go blue, then print it back. And what happens when you do that is there's a patina of coolness in the blacks. And that gives you a different feel than if you shot it with an 85 and then tried to tone it down, trying to get it to look like winter, for example. We did a lot of experiments, depending on how the light was that day. I love that look. It's very evocative. It's what I saw when I read it. It had that feel...It felt like a real 70's movie to me.
Another filmmaker that comes to mind when I watch a lot of your work is Antonioni, especially in your specific use of color.
I think a big problem with The Underneath was that I was in danger of becoming too much like Antonioni. I think he's terrific, but I think at some level, it's not an appropriate style for an American filmmaker because it runs so counter to our zeitgeist. I appreciate the rigor of that style of filmmaking, but what I felt Out of Sight needed was a combination of being that thorough, with a much more jagged energy and a much more rough style.
Out of Sight didn't feel "slick." I noticed you didn't use many dolly shots, did a lot of hand-held stuff, and a jarring editing style that was very effective.
Yeah, for this material I felt that if the movie smelled like Hollywood it would just fall apart.
You had a star-studded cast in this film right down to the smallest parts. How did you attract such a stellar group?
Well, Elmore Leonard's got a reputation for writing great parts, even great small parts. But in the case of the two cameos, we were really lucky. Both actors were intrigued by the idea of doing these small roles that were extremely important to the story in spite of their size, and also they did it as a favor. But, particularly in the last scene, if it weren't (this actor) it had to be someone who had an extremely powerful presence. Because you're talking about a guy who you have to establish in no time at all that he's "the dude." The break-out artist of all time, otherwise the last scene of the film wouldn't work--if that guy didn't have that power.
The other great thing was that everybody in the film underplayed, very naturalistic.
That's Leonard's style, too. The characters have no self-awareness at all, so if you cast an actor who comments on their performance while they're giving it, you're dead.
Talk to us about George Clooney, who I think is an incredibly underrated actor.
He absolutely is. He's in that weird spot, which I hope he won't be in much longer, where people are saying "He should be a movie star!" He makes four movies and they do okay, but they don't set the world on fire, and everybody blames him. I've always thought that the guy was ready to happen, and there was no question in my mind that this was that part for him.
How do you direct actors?
I try not to ask them how they like to work, I try to find out, and that's where rehearsals come in...I try to have a week to ten days of rehearsal, which is really for me, not for them. It's for me to watch them, and get a sense of how they like to be treated, how to communicate with them so that I don't have to figure it out on the set, where I'm not as patient. (All the actors) are different, so you have to treat them accordingly.
What sort of space do you like to rehearse in?
We just had an open space, sort of a holding room, over at Universal that was fairly good-sized. I'd bring in some props and tables and things, do a read-through for a while, then put it on its feet, do a little blocking.
Do you have a clear idea of how you're going do shoot beforehand? Do you storyboard at all?
No. Figuring out where to put the camera is usually the easy part. It's coming up with some way of staging the scene that's interesting, that's the hard part...the only thing I boarded on this movie, because we shot the whole sequence out of order, was I took stand-ins and moved them through the entire mansion sequence from beginning to end, and then with a still camera with a zoom lens, shot from every angle I could think of, then put those up on a big board. Every time we did a shot, I'd put a piece of red tape on that corresponding picture.
Hearing you talk, you seem to have a natural affinity for filmmaking. Did you always love movies growing up?
Oh yeah, I always loved movies, but I don't think...I think it's something I like to do and something I feel comfortable doing, but I don't think I have an innate ability for it. There's certain things I think I do well, but I see films by other people all the time where I say "Jesus Christ, I could never do that!" There are a lot films that just leave me in awe...Something like Titanic, you could put a gun to my head and say "Direct this." I'd say "Go ahead and pull the trigger," because I wouldn't know where to start. My mind just doesn't work that way. But, odds are that (James Cameron's) version of Sex, Lies...would be pretty strange. (laughs) But he's good at what he's good at. It takes a while to figure out what you're good at. Part of maturing I think is recognizing what you're good at and refining that and focusing on that, instead of spreading yourself out too thin and trying to be a jack-of-all-trades. And that takes a while to learn, because the ego part of you wants to say "I can play on anybody's court, anywhere, anytime." Instead of saying "Hey, you know what, I'm not very good on clay, I'm gonna stick to grass." And it's true.
