Errol Morris: The Hollywood Interview

Joyce McKinney, the focal point of Errol Morris' lens in Tabloid.


ERROL MORRIS DIGS THE DIRT WITH TABLOID
By Alex Simon

When Errol Morris’ documentary The Thin Blue Line hit movie screens in 1988, it helped jump-start the rather tired genre back to life again. After a renaissance of the documentary film in the 1960s through the early ‘70s from the likes of The Maysles Brothers (Gimme Shelter, Grey Gardens), D.A. Pennebaker (Don’t Look Back), and Robert Drew (Crisis, Primary), the documentary film seemed relegated to late night spots on local PBS affiliates, narrated by boozy British actors in the downslide of their careers. Morris’ tale of Randall Adams, a man not only wrongly jailed for murdering a Dallas cop in the late ‘70s, but convicted due to the testimony of the man who actually did it, was an intoxicating blend of first-person realism, film noir detective story, and very real moral outrage. Critics and audiences alike realized that documentary films could be just as entertaining, and pulse-pounding, as the Mel Gibson or Arnold Schwarzenegger action epic playing on the screen next door.

Nearly a quarter century later, Errol Morris' latest effort doesn't disappoint. Tabloid tells the amazing, but true, story of Joyce McKinney, a former small town beauty queen with an IQ of 168 whose obsessive love for a Mormon missionary stationed in England caused a tabloid scandal that took Britain by storm in late 1977 and '78. What transpired during those feverish weeks and months must be seen to be believed, and is told with a level of skill and wit that only a filmmaker of Errol Morris' caliber could pull off. The film opens in select U.S. cities and on Video-on-demand service Sundance Selects July 15.

Errol Morris visited Los Angeles recently for a conversation about Tabloid. Here's what transpired.



The most obvious question is how did you first stumble upon this crazy story?

From an AP wire service story in The Boston Globe. This was very recently. I knew nothing about it years ago. It concluded with a paragraph that the dog cloning case being addressed in the article might be somehow related to this thirty year-old sex in chains story. The dog cloning and the sex in chains aspects got my attention. Originally I was thinking about it almost as a "First Person" story. I called Joyce, but she wasn't interested. She was living in North Carolina at the time. Then the good part of a year later I was offered a deal to do a series for Showtime, and I thought that this could be the pilot of the series. We contacted Joyce again. She was now in Southern California, as was I, and she came in for an interview. That's the interview you see in the movie, which took six hours or so. I really only had two days with Joyce McKinney, the first being shooting the interview, and I was on stage with her in New York much later after a screening of Tabloid.

What was her reaction to the film?

Well, she has complained about the film, that the film was not completely oriented against the Mormon Church, as if that was the reason I was making Tabloid, to attack Mormonism, which is not the reason I made the movie. Anytime you make a story about a real person, there's bound to be trouble, as in any human relationship, except in this case you have the public thrown in, as well. People have their expectations of what they'd like the movie to be, as opposed to what it actually is. When you're dealing with a factual matter, you're dealing with a claim about the way something happened, or didn't happen.

Filmmaker Errol Morris.

Is it that sort of duality that attracted you to this story?

There's so much ambiguity in this story, which is one reason I like it. My job as a filmmaker, if I can uncover some underlying truth or reality that is essential to the story, I go after it. In The Thin Blue Line, in S.O.P., in Mr. Death, I went after it. This is a different kind of story in the sense that what really fascinated me here were these competing narratives that were at war with each other: you had these various tabloid journalists who had a need to tell their own version of reality. You had Joyce, who had one more version. And the ongoing uncertainty about what really transpired during all this. It's casting a net around that, making sure that the ambiguities are in the movie, and people can think about them. It's a mystery, and mysteries are what still obsess me.

Given the thirty-plus years that's transpired between the Joyce McKinney story and where we are now, what kept striking me was how innocent the whole affair seems by today's standards.

It is! I agree.

In the mid-late seventies, the line between tabloid journalism and hard news was very clear, while today it's become hopelessly blurred. Given what's happening in the UK now, with the implosion of tabloid culture from the News of the World scandal, do you think this implosion was inevitable?

I think it would be wrong to conclude that all tabloid journalism is bad. Tabloid journalism is a kind of journalism that focuses on stories that grab ahold of us. I like to think of the Bible as an extended tabloid story. Tabloids clearly played a destructive role for Joyce in her life, and I wouldn't argue otherwise. And that pull of journalism to try and create narratives is part of a deeper problem of journalism per se; I don't think it's just true of tabloid journalism. The News of the World story seems extreme, is extreme, because here you have parents that are worried their daughter is dead, and they start monkeying around with the evidence as the police are trying to find out what happened to this girl. It doesn't seem at all defensible. It seems to have crossed deeply some kind of line. Is that true of the story of Joyce McKinney? It's much harder for me to make that claim. You can decide for yourself, but Joyce was not an unwilling participant in this. Joyce came over to the UK with the chloroform, and the handcuffs, and the fake gun. Maybe it got out of hand, but I don't think that she can simply claim total innocence in what happened. She provided a story for the tabloids that was just too good to be true. It was irresistible.

Could we talk about some of your other films?

Sure!

Randall Adams in The Thin Blue Line. The film got him released from prison.

The Thin Blue Line was the first film of yours I saw when it was originally released. I found out that David Ray Harris, who really committed the crime, was executed in 2004, and that Randall Adams, who was wrongly convicted, died last year of a brain tumor. I know Adams sued you not long after the film came out. Did the two of you ever make peace before he passed?

Not really. We didn’t. But, I think that by and large my experience with people and movies has been good. I know that (Robert) MacNamara told his son, Craig, that he really liked Fog of War, but he said “Don’t tell Errol that.” (laughs)

I read MacNamara’s book, In Retrospect, and wasn’t a fan, but then found him, if not entirely sympathetic in your film, at least more accessible. I know you were a student activist in the sixties at University of Wisconsin who protested the war in Vietnam, but it felt to me that you were able to go into making Fog of War with complete objectivity, even though it’s quite clear you feel the Vietnam war was wrong.



I don’t know that I am capable of complete objectivity. I would think not. But I did go into the film with complete equanimity and respect. That I did.

How did MacNamara strike you during the filming?

Endlessly fascinating. It was one of the great opportunities of my life to be able to talk and work with him to make that movie. He was an endlessly complex man. I was reminded again and again, after listening to recorded conversations with Lyndon Johnson taken in the White House, that if you serve the pleasure of the President, what kind of autonomy do you really have, ultimately? Maybe I’ve become an apologist for Robert S. MacNamara, but I doubt it. Since that movie, I have never seen MacNamara as the “architect” of Vietnam. Certainly as Secretary of Defense, he was a principal player, but the escalation of the war wasn’t imposed on Johnson by MacNamara, in my view. It was the other way around.

Let’s talk about your background. You grew up on Long Island. When and how did you fall in love with movies?

Belatedly. I started going to them at University of Wisconsin, but really started to fall in love with them when I was doing post-grad work at Berkeley.

Was there one film that did it for you?

No, I saw, literally, in the space of two or three years, I saw a thousand films. I think it was just a matter of being exposed to all those films in a short amount of time. Then I started programming at the Pacific Film Archive, especially all the great film noir titles.

I found that fascinating that you’re such a noir buff, although when you look back at your body of work, it makes sense. I just made the rather rigid assumption that as a documentary filmmaker, you’d be praying at the temple of the Maysles brothers and Richard Leacock, people like that.

No, I was never interested in verite. I was the anti-verite filmmaker. My first film, Gates of Heaven, was conceived as an anti-verite documentary. No handheld, no available light, people looking into the camera. I was doing everything wrong. It was the anti-Christ version of documentary. (laughs)

The Thin Blue Line was very much a noir picture.

I think so, yes.



I was equally surprised that your favorite movie is Edgar G. Ulmer’s Detour (1945), which is also a favorite of mine.

Detour is great. Detour is legendary for being made in a week, or something, for very little money. It’s quite amazing in its own way. I was interviewed by The New York Times a few years back on the fiftieth anniversary of Citizen Kane, and the reporter asked me “Mr. Morris, can you please tell us why you think Citizen Kane is the greatest American movie?” I replied “That’s simple. It isn’t.” They asked me what is, and I said Detour. I don’t even know if they printed it, or not. (laughs)

Tell us a bit about Stephen Hawking and A Brief History of Time.

Well, first of all, I just got the rights to it, because it was never transferred properly (onto VHS or DVD). It’s actually one of the most beautiful films I ever shot. I will restore it and maybe do a follow-up talk with Stephen.



As with Robert MacNamara, I had never found Hawking, or his intellect, accessible before your film.

Well, the book was considered to be unfilmable and, this is an interesting story. When you talk about the tensions between the person making the movie and the person that it’s about, there was tension with Hawking in the beginning. He just wanted the movie to be about science, with no part of his own personal story, his biography, in it. I would explain to Stephen that I have a background in history and philosophy of science, but to make a movie about this subject, it had to be about Stephen Hawking and his science. If you read the book, it is a thinly-disguised autobiography. Hawking constantly makes connections between his life and science. That’s what’s so interesting and cool about the book. He was never happy with how we were making the movie until we had a screening here, in Los Angeles, at the old CAA screening room, on Wilshire. Hawking comes out of the theater, and I’m apprehensive, because I have no idea how he’s going to feel about it and the first thing he says to me is “Thank you for making my mother a star.” So yes, I’m very proud of the film, and think it’s one of the best things I’ve ever done.

Which brings us back to Tabloid. As with your previous subjects, you’ve taken on a story that’s more than just the sum of its parts. Tabloid is about much more than Joyce McKinney and tabloid journalism, for example. We mentioned earlier what’s happening in the UK as we speak.

Here’s a question for you, because we’ve been talking about this subject for most of the day. Is (the News of the World scandal) really about tabloid journalism, or is it about journalists that simply broke the law? Is it a natural outgrowth?

Joyce McKinney in a classic tabloid pose.

Yes, I think it was a natural outgrowth of the addiction to sensationalism that we’ve acquired over the last decade. Once upon a time, even for a brief moment, I think we were interested in ideas, and discussing them. Now we're addicted to sensation. And that’s what remains as the very dangerous element of this bigger story, that’s happening now, and what happened to Joyce McKinney over thirty years ago.

Yeah, Joyce certainly sees herself as a victim of the tabloid press. If you asked her, I think she would tell you that unequivocally. Do I agree? I agree in part, but I don’t think she is a complete victim or naïve participant in any of this. Was it taken to excess by the British tabloids? Probably, yes.

You use the fairy tale analogy several times in the film, and really tell a story about a little girl who wanted a fairy tale, and her fairy tale came true.

And maybe one of the great tragedies is that the fairy tale came true. Maybe it was a fairy tale that you didn’t want to come true.

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ERIC ROBERTS: The Hollywood Interview

(Eric Roberts in "Crash," above.)

Rediscovering Roberts

Eric Roberts never really left, but 2009 audiences are learning (or relearning) the charms of the actor Mickey Rourke has called the best he ever worked with.

By Terry Keefe

(This article is currently appearing in this month's Venice Magazine.)

“Eric Roberts is the [expletive deleted] Man,” proclaimed Mickey Rourke at this past year’s Independent Spirit Awards, while accepting his trophy for Best Male Lead, at the very beginning of a speech which then saw him singling out Roberts, his one-time co-star in 1984’s The Pope of Greenwich Village, as someone who was worthy of a comeback like Rourke had with The Wrestler. From the audience, Roberts himself watched his friend at the podium with what looked to be a combination of embarrassment at being mentioned and some pleasure at the same, finally throwing it back at Rourke by shouting good-naturedly, “Accept your award!” For the viewers who remembered Roberts and Rourke as a young pair of acting dynamos back in Pope, it was a nice burst of nostalgia, as well as a reminder that there was another actor out there who is one great role away from being discussed as the comeback of the year. But the truth of the matter is that Roberts has already been in the middle of a definite return to prominence for a few years now, albeit one that has been quieter than that of Rourke (and after watching some of Mickey’s speeches, how could it not be?) It seemed to begin in 2005 with his casting as the stylish pimp who vied with Brandon Flowers for the affection of a prized courtesan in The Killers' video for their song “Mr. Brightside,” directed by Sophie Muller, who used Roberts’ ruggedly handsome, but slightly dangerous, looks to full advantage. Roberts can do more with a leer than most actors can with a page-long speech, and he appears capable of devouring the baby-faced Flowers throughout. There was also a knowing nod to film fans by the casting of Roberts, sort of similar to the way Fatboy Slim made Christopher Walken the focus of the video for “Weapon of Choice” at the start of the decade. It was saying, in a sense, “These actors are cool. We’re hip by casting them. And you should know why.” Soon, Brett Ratner had cast Roberts in the Mariah Carey videos “It’s Like That,” and “We Belong Together.” More music video spots followed in songs for Ja Rule and Akon. Last year saw Roberts in a leading role on “Heroes,” and this Fall, he is starring in the second season of “Crash,” in a part that is being featured as prominently in promotions as that of costar Dennis Hopper. Roberts plays a billionaire businessman and developer named Seth Blanchard, who is determined to bring a new football stadium to Los Angeles, no matter who he has to bulldoze to do it, until he has a life-changing collapse in a strip mall parking lot. Roberts is also part of the cast of The Expendables, opposite star and director Sylvester Stallone, and a group of actors who are the action hero version of what the cast of It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World was for comic actors back in the 1963, in that practically every action star from the past three decades has a role, including Jet Li, Jason Statham, Mickey Rourke, and Dolph Lundgren.