Were your parents involved in the arts?
My dad was a college professor who drew a little bit, and he loved books, and he loved movies and he loved music. My mother when she was younger painted, but by the time I was growing up had stopped. It was certainly a household where I was encouraged to explore that stuff and supported endlessly by them.
Any siblings.
Yeah, I have three sisters and two brothers...I was the fifth.
You didn't go to a formal film school, so how did you develop yourself as a filmmaker?
Trial and error...I was hanging out with these LSU students when I was in high school who had access to some university film equipment and we were all sort of experimenting with this stuff. And some of the people I'm still working with. Paul Edford, my production sound mixer, was one of the members of that film class. It was a pretty unique group, all have gone on to do interesting things.
Did those early films that you all did get you attention early on?
Not really. They were just résumé pieces for me that I'd show to people for specific reasons.
I heard your first move to L.A. wasn't so pleasant.
Well, I came out here when I was 17, was here for a year and a half and I was getting some editing work for a TV show called Games People Play that got canceled. It was a dreadful show, but the segments that we got to do were interesting. They were filmed segments, which in the early 1980's was a new thing to do, shoot 16mm negative, transfer it to tape, and then post on tape. So, the show got canceled, I kept doing piddly jobs and figured, 'Well, I can starve a lot more comfortably back in Baton Rouge.' So I moved back, kept making shorts, kept writing and...writing is really what kept me going. I eventually wrote enough stuff to get an agent and get work, and with that money I financed a short film...and eventually did Sex, Lies.
How did you get the job for the Yes concert film?
I had been doing freelance work for Showtime and someone there recommended me to the band. They wanted to make a little "on the road" documentary, so I figured what the hell, I'll never see these people again, so I edited it into this sort of snarky, cheeky 30 minute film about life on the road with the band. They really responded to it, thought it was really fun. So they called me up and asked if I wanted to do the concert film. I said "Shit, yeah!" Here I was, 22, a pretty big thing to do...So I got an agent out of that and had been writing now non-stop for five years and had just started writing stuff that didn't completely suck.
How many did you have to write before they stopped completely sucking?
Probably one a year, from '80 to '85. Then in late '85, I wrote three back-to-back in like six months. I finally just crossed a line where something unlocked and I wrote these three...and that's when things started to open up. The first paying writing job I got was to re-write a one hour Disney TV movie that never got made.
Was there any one movie that really captured your imagination growing up and inspired you?
There were lots, tons. I'm editing a book of interviews right now that I did with Richard Lester. He was a huge influence, still is.
One of my favorite movies is Robin and Marian.
Great film. Look at this guy, talk about underrated and under-appreciated. He invents rock video with A Hard Day's Night and Help. The Knack, How I Won the War, Petulia which is a masterpiece, the two Musketeers films which are hilarious and fun, Juggernaut, which is a great movie...Great filmmaker, with a wide range of films and genres.
I even liked Cuba, which got killed when it was released.
That's a fascinating movie. Flawed, but really the things that people disliked about it when it came out are what makes it interesting now, it's refusal to sort of play to the idea of a war-torn romance. An absolute refusal to be sentimental or easy about anything. (Brooke Adams') character was really fascinating. Here's a woman who says "Look, I don't know what little fantasy you've got in your head, but don't play it out on me, because I'm not that." And this guy (Sean Connery) who wrestling with the fact that the kind of guy he is is obsolete now...It's a really interesting movie.
Why did Lester stop making films?
It was a combination of things triggered by the death of (actor) Roy Kinnear during the making of Return of the Musketeers. Lester was absolutely devastated by that and hasn't made a feature since. But he's an incredibly bright, kind, funny man. For my money, I wish he was still directing movies because I think he's still got movies in him.