Roberts received his first big break in 1978’s King of the Gypsies, in which he starred opposite Sterling Hayden, Shelley Winters, Judd Hirsch, and Susan Sarandon, earning him a Golden Globe nomination. His work in 1983 for director Bob Fosse in Star 80 as Paul Snider, the real-life con man/pimp who murdered Playmate of the Year Dorothy Stratten, is perhaps his career finest, and a reminder of what Roberts is capable of as an actor. The film was considered a financial bomb when released, and Roberts received another Golden Globe nod, but not the deserved Oscar nomination, for bringing to life all the self-loathing, ambition, and snake-like charm, of this failed Hollywood hustler. Much more public recognition followed for his 1984 starring role in The Pope of Greenwich Village as Paulie, the live-wire best friend of Mickey Rourke’s more level-headed Charlie. And in 1986, Roberts would receive a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award nomination for his work as Buck in the 1985 release of Runaway Train. In terms of both critical and commercial success, Roberts’ career then entered a down period for much of the next decade and a half, although he never stopped working and those years were not without their bright spots, including his starring role in the 1996 feature It’s My Party, which was a Sundance selection and indie circuit success.

These days, Roberts appears happy with what he is doing in terms of work, but also just as much with his family, who he enjoys speaking about. His daughter Emma Roberts has followed him into performing, and is a major rising star, with leads in the series “Unfabulous,” as well as the feature films Nancy Drew and Hotel for Dogs. The next year will see her starring in films with a bevy of big names, including Ed Harris and Jennifer Connelly, amongst quite a few others. His stepson Keaton Simons (with wife Eliza) is a successful musician who has just released his first album on CBS Records and is currently touring (http://www.keatonsimons.com/). His stepdaughter, Morgan Simons, is a prominent chef and caterer in the Los Angeles area, running A Catering Company (http://www.acateringco.com/), which also provides personal chef and meal delivery services. Roberts’ career is managed by his wife Eliza Roberts, who is also a successful casting director and actress.

In addition to their obvious passions for acting and their family, Eric and Eliza are deeply involved in The Natural Child Project (www.naturalchild.org), which Eric describes as “an organization and a philosophy” and which promotes the use of programs of empathy and understanding, rather than violence, to raise children. Says Eliza about The Natural Child, “It’s kind of neat that Eric is playing this philanthropic character on ‘Crash,’ because people often ask what Eric is interested in, in real life, and this encompasses it all.” Eric elaborates, “The bottom line is, if a child is never scared or struck, there would never be war ever. So we have to start it
at the grass roots to kind of spread it through mankind.” Not a bad way to use your career heat.

Hi, Eric. Let’s start by talking about your new role on “Crash.” Executive producer Ira Steven Behr was brought in to sort of retool the series in its second season. How much of his new vision for the show did he share with you when you came on board?

Eric Roberts: He told me where my character was going. He didn’t tell me where I’d end up, but he told me where I was going. And he told me why he wanted me to do the part, and what he was after. He was very clear, very direct, and he’s very actor-friendly.

One of the trademarks of “Crash,” both the series and the original film, is that the characters start in separate storylines and then begin to interact. Did you pay much attention in the early episodes to what the other storylines were, or did you prefer to wait and be surprised when the other plot threads collided with yours?

Oh no, I’ve become a “Crash” junkie [laughs]. It’s like my grandmother would call soap operas “her stories”? The “Crash” scripts are my stories.

Did you watch much of the previous season?

I didn’t, because I was told it was going to be another show. So I left the first season alone.

Ira said something interesting where he compared your character of Seth Blanchard, not so much to the expected real-life counterparts of Richard Branson or Donald Trump, but to Bobby Kennedy. In that Kennedy was someone who was far more hard-edged a personality, until JFK was assassinated, whereafter he seemed to really find his soul and become more a man of the people. Was that comparison something you and Ira spent much time discussing?

Yes, yes, it was. See, the hard thing about playing Seth Blanchard for me, was that this is a stone-cold killer. When you approach him, you only get what he wants you see. And that’s not very much, and it’s not very friendly, and it’s not very warm. But you’re on a TV show, so you have to play him as accessible and you have to understand what’s on their mind. So, to have all of that, and to then go through the epiphany that he goes through, was one of the two or three biggest challenges for me as an actor that I’ve ever had. And I went through severe sleep deprivation the first almost 3-4 weeks of this show. I was doing nights in New Orleans on The Expendables for Sly Stallone, and I was doing days in New Mexico on this. And I was only seeing the scripts for this [show] when I got here. So, it was incredibly hard. But I had this incredible first director here, Andrew Bernstein. Incredible guy. And, it doesn’t get talked about a lot, but the heart of any series is your crew. This crew took this actor who was sleep-deprived and just there for the work, and they led me by the nose and they just took care of me. I haven’t had a crew take care of me like this since 1982 when I worked with Bob Fosse on Star 80. I’m serious. It was miraculous what they did for me, all of them.

What were some of the things the crew did to help?

The camera guy, or the script supervisor, would say, “You’re slurring your speech again.” Because when I got tired, I would slur, and I’d say to everyone, “You’ve got to tell me when I’m slurring my speech” and everyone would let me know [laughs]. They were all my pals, you know?

You’ve known a few moguls over the years, I’d imagine. Was there anyone in particular you based your interpretation of Blanchard on?

There are two individuals that I have based him on the most, but honestly, it’s more on what Ira has told me. Again, what he said about Bobby Kennedy is that he was sort of a dark character and connected to kind of negative people, and then really changed. And if you go on the contention that you can’t get that successful, 28 billion dollars [in the case of this character], without being somewhat unscrupulous…..a real mo-fo, you know?

You’ve wrapped now on The Expendables. Looking at that cast, it’s two generations of stars and action stars. What was the atmosphere like on the set when that group of guys got together?

It’s just a bunch of bored guys [laughs]. Here we are!

It seems like there’s the potential for some serious ego wars with that many stars together.

That didn’t happen at all though. Not a one.

One of the early promotional shots from The Expendables shows you and Steve Austin leaping away from an explosion. That appears to really be the two of you in that stunt.

Yeah, Stone Cold Steve Austin and I met, and then five seconds later, we had to jump through a fire-bomb together [laughs]. Steve and I bonded over that. He’s my new best friend. He’s one of the smartest, funniest guys I’ve ever hung out with. I love him. My wife Eliza and I are his new acting coaches. We can say that officially now.

(Roberts and Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. a fireball in The Expendables, above.)

I know the general story of The Expendables involves a group of mercenaries on an insane mission. What’s your role in the yarn?

I’m not one of the mercenaries. I’m on the other side of the fence. I am a rogue CIA operative, and I basically run a general, who runs a country. That’s what I do. And I decide that I want the whole shebang for myself [laughs]. I am what you might call a bad guy [laughs]. But not in my own head. Bad guys always think they’re good guys.

In the last few years, you became the hip guy to have in a music video. Let’s talk about how it started. Did you actively pursue the music video work or did it sort of just happen?

They came after me, and then the Killers video went number one, and the Mariah Carey video went number one, and the Akon video went number one, and I just became the guy to have in your video [laughs]. There were 14-year old girls saying, “Hi, can I have your autograph?” It was kind of mind-blowing. It changed my life a little bit.
Another way you’ve been introduced to a younger generation of fans is through “Entourage.” Your appearance on the episode where the guys go to you to get mushrooms is, on one hand, cool for your image because you’re sort of presented as the hippest guy in Hollywood. At the same time, you’re also the guy they go to for the drugs. Was there any hesitation in playing yourself on the show in that context? You’re not playing yourself on “Entourage.” Are any of those guys really like that on “Entourage?” [laughs] Not at all. But, about the fourth time I heard them say my name on that show, because I’m a big fan of the show, I called my lawyer because he also handles the writers on “Entourage.” “If they’re going to keep talking about me, have them put me on the damn show, dude!” [laughs] And so he called me back in five minutes, and he said, “They want you on the show but they’ve got a question for you.” I said, “What’s that?” He said, “Will you do mushrooms?” And I said, “I will certainly pretend to!” And he said, “Okay, then they want you on the show next week.” That’s kind of how it happened. Those guys are so much fun to work with! And you know, I’ve always been a fan of Jeremy [Piven], but now I would bend over backwards for the guy. How did you become involved in Dark Knight in the role of the crime boss Salvatore Maroni? Was it offered to you, or was an audition required? I had to go earn that one. That was a weird experience, in that I got the audition, and James Gandolfini wanted the part. So, they were holding auditions, but they probably were going to go with him. I went in and auditioned and I didn’t hear anything for two months. And then I heard, “Hey, you got the part!” I thought it was long gone. It was a shocking and wonderful experience to watch them burn 200 million dollars. I wanted to talk a little bit about your family. Your daughter Emma has obviously followed you into acting. Her first big role was in Blow, starring Johnny Depp. She was very young at the time. Did you give her any acting advice? Not at all [laughs]. Just don’t look in the lens! That was it. (Emma Roberts in Wild Child, above.)Keaton is a musician whose album just came out in June. Did you introduce him to any particular music growing up? I was always a rock and roll nut, and I was his mentor to around the ages of 14 and 15, and then I went by the wayside, and he became his own self. (Keaton Simons, above.)And Morgan, has become a top chef and caterer. You are what you eat, and at 53 years old, people always ask me, “How do you stay looking like that, dude?” [laughs] It’s because of what I eat. Because of Morgan Simons. She can cook for whatever you need in life, and I need to be healthy, fit, and body beautiful without having to work too hard [laughs]. And I eat high protein, pre-cooked meals, that I drop in a boiling pot of water, and I have a gourmet meal. Let’s go way back and talk about your first major feature role, King of the Gypsies in 1978. You were a very young guy suddenly starring opposite the legendary Sterling Hayden. What was that experience like? [laughs] It ended up being one of the best experiences of my life, because it became a relationship. We became very good friends, and we stayed friends right up until his death. Sterling was just a winner, as a human being. He loved you if you were whatever you were. And if you pretended to be whatever you were, he had nothing for you. It was as cut and dry as that, and that’s all there was to it. That’s how you were, or you weren’t his friend. One quick story for you. I had only been working for the better part of three weeks, and he came for his first day, which was a night shoot. And the Second AD came to get me and said, “Mr. Hayden would like to speak to you, Mr. Roberts.” I said, “Cool! I’ll be right there!” So, I go running over to his camper and knock on the door. I hear, [does Sterling Hayden voice] “Come on in!” and I open the door. Whoosh! Big cloud of hashish. [laughs] And I say, “What’s happening, Mr. Hayden?” He says, “Have a seat, son. Close that door behind you. You smoke dope?” I replied, “Not when I work, no sir.” He says, “Well, I do!” [laughs] “What are we shooting tonight?” I said, “Scene 87.” He says, “Yeah, I know the number. What the fuck happens?” I said, “It’s a pivotal scene, blah-blah-blah-blah -” And he says, “How are you at improvisation?” [laughs] I said, “I’m okay -” He said, “Good, because that’s what we’re doing tonight!” [laughs] That was my first Sterling Hayden experience, and I loved him ever since.

(Roberts in his first big film role in King of the Gypsies, above.)

I feel that your performance as Paul Snider in Star 80 was one of the best of the decade. In developing that performance, were you interested in imitating his mannerisms as exactly as you could reconstruct, or was it more about getting a sense of his general essence? Wow, that’s a big question, but no, what I did was, I just discovered what I thought was the core of his kind of energy, by my talking with people who liked, and also disliked, him. Also, through photographs - how he stood, whether his shoulders were up or down, and stuff like that. Small stuff, which I could see through pictures of when he was at the [Playboy] Mansion. I realized that he was wound very tightly, and he was very self-conscious, and he was very…from another era, almost. Once I got that, that was the core of his physicality, I just had to find his morality. And once I had that, I had this very pathetic man, and I popped him out there. One story from Star 80 I wanted to share - while I was working on the film, I got the most personal direction I’ve ever gotten from a director, and that was Bob Fosse. I was doing a scene one day and I was having problems with it. He asked to speak to me in private and he takes me aside and he says, “You’re playing me if I weren’t successful. Do you understand?”

(Roberts as Paul Snider in Star 80, below.)

What a great acting note. Was that typical of Bob Fosse’s directing style? Very specific notes? Real specific, which flowed into passionate, manic lunacy. It would go A-Z, A-Z, A-Z, but always very specific. In developing your character of Paulie in The Pope of Greenwich Village, was the manic nature of the character something that was alluded to in the script, or was it something that you brought to him? It was something that I brought to the guy. You know, that guy was kind of written as a tough, dumb thug. I basically took him off the page and made him a would-be-tough momma’s boy. Because it’s more fun to watch, and also, I’d seen a lot of tough thugs on screen before and I didn’t think I’d be the best one. At the end of the film, Paulie and Charlie walk down the street together, but you know they’re headed for more trouble. Did you and Mickey ever discuss whether they stayed alive? [laughs] Many, many times. You know, we just got the go-ahead for Pope, Part 2. So we have to decide where they walked off to. I would like to open Part 2 in Miami. On the beach. All I know right now is that it’s me and Mickey, and we’re reading a script.