So many great directors from that era that inspired your generation seemed to have just vanished. What happened do you think?
Well, as we know from reading the Peter Biskind book (Easy Riders, Raging Bulls), a lot of them just self-destructed. It was their own damn fault for the most part. Part of it was the business changing, but the lion's share of it was them. They just went out of their heads...I watched a lot of 70's films preparing for Out of Sight: all of William Friedkin's films, all the early Hal Ashby films. It was a great time.
Let's talk about King of the Hill, which reminded me of some of the best of Truffaut and Louis Malle.
They were definitely in our minds, especially The 400 Blows...Everything about that movie went flawlessly during the shooting. Then once it was done, everything went wrong. We finished the movie, took it to Cannes, got our heads handed to us. They fuckin' hated it. Hated it! Just a disaster. Not good long lead reviews, very mixed. Then we're coming out in August of that year on the heels of ten movies with children protagonists. Ten! Then the daily reviews come out and they're as good as I've ever gotten, but by then it was too late. It was a disaster.
I think it will be one of the films that you're remembered for.
It's the movie that people always bring up to me the most as their favorite of mine. As a classical piece of American narrative, that's about as good a film as I know how to make. But what happened afterward doesn't affect my memory of making the film, which was a great experience.
Let's go backwards and talk about Sex, Lies. Walk us through winning the Cannes Film Festival.
Well, the great thing about it is that it's a surprise. You don't take out ads to win the Palm D'Or. We screened very early in the festival, within the first couple of days, and notoriously that's not a good spot. But, the film went down well, we did our press, and then we went home, back to L.A. A couple people said that I might have a shot at the Camera D'Or, for best first film, and that they'd let me know. Then I got a call from Mike Watts, who was running Virgin at the time, and he said "I think you better get on a plane. I think you're gonna win the Camera D'Or and it's worth coming over for." So I got on a plane on Sunday, get off Monday afternoon and get handed the International Critics Prize, which I would've come back for anyway! So I thought, 'Wow, that's great.' They rush me into the ceremony. Then I see Spike Lee and say "What's going on?" And he says he didn't get anything for Do the Right Thing. I couldn't believe it. It's a great movie and should've won something. So we sit down, then Jimmy (Spader) wins for best actor. And nobody's there but me, so I run up and accept for him...Somebody grabs me as I walk offstage and says they need to get me back to my seat. Sits me down in my seat as Wim Wenders is speaking, I don't think in English, about the Palm D'Or winner, saying it's a film by a young filmmaker, this is all being translated for me...and I'm thinking okay, could it be Mystery Train, could it be Do the Right Thing...and he says "Sex, Lies and Videotape." And immediately it's like you leave your body and watch yourself trip and stumble over people as you go on-stage. And at that point, I know I stood at the podium and said "Well, I guess it's all downhill from here," and I have no idea what I said after that. It's all a complete blank. I know that I was taken and put on live French television immediately afterwards, next to Denys Arcand and Bertrand Blier, neither of whom looked very happy, and I gave this interview, got up in a daze and walked out of the building, and left the Palm D'Or under my seat! (laughs) And as I was walking out the door, somebody says to me "Uh, do you think you want to take the award with you?" (laughs) It's more amazing to me in retrospect than it was at the time. It was almost like someone hitting you with a wand and saying "You're John Lennon for three hours," with that kind of attention focused on you. Having been back to Cannes a couple times since and watching from the outside, I think 'Man, that must've been nuts!'
Many people credit Sex, Lies with jump-starting the independent film business in this country.
They key word there is 'business.' If Sex, Lies had made half a million bucks, we wouldn't even be having this conversation. It made money, and as we know if something makes money, people are suddenly interested. As far as its cultural impact, it comes down to just that: money.
Do you have any advice for first-time directors?