(Roberts and Mickey Rourke in The Pope of Greenwich Village, above.)

You’ve remained friends with Mickey over the years. Neither of you ever went away, but you’re both having career resurgences at the same time. You know, every career does this three or four times, if it lasts. That’s how it goes. Once you get over the first dip, you’re okay. At first, it’s just like, “Wait a minute! Whoa! It’s going down. It’s not supposed to go down!” [laughs] But that’s what happens. Once you learn that, and realize, and you see that all the other actors once went through it, and all the younger ones are going through it now, you’re like, “Oh, okay, this is what we do. It’s all good. Hi, guys!” [laughs] What did you think of Mickey’s speech at the Spirit Awards? I was caught off guard, and I just wanted to crawl under a chair [laughs]. Because I was just so shocked. It was just so sweet, and so endearing, and I’ll never forget it, and I just want to kiss him for it. But it’s just embarrassing [laughs].

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Tim Hetherington In His Own Words. Rest in Peace.

(Tim Hetherington, above, during the shooting of RESTREPO.)

By Terry Keefe

News reports are stating that Tim Hetherington was tragically killed today in Libya. I interviewed Hetherington twice during the past year, along with Sebastian Junger, for Restrepo, the Oscar-nominated documentary they co-directed while embedded with an American platoon in Afghanistan.

Together, Hetherington and Junger created what I believe to be the most important film of the year. It is required viewing for all Americans, to be sure. Rest in peace.

I spoke to Hetherington and Junger two months ago, right before the Oscars, and prior to that, did a much longer interview with them on the shooting of Restrepo. I've reposted the entirety of that interview below.

BEARING WITNESS IN AFGHANISTAN: AN INTERVIEW WITH TIM HETHERINGTON & SEBASTIAN JUNGER, CO-DIRECTORS OF RESTREPO

I’ll just come out and say this - Restrepo is one of the best films about war ever made. My statement includes fiction and non, although Restrepo’s power is inseparable from the fact that it is a documentary. Filmmakers Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington embedded themselves for a year with the Second Platoon of Battle Company of the U.S. 173rd Airborne Brigade in the Korengal Valley in eastern Afghanistan to shoot the bulk of Restrepo and have created a non-fiction film which approximates the experience of a lengthy military deployment in the country as much as would be possible without actually going there oneself.

The Korengal Valley is a remote mountainous region utilized frequently by the Taliban for staging operations and for movements over the close border with Pakistan. In an already highly dangerous region, the Valley could be considered the epicenter of danger and has been dubbed “the Valley of Death” by U.S. forces. Junger and Hetherington made ten trips to the Korengal between May 2007 and July 2008, sometimes working together, and other times separately. The film is named after Army Private First Class Juan S. Restrepo who was killed in battle at the age of 20, during the platoon’s deployment in the Korengal. The platoon named their Korengal outpost, constructed and held at great peril, “Restrepo,” as well.

(The Korengal Valley, above.)

Junger and Hetherington deliberately keep Restrepo non-partisan, and consequently, the film contains no discussion of the political backdrops of the Afghanistan conflict. Instead, the filmmakers sought to open a window onto the lives of one group of very brave soldiers, and simply “bear witness,” a phrase that Hetherington uses in our talk to describe their objective. What makes Restrepo such an achievement is that it captures the day-to-day existence of soldiers in a manner which only fiction films about war have been able to in the past. The nearly unprecedented length of the embedment was key here, in that the filmmakers became such an accepted presence around the company, that the soldiers let all guard down, allowing for the true fly-on-the-wall feel that every good documentarian hopes for. Intimately shot, the battles are often harrowing, particularly one in which a soldier is killed, sparking the temporary mental anguish of another, all as the bullets keep flying. The daily tension of waiting for the other shoe to drop permeates the film, much as it did in Platoon, the difference here being, again, that Restrepo is real.

Junger rose to prominence as the author of The Perfect Storm, has reported extensively from war zones around the world – including Monrovia and Sierra Leone, and recently released another best-selling book, War, which also covers his time with Battle Company in Afghanistan. UK-born Hetherington is a contributing photographer for Vanity Fair, lived behind the rebel lines as a photographer while the Liberian civil war raged, and has received four World Press Photo prizes.

The film has been justifiably short-listed in the Documentary Category for the upcoming Academy Awards, and won the Grand Jury Prize for U.S. Documentary at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.

After watching Restrepo, it is almost a surreal contrast to be sitting with Junger and Hetherington at the Avalon Hotel in Beverly Hills, sipping coffee on a sunny day, but here we are.

You chose not to editorialize one way or the other on the merits or politics of the war in Afghanistan. Was that a choice you made going in, right from the start?

Tim Hetherington: Well, we're journalists, so our default position is we're not writing editorial. We're trying to bring information to readers, viewers, so that they can make up their own conclusions.

It's refreshing to hear somebody say that these days.

Sebastian Junger: Good. Yeah, we're making a documentary, but we're making a documentary as journalists. And we had a very specific mandate that we'd given ourselves, to bring the experience of being a soldier to viewers. And soldiers aren't political. We really didn't want anything in the movie that wasn't part of their reality, so we don't even ask the general how he feels. We never tried to get an interview with the general at the main base, about the strategy, because the soldiers don't have the opportunity to ask those questions either. So that was our sort of central ethos with the movie, to create their reality onscreen.

Hetherington: And you know, part of this is that we're bearing witness to what’s happening. And in bearing witness, by not having opinions, then we're just recording everything that we come across. It’s not like we're sort of saying, “Oh, we've got to present soldiers, and this film is glorifying soldiering.” It's not, it's just that this is bearing witness to what happens, this is what their reality is like, the good and the bad. That they [the soldiers] responded to that, when they saw the film… it was really gratifying, because it was true to their experience, both the good and the bad.

Was this length of embedment difficult to get authorization for?

Junger: I don't know. It wasn't for us -

Hetherington: Well, you did something different, though, I think people just don't do that kind of thing.

Junger: Yeah. Well, I had been with Battle Company in 2005, and so I went back to the military and I said, “I want to follow a platoon from Battle Company for a whole deployment -- when they go back to Afghanistan.” And someone signed off on it, and then I think they forgot about it. And so the public affairs officer that I dealt with, he knew me: “Ah, here you are again. Okay. Good luck in the Korengal” - but I think, higher up than that, they weren't really focused on it.

If someone had put the question to some general: “Okay, there's a couple of journalists who are going to follow a platoon for ten one-month trips,” it's possible that that general could get uncomfortable with the idea, because we're going to see stuff that a journalist doesn't usually see. Soldiers are going to become open in a way that they aren't when you're just there for two weeks and you leave. But the issue never rose to that level in the military.

Hetherington: The average embed is like a week. Two weeks. Friends of mine who did rotations regularly in Iraq, and Afghanistan, the longest they're there with a group of soldiers is two weeks, and then they don't really ever see them again. So I think what we did was kind of just unusual.

Well, you guys were part of the company, basically, in many ways.

Hetherington: Yeah. Apart from pulling guard duty, which they tried to get us to do - you know, in the middle of the night - or carrying a gun. We were at a screening last night, a Q&A, and we were talking about this - because in the film you see a moment where the guy's shooting somebody - and then they're cheering him. As journalists, because you don't carry a gun, you sort of become this observer.

Last night, guys who are Iraq veterans were watching the film, we talked in the Q&A about their interests, and it was kind of cool to have a very open conversation, like, “Why do soldiers cheer when they shoot someone? What is the idea behind that?”

Junger: Because they're not sociopaths. You need some other explanation, other than a psychological disorder, because that's not what it is.

What were some of the things that came out when you posed that question? Were they able to put it into words?

Junger: You know, in the movie, the kind of movie we did, we didn't tackle that question directly. We let it unfold. In my book, I tackle it directly, I ask [a soldier], “What was that about?" And he said, “I know it doesn't look good, but that's one more guy who's not gonna kill one of us. And we're cheering, we're really cheering that fact, more than his suffering or whatever.”



(A firefight at the Restrepo outpost, above.)

One of the things you notice immediately in the film, is how young these guys are. The fact that soldiers are young is obviously something you know, but as a civilian, I think you forget about it. And you have this young captain (Captain Dan Kearney) who has the most difficult job in the world. He has to deal with his own guys, the enemy, and the village.

Hetherington: The captain's like twenty-six, twenty-seven.

Junger: The lieutenant was twenty-three.

Hetherington: And I mean, that was part of the point [of the film]. Again, we just thought we'd eschew the political point of view, because we wanted to create a paradigm-shift in thinking, really, about a war, which is…people at home need to understand what these men experience, what we're asking them when we send them to war. What does that actually mean? And, you know, polarizing it politically is not really a useful strategy to getting as many people as possible to understand their reality, so we can understand, “What are we asking them to do?” And “Is it right?”

As you've said, you look at the guys, and they're eighteen to twenty-three, and they're dealing with some of the existential questions of living and dying that we only deal with as we get old. It's astounding.


(Capt. Dan Kearney meets with village elders, above.)

What was an eye-opener for me is that you would think the war in Afghanistan is all smart bombs and high-tech warfare from watching the pundits speak on the news domestically, but the actual experience on the ground is a lot closer to Vietnam.

Hetherington: As a photographer, when you say to me, “Picture the war machine,” I will say to you, “Oh, give me a picture of an Apache attack helicopter or missiles or an aircraft carrier - that's the war machine.”

The real war machine is taking young men, training them together, putting them on the side of a mountain in Korengal, and they're gonna kill and be killed for each other. And there's something very intimate and very human about that. In society we want to sanitize war, or we're asking to dehumanize that, to make it very inanimate. It's actually doing a disservice to the people, and to ourselves.

It’s interesting that the soldiers, and we as the viewers, rarely seem to actually see the Taliban. Was that because it was difficult for you to shoot images of the Taliban? Do the soldiers see them fairly frequently?

Junger: No, they don't. They almost never saw them. So the film reflects their reality.

It's almost an invisible enemy.

Junger: They say the same thing. I mean, the guys in Iraq, that's urban warfare. That’s probably a little closer and uglier -- but yeah, in the Korengal…the thing is, if you can see someone you can kill them, so each side is going out of their way to not be seen.

(Lighter moments at the outpost, above.)

One of the soldiers says that, before going to the valley, he didn't want to do any research on it. To what degree did you two research the Korengal, or did you take a similar approach?

Hetherington: Yeah, that should be my line. I didn't want to read up on it – [laughs] - but, initially when I went in there – in 2007, I had been doing undercover filming in Sri Lanka, for Human Rights Watch, doing a film about right-wing death squads, and suddenly I was going to Afghanistan, to work with Sebastian, initially for Vanity Fair, and so I really didn't have time to catch my breath, to think about what I was doing.

And I thought, “Oh, Afghanistan, it's gonna be quiet out there, we're gonna walk down the mountains, we're going to drink cups of tea and occasionally we'll get shot at.” And we met in Heathrow Airport, and we went over, and a couple of days in, I remember looking at each other, “What is going on here? This is insane.”

It was incredible, the amount of fighting. It was very obvious Afghanistan was slipping out of control, and we were also with this group of guys who were pretty incredible, just really interesting, and we were suddenly in this crazy little outpost on the side of a mountain.

It was really, really unusual, and I was just, like, “Wow.” That's when [we decided] we were gonna make a film.

And you made a number of trips. Was it difficult to get back on that plane each time? Or were you excited to go back?

Junger: I always dreaded it a little bit, because something bad always almost happens. But it was also, physically it was hard, the patrols were hard. But I got really close to those guys, and when I wasn't there, I missed them. I never was happy to have to leave.

You obviously had to build the trust of the soldiers. Did it come quickly?

Hetherington: I mean, all journalism is predicated on access, and the press and the military have a prickly relationship, you know, historically. But, we're used to going into those situations and integrating ourselves into people's lives, that's what I do as a documentarian. And as a good documentary filmmaker, you want to be inside that experience. You seek that emotional “inside-ness,” and I think once they saw that we were just going to do everything they did, they were like, “Okay, these guys are in for the long haul.”

It wasn't a case of being there for four days. They had no running water or electricity, just a bunch of sandbags, and we were sleeping out in the open. Very dirty, dusty, no hot food, no hot showers, no internet or phone, no electricity. We would go on every patrol and every combat situation, and after a couple of those kind of trips, they got it.

In terms of what you would shoot and what you wouldn't, during Operation Rock Avalanche, there's a death -

Hetherington: Yeah.

Did you take the attitude: We're just gonna shoot it, and then request later if it's okay to put it into the film?

Junger: Yeah, we showed them.

Hetherington: I mean, we showed everything. There was nothing where it was like, “I shouldn't be filming this.”

Junger: There was no request process. We never checked with the military if anything was okay. We would just try to use our own sense of, uh, well, morality, really. “What's appropriate to show, particularly in light of the fact that veterans and mothers will watch this?”

Hetherington: And also, we wanted to make sure, again, that the film is inclusive. That doesn't mean you've got to water it down, but sure, I've got a picture of a soldier with the back of his head blown off, I've got a more graphic picture of wounded Afghans or dead Afghans. You do see dead and mutilated Afghans, you do see a dead American soldier. You just see it in a way [in this film]…that doesn't seek to shock you. It does shock you emotionally, but…seeing someone's brains leaking out of the back of their head… you don't need to see that.