Don't wait for permission. There is a long list of reasons you can give yourself not to start: "I don't have enough money." "I have some but I need a little more." "I don't know anyone." There are gonna be so many people who will tell you 'no,' don't add yourself to that list. Whether you do it or not, nobody gives a shit. The only person who gives a shit at the end of the day is you, and you can't worry about how it will look, or anything, you've just gotta go. You've gotta go. The rest of what happens to you will rest on the film itself, which is how it should be. But I always tell people, people are their own worst enemy. We know that. They key is to remove yourself from the enemy list.
Sigourney Weaver: The Hollywood Interview
Actress Sigourney Weaver.
SIGOURNEY WEAVER:
PORTRAIT OF A HEARTBREAKER
By
Alex Simon
Editor’s Note: The following article appeared in the April 2001 issue of Venice Magazine.
Revered as the leading American actress who combines indomitable strength with old world elegance, Sigourney Weaver comes by both naturally. Born Susan Alexandra Weaver October 8, 1949 in New York City, the daughter of legendary NBC TV President Sylvester "Pat" Weaver, and English actress Elizabeth Inglis. During his tenure at the network, Pat Weaver is credited with, among other things, inventing the desk-and-couch talk show format that still dominates the airwaves today, as well as creating both the "Tonight" and "Today" shows. Her uncle, the late "Doodles" Weaver, was a popular comic character actor whose face was familiar to both film and TV viewers through the late 1970's.
Re-christening herself "Sigourney" after a character in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, Weaver attended Stanford university as an undergraduate, majoring in English, moving on from there to Yale Drama School, where Meryl Streep was a fellow student. After working for several years in well-received Off-Broadway productions, Weaver made her film debut in Woody Allen's classic Annie Hall (1977, she's Woody's date outside the movie theater towards the end). It was in Ridley Scott's groundbreaking Alien (1979) that Weaver became a bona fide star, playing Lt. Ellen Ripley: part sex symbol, part Earth mother, and part double-barreled action hero, the first film heroine of the post-feminist era. Weaver reprised the role in three sequels: James Cameron's blockbuster Aliens (1986), Alien 3 (1992), and Alien Resurrection (1996).
Weaver followed Alien with an impressive filmography of diverse work: as Mel Gibson's lover in strife-torn Indonesia in Peter Weir's The Year of Living Dangerously (1982), the object of Bill Murray (and a nasty entity)'s affections in Ghostbusters (1984) and Ghostbusters II (1989). Two completely divergent roles in 1988 brought her Oscar nominations (and Golden Globe wins) as Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress respectively: as doomed naturalist Dian Fossey in Michael Apted's Gorillas in the Mist and the cutthroat corporate exec whom secretary Melanie Griffith tries to emulate in Mike Nichols' Working Girl. She did a charming turn as a disillusioned First Lady who finds love again with Kevin Kline's Dave (1992), and gave a chilling portrayal of vengeance stretched to its limits in Roman Polanski's Death and the Maiden (1994). Copycat (1995) had her visiting similarly intense territory as an agoraphobic psychiatrist caught in a deadly game of cat-and-mouse with a serial killer, while Ang Lee's The Ice Storm (1997) showcased her patrician qualities to their utmost in a chilling turn as a bored upper middle class housewife in 1973 Connecticut. In Map of the World (1999) she gave a powerful performance as an educated woman out of place in her rural community, while Galaxy Quest (1999) gave her opportunity to flex her comedic muscles again as a former sci-fi TV show sexpot who is forced to fight off real-life alien monsters!
Weaver's latest firmly establishes the actress as a gifted comedienne. Heartbreakers tells the blackly comedic tale of Maxine "Max" Conners (Weaver), who along with nubile daughter Page (Jennifer Love Hewitt), have made their living conning some of the country's wealthiest men out of their fortunes. When their latest con against sleazy chop-shop king Ray Liotta doesn't quite go as planned, the women decide to hit Palm Beach, the Mecca of the rich, and make one last big score before retiring for good, setting their eyes on repugnant, ailing tobacco kingpin Gene Hackman as their mark. When Page falls for a good-hearted local tavern owner (Jason Lee) who might, or might not, be harboring a major bankroll of his own, things get complicated. Heartbreakers is a funny, down-and-dirty comedy that will leave you with a smile on your face long after the end credits have rolled, and Weaver is a delight to watch, working her magic alongside fellow acting heavyweights Hackman, Liotta and (in a wonderful cameo) Anne Bancroft. Sigourney Weaver sat down with Venice recently over lunch, looking every bit the elegant lady in a tailored red suit.
Tell us about what drew you to Heartbreakers.
Sigourney Weaver: I think I've been looking for a comedy for a long time, and to find a comedy that has two powerful, sexy, funny devious women...I just thought it was wonderful, and (director) David Mirkin just kept encouraging both of us to be as ruthless and confident as we could! (laughs) I was also drawn to the mother-daughter aspect of the story. Underneath all the sort of Dirty Rotten Scoundrel elements of the story, I thought there was something very real going on between the mother and daughter. This is going to sound terrible, but I can understand conning your daughter to get her to stay home a little longer! (laughs) I know, because I have a daughter. Even thought she's only 10, I can understand not wanting to let her go.
How was it working with Gene Hackman, who I understand is a real hero of yours.
I was worried, because I thought 'How can I play someone who's so repulsed by him?' because I think he's fabulous! Then he came in wearing this horrible make-up, oozing smoke. (laughs) You'd never believe it, but Gene's never smoked! He's been a total non-smoker his whole life. But he was able to do all those things that smokers do, having the cigarette just hang there, not getting the smoke in his eyes. It just got all over me! This is definitely a non-smoking movie.
Is it true that comedy is the hardest thing for an actor to do?
I don't think it's the hardest thing for me to do. I think I feel more at home in it sometimes than drama, probably because my father did a lot of early television drama, so there was a great priority in our family on being funny, and telling jokes, stuff like that. It's just harder to find a good film comedy and a director who understands how to shoot and cut it. Getting all those elements to work is what's hard, and when Heartbreakers came along, I knew how special it was...also working with Jennifer was wonderful. I felt that we really could have been mother and daughter. We had about three weeks of rehearsal, so we really got to know each other pretty well. She was also really sweet with my daughter.
I could see a little bit of your Working Girl character in Max.
Well, I actually felt a little sympathy for Max. I think in her heart, she knew what she was doing was wrong, but still felt that the end was justified. Luckily, she's redeemable. My husband saw the film again last night and said "You know it's really hard for us to like her in the beginning." But, if you get caught in these situations, I think a mother will do anything to protect her daughter...If you think about it, what they do is a combination of acting and psychology. I never realized how much psychology was involved in conning. You really have to be able to disarm people, and get them to trust you. It's fascinating, really.
Your scenes with Ray Liotta looked like you guys were having a lot of fun.
I think Ray really steals the movie. He's so out there! Because he has such a big heart in reality, he plays the comedy really well. He's also a real gentleman. There are many times in the movie when Jennifer and I had to be in intimate situations with Ray, and he was always so considerate. That can make a big difference.
Show business runs in your family. Are you an only child?
No. I have an older brother who lives in Salt Lake City. He has four kids.
What was it like growing up around television's "golden period"?
I think most children in those days were sort of sheltered from what their parents did. We did have people drop by the house sometimes. I had chicken pox once and Art Linkletter came by. We have a movie of it, actually. (laughs) As far as I was concerned, everyone's father ran a network. My father clearly loved what he did. He had come from radio, then started running TV stations, and would always come home laughing. I knew that it was not a fair business early on, because dad had some real ups and downs. He started the first cable company in '63 and was put out of business illegally. I knew that it was a rough business, but a great business. So when I came into the business, my expectations were really low. I never thought that success or fame would make me happy. Fame looks much better in the movies than it does in real life.
Were you always drawn to acting?
No. I was very shy as a kid. I'm always amazed when I hear people say things like "I've always wanted to be an actor since the age of eight," because I would have never had the confidence to say that. It looked impossible to me. I was hesitant to follow in my parents' footsteps, but it was in my blood. Being an actor is all about communication, sort of the same thing as being a journalist in many ways. You sort of go into the middle of a situation, suck it in, then come back and tell us what it's like.