This is what I do for a living. I film this for a living. I've worked for Human Rights Watch in Chad covering massacre sites, or, you know, in Liberia, and there is a utility to stuff. It's important to film everything, so it's on record, and it's accessible to people, if you want it and need it professionally, but it's also trying to build bridges, for people trying to understand these realities. You have to kind of work out a realistic way to do that.

In terms of directing together and shooting together, did you set out a shorthand in advance, in terms of who would film what and when?

Junger: We weren't always there together. But when we were there together, if there was a scene unfolding that would benefit by two cameras - I mean, sometimes I had to take notes, and Tim would shoot, or sometimes Tim had to shoot, or take stills, and I would shoot - but if there was a scene, like when they were negotiating about the cow, Tim and I would sort of whisper to each other a lot about, okay, who covers what, because we knew this was going to be a kind of interesting scene.

Were you editing the film as you went along?

Junger: No.

Hetherington: No. We shot it, and then we came back. I was on the last helicopter out with them. We went to Italy three months later, where [Battle Company] was based, and did the post-interviews, as a device because we wanted them to be the narrators of their own story, in a way.

We weren't company shrinks, and we weren't the authority figures, we weren't in their family, but we were friends, we could ask them very good questions about particular moments, like, “When that happened, what were you thinking? How did that make you feel?”

Those are amazing interviews.

Hetherington: At the end of the five days, we did three a day, we were just brain-dead. It was this intense emotional intensity.

Did you show them any of the Korengal footage before the interviews, or did you wish them to speak entirely from their own recollections?

Hetherington: No, we didn't show any footage. It was just a black background, two cameras, and, you know, let's go for it.

As you were cutting, were there a number of different possible films that emerged?
Junger: Any film could have been a million other films. The events that happen are in historical sequence. We didn't pick up one battle, drop it in, and--

Hetherington: Yeah, winter follows the Rock Avalanche [mission], which it does, and then goes into the spring.

Junger: We emphasize different things, more or less, than other things. One of our sort of central ethos in editing this was there was no one in the film that's not fighting in the Korengal. No generals, no wives, no diplomats, just the guys. But the other one in terms of editing, was - for me, one of my guideposts - was “Does watching the movie elicit the emotions to me that I was having when I was out there?” We’d cut together some scenes that were clever and sort of revealing or whatever, but something about them would feel false, and I realized what felt false was I wasn't having the same emotion that I had out there. Something that's clever isn't…that's not an emotion I had out there. You know what I mean? So it's not in the film. There were a lot of things that were pretty charming, or painful, but it wasn't quite true to those same feelings, and so -

Hetherington: That's why we had humor in the film.

Junger: Yeah, yeah.

Hetherington: Because some things out there were really funny. It kind of shocks people, but it's funny. People's conceptions of what war is, people who have never been there, who've only been studying it or whatever…it's completely different from people who've experienced it, and we just wanted to bring that home, try to mediate that experience in an honest way, and so the film is funny.

The sequence with the dead cow comes to mind, with the villagers looking for compensation from the soldiers. There’s a lot of humor, but it’s also a legitimate problem for the soldiers…which makes it funnier.

Hetherington: Somebody asked me the other day about that, because in Apocalypse Now, there's the scene when they brought the cow in by helicopter, and I was asked, “Did you notice that?'” and I said, “I've never thought about that.”

Another moment that reminded of Apocalypse Now was that a soldier reads a surfing magazine. Francis Copolla was criticized by some for putting those absurdist moments in that film, although your film shows those contrasts are real.
Hetherington: Right, right.

Is the outpost still manned? Or when they left, was it destroyed?

Hetherington: Taken over by insurgents. And, in fact, there was an Al Jazeera caravan embedded with the insurgents, and now the place is on the internet. And I saw it, and a lot of the local people they [the American soldiers] were doing business with were in that video, milling around with the insurgents, or carrying weapons or part of the insurgency, so that was kind of really interesting.

You were both injured during the shoot.

Junger: Yeah.

Sebastian, it was your Achilles?

Junger: I ruptured my Achilles tendon.

That's a horrible injury.

Junger: I mean, it wasn't a complete rupture, it was a partial tear. But it was enough to mess me up for a couple weeks.

And were you able to get to a hospital or leave?

Junger: No, no, I stayed out there. I just crawled the first day, hopped the second day [laughs], limped the third day, and I could sort of go on patrols the fourth day.

Hetherington: The terrain was really unforgiving, you know.

People that have blown an Achilles say it's incredibly intense pain.

Junger: It wasn't. It wasn't a complete blow. Because if you rupture your Achilles down here, where it's a real cord, I imagine that's pretty bad. Mine was torn higher up, where the Achilles branches out, and feeds into the muscle, and it tore halfway through, in that part that spreads out. So it still functioned, but not very well. Like, I couldn't, I could put weight on my foot, but I couldn't push off at all. I couldn't do anything with my toes, I could not push off, so it's very hard to walk without pushing off your toes. So I sort of flopped my foot forward, then just rolled over it.

We were in the middle of a climb up to Restrepo with bags, with gear. Within a few hundred yards, I realized I was actually tremendously straining my right leg, and I was like, “Shit, something else is going on.” And it was a really horrible, horrible walk, to get to Restrepo. And there was shooting in the valley, and I just didn't want to slow people down -

Hetherington: I was just thinking about the mountains and climbing, and how many other films have been made where you carry the equipment on your backs? You now have these new lightweight cameras to film with, but I'm talking about, like, you know, everything. So if you actually put together a film kit, normally, it's quite a lot: You've got a tripod, and chargers, and stuff -- but everything that we had to make the film, we had to carry on our backs.

Junger: Along with our bullet-proof vests. I mean, it was a lot of gear. I would occasionally get questions from people about our “film crew.” [laughs]

The gaffer and best boy.

Junger: Yeah, I was gonna ask 'em about the catering service [laughs]. So it was what we could carry, along with the rest of the stuff we needed to carry, to just be with those soldiers.

Hetherington: There’s no electricity in Restrepo, so we'd have to charge batteries.

Do you know what you each are working on next?

Junger: I might go, probably go back to Afghanistan this spring. Not necessarily for a film.

Hetherington: Going to do some Vanity Fair camera stuff.

I'm not sure who first said this, maybe it was Oliver Stone, but if you make a war film, it's almost by nature an anti-war film, even if it's as objective as possible. Have you gotten that reaction from people?

Unger: Yeah.

Hetherington: Yeah. That's what's so funny, when people are upset that we haven't made a kind of voice-over/moral condemnation -

Do you need it?

Hetherington: Yeah. Do I need to tell you what to think? Isn't it enough just to show you what it's like?