What was Yale Drama School like?
Well, I made some good friends there, but didn't get a lot of encouragement from the faculty, more like a lot of discouragement. So it was not a very happy time for me. I learned a lot about how to survive. I think the world will tell you soon enough that you're not cut out for a career. You don't need to pay people to tell you that you're no good.
Tell us about your transition from "Susan" to "Sigourney."
That's when I was 13. I was about (6 feet) tall when I was 13. I was called "Susie" or "Sue." I felt too tall to have a short name like that and I saw this name in F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby." I thought 'That looks good. I'll use that until I figure out what to do with my name.' I had the middle name Alexandra, which I thought was pretty, but too long. It's so funny, I found an old letter from my father. He always used to write me, because I changed my name, and begin the letter "Dear 'Dra," "Love Drad." And he wrote me that way for years.
Between Yale and your film debut in Annie Hall you did a lot of theater.
Yeah. I came to New York and all my friends kept hiring me to be in their plays. Christopher Durang, Wendy Wasserstein...it was great. Then about a year later, I was in the background of a Budweiser ad, I always tried to stay in the background, that way I'd still get paid, but nobody would have to see me (laughs), and I got a call for this thing called Alien. I almost didn't go. They gave me the wrong address. I called my agent and said 'Science fiction?! Must I do this?' (laughs) So I went and met with Ridley Scott. I was wearing these over-the-knee hooker boots, and must've looked about eight feet tall. I think because I didn't care at all whether I got it or not, that intrigued him. (laughs)
Let's go back to Woody Allen and Annie Hall. We just see you briefly in long shot at the end.
He actually offered me the second female lead in the movie, the girl he brings to the beach after he and Diane Keaton break up. I was in a Chris Durang play and I didn't want to leave it, because it was such a great part. I was playing this multiple schizophrenic in a play called Titanic. So I turned down that part. Woody gave me one day in this smaller part, and a lot of it got cut out in the end. I had this scene where we were in bed. I was reading the National Review and eating crackers in bed and he's on the phone with Annie Hall in California, and we also did The Sorrow and the Pity scene.
With Alien, did any of you even have in inkling of how influential this film would be?
When I met Ridley that day, and I'd read the script, I didn't really have a picture of what the alien was like. I just thought it was this mass of yellow jelly or something, not really very inspiring. Even though there was a spareness about the script that I really like. Then when I met Ridley he showed me all the conceptual sketches for the alien and the eggs that H.R. Giger did. Originally the eggs were going to have these little, baby faces on the outside. I knew that I'd never seen a film like this before, so I knew it was going to be something very special. For me, I wanted to concentrate on theater and dabble in film. This was not what I expected...They built these sets that were like an entire world unto themselves. In my naiveté I thought they'd built all these sets for us, so we'd get into character more! (laughs) I think the film still holds up very well. It doesn't seem dated at all.
The evolution of the character of Ripley over the course of the four films has been fascinating.
I think to be able to come back to the same character every few years, having learned that much more about filmmaking and acting was such a please. I felt so lucky. By the time we did the last one, the memories that Ripley has are my memories. It did happen that long ago! (laughs) It was a very weird experience, but a very rich one. People now are asking about Alien 5...I've never been big on sequels, but these days there seems to be a whole generation of people who don't see them as sequels, as much as episodes in the same adventure. Certainly I left the character in an interesting place because I never got to find out which side ended up dominating. But if it doesn't happen, that's okay too. The morning after it was (erroneously) announced that Alien 5 was going to be made, I got a call from my agents saying "Is this true?" I said 'If I were getting $22 million to make Alien 5 don't you think I'd call you guys first?' (laughs)
The Year of Living Dangerously is one of the best films of the '80s.
Yes, and it also marked the beginning of my appreciation of filmmaking and for what an actor can do on film, just for the fact that you do work out of sequence and you do never quite know what you're doing, you don't get rehearsal, there is no audience. I hadn't really embraced it philosophically before then that you have to throw yourself off the cliff and just jump into it sometimes. Life is really like that more often than not. You never know what's going to happen next. To bring that feeling to film is something I learned working on that with Peter Weir...Peter had us watch the love scenes between Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman in Notorious (1946) so our love scenes would have that same, sort of old-fashioned quality. The censors back then dictated that you could only kiss for so long, so they were kissing, then talking, kissing, then talking. Peter was very adamant that he didn't want to see any tongues! (laughs)
How was working with Mel Gibson?
He's both gorgeous and a regular guy, which is a great combination. He was always trying to stay out all night, so the next day he would look tired and haggard, and look older. He was 26 and I think the best looking person I'd ever seen. We all said 'Give it up Mel!' (laughs) The Australian crews are very small, so the whole film was a very intense, intimate experience. So by the end of it, Mel, Linda (Hunt) and I all became very close with each other and with the crew. It's my favorite kind of film to work on. The Alien films had that same kind of feeling.
Tell us about working with Mike Nichols on Working Girl.
He's the best. He's so much fun, so astute. You're granted admission to a very special world when you work with Mike. We loved (my character) Catherine Porter, and modeled her after people that we knew. Mike is so smart and really understand the structure of a script. He believes in treating the material roughly, and not being too sentimental, which is why even in something like (the stage production of) Hurlyburly, you got tremendous laughs. He's able to give you one direction that liberates you for the whole piece.
Gorillas in the Mist was an amazing film and Dian Fossey must've been an amazing character to portray. You spent months in the jungle of Rwanda actually filming with wild gorillas.
Yes, we spent hours and hours with them. What a gift that was. Talk about join SAG and see the world! I knew about Dian, had read her book and was interested in primatology, but to actually travel there and be with the gorillas was one of the greatest gifts I'd ever received...We spent about three months in the mountains and would have to hike for hours a day to find the gorillas, or to even get to where we were shooting...I would say the one quibble I have with the film is that it's hard to tell a story of 18 years in a person's life in two hours. I think things really crystallized for her in the last five years of her life. That's when she really dug her heels in and became quite intractable about saving the gorillas. I think certainly that she was a lonely child, who felt closer to animals than to people. To this day, I think just being in her skin for a while made me understand that there are many people for whom there is no difference between people and animals, that animals are equal citizens of our world. Once you get used to that philosophy, it really changes the way you look at the world.
What did you learn from the primates?
I envied them, the simplicity of their lives. I remember being covered with baby gorillas jumping up and down on me, urinating on me, trying to steal my bag. I had just gotten married a couple years before and I said to my husband afterward, 'I think we need to have children. I just got a taste of it.' I miss it there. I would love to go back in any capacity. It's funny, I'm not a "channeling" kind of person, but I always felt Dian's spirit there, and because of that, was never afraid of the gorillas. You characters oftentimes become friends in a way when you spend a lot of time with them, and that was certainly the case with Dian. She was a good person.
Death and the Maiden was an amazing film. Tell us about working with Polanski.
I think Roman's probably the greatest director I've ever worked with. I don't think anyone else can do what he does, especially with that kind of claustrophobic, chilling, perplexing story. In some ways, although it was the most challenging thing I'd done at the time, it was also the easiest: we got to have one set, we worked chronologically, it was only the three of us in the cast and a tiny crew. That was a real milestone for me. I started to work in a different way and never went back after that...At the first reading, and this is a European tradition, Roman read all the parts while we sat and listened. I remember Ben Kingsley getting sort of restless, but I thought it was fascinating. He understood all these people because he'd been all these people at various times in his life: he'd been the torturer, the rapist, the helpless husband, the hunted one growing up in the ghetto in Poland. I like Roman a lot, but he's also a lot to take. I'd work with him again in a second, though. It's funny, after I wrapped Maiden, I did Copycat, where I played another very disturbed woman. After that was over, I flew home for Christmas Eve and was cooking f