The thing that a lot of people misunderstand, a misunderstanding about war is that war…and it was Murray Fromson, who's a very respected journalist, he covered the fall of Saigon, covered the Year Zero in Cambodia, you know, Korean War, Vietnam War. And he said, that war abases you, it kind of humiliates you, but you also find a kind of humanity. And I think that people that want the outright moral condemnation of the war [in the film] feel conflicted with the kind of position, where [we] actually also reveal the humanity of the soldiers, and I find that really confusing. Well, it's not confusing, but the nuance of war is that all of these emotions actually do exist in the same place, and that, you know, it's not just one thing or the other, it's a mixture of the stuff.

Restrespo is now out on DVD.

Restrepo website.

Two Vanity Fair articles by Sebastian Junger about his time in Afghanistan are online, and include photos by Tim Hetherington.

“Into the Valley of Death”

“Return to the Valley of Death”

Read More

LAUREN BACALL: The Hollywood Interview!

( Lauren Bacall and Woody Harrelson in The Walker.)

LAUREN BACALL WALKS THE WALK
By Alex Simon

Lauren Bacall has been a screen icon since her 1944 debut in Howard Hawks’ To Have and Have Not, which also brought her together with her first husband, the equally iconic Humphrey Bogart, setting the stage for one of Hollywood’s great romances. Now an 83 years-young dynamo, Lauren Bacall was born Betty Jean Perske in New York City on September 16, 1924.

A veteran performer of over 60 films and television productions, Miss Bacall is also a two-time Tony award-winning actress for her triumphant turns on Broadway in Applause and Woman of the Year, both of which, ironically enough, are musicals based on movies.

Miss Bacall makes her 67th film appearance as a high society matron in Paul Schrader’s The Walker, a murder mystery set among the elite of Washington D.C. Starring Woody Harrelson in the title role as the “walker,” or escort for unaccompanied ladies, the film also features fine support from Kristin Scott-Thomas, Lily Tomlin, Ned Beatty and Willem Dafoe. The THINKFilm release is currently in theaters. Miss Bacall spoke to us recently about her amazing life. Renowned for never mincing words, she didn’t disappoint! Peruse on, gentle readers…

One thing that struck me while watching The Walker were all the parallels between Washington D.C. and Hollywood. Did you find that, as well?

Lauren Bacall: That’s interesting. I think that Hollywood, just the name, has been misused over the years, so that everyone in Southern California is “in Hollywood,” when nobody is. “Hollywood” has come to mean something else, usually negative. I just thought of this story as being uniquely Eastern, which of course, Washington D.C. is. And D.C. in many ways is very much like (the character of) the walker. I think in most big cities the same thing exists: some odd guy who will escort a woman who’s on her own.

I guess I was thinking more in terms of the tenuous nature of relationships in both cities, what friendships are based on, and how the definition of what constitutes friendship constantly seems to shift, depending upon where you happen to lie on the chess board at the time.

Yeah, I see what you’re saying, but I think the values are entirely different there. In Washington it’s all about power plays and games. They love to play games there. One tries to outdo the other and always wants to know what the other one is doing. There’s a scene where the Woody Harrelson character leans forward to Kristin Scott Thomas and he says “They’re looking at me now because they’re all wondering what I’m saying to you.” And it’s true. That is very much the political scene. Although I don’t really consider it a political movie.

No, it’s very much a social commentary disguised as a murder mystery.

Yes, and it’s very stylish, too. It’s got a wonderful cast of people, and it’s a very classy people. Paul Schrader writes very well.

I think he’s one of our great screenwriters. When I interviewed him a few years ago, I told him he was America’s cinematic sociologist.

(laughs) What did he say?

He laughed, and said “Well, I never thought of myself that way, but…”
…now that you mention it…”

(laughs) I agree with you! That’s funny.

Most of your scenes are with Woody Harrelson in the film. What was he like as a scene partner?

I liked him very much. He has a quality I admire tremendously: he’s a total professional. He always is prepared, always gives serious thought to what he’s doing, and he’s a really nice guy! We all got along amazingly well. Lily Tomlin and I are now bosom buddies.

Can we talk about Mr. Bogart?

(laughs) What have you got in mind?

You said something very interesting in your first memoir, that he was not a “tough guy” at all, in spite of the types of roles he played.

He was a very gentle soul. He was very strong, and very sure about what he believed in and what he thought was important and not important. He couldn’t be pushed around. But he was a gentle man. I was very, very lucky to have even met him, much less have been married to him. He had extraordinary gifts. He was much more of a complete individuals than most people are. He had the kind of standards my mother had. Their values were very much the same. It was very interesting. He had tremendous character and a great sense of honor and would not tolerate lies, even if they asked him what he though of a movie. We were once at a screening at somebody’s house, I forget whose, and they ran a movie that he was in, that he never thought much of. Afterward, the producer asked what he thought of it, and Bogie said “I think it’s a crock.” (laughs) And this producer was horrified! He was about the release the movie, and he said to Bogie “Why would you say that?!” Bogie shrugged and said “Then don’t ask me.” He never played the schmoozing game. He was not into that at all.

None of that surprises me because his acting was very honest. He always played very straightforward characters.

That’s right. And that’s who he was. But he was also sentimental, and romantic. He had all those other qualities that were irresistible. And he was highly intelligent. He was an avid reader. He was also a great, great chess player. I mean, a major chess player.

The two of you were very outspoken against the House Un-American Activities Committee, along with many others, including Danny Kaye and John Huston.

Yes, and this was before Joseph McCarthy. This was J. Parnell Thomas, who it turned out was a crook, and had his entire family on the payroll. He was a nightmare. He was a congressman from New Jersey. He was the one who thought up the HUAC. He was an awful, awful man.

An awful man, and an awful time. And there are many parallels between that time, and the time in which we’re currently living.

Yes, the times in which we’re currently living unfortunately, our great leader is such a disaster and the entire country is in disastrous shape because of him. It’s very frightening, actually, to think that this country has become what it’s become and that so many people voted for a man like that. It’s terrifying.

Are we ready to have a woman President?

Absolutely. Why not? Women have proven already that they have as much information and are as intelligent as men, and are every bit as gung-ho for any kind of work. I myself just haven’t made a decision yet. It’s too early. We have an entire year yet of campaigning coming up, and it’s already exhausting.

I’m still hoping that Al Gore will pull a Bobby Kennedy and throw his hat in the ring late.

That would be great, but I don’t think he will. Why should he? He doesn’t need that now. He’s been so recognized now for the kind of man he is, and all the things he’s accomplished. He was talking about global warming 30 years ago. We’d all like to see him run, but I don’t think it’s going to happen.

You were friendly with RFK, weren’t you?

Oh, I adored him. We’d have a different country now if he’d lived. What a tragedy that was. I knew he and Ethel fairly well, and knew that he was capable of changing himself and evolving to such a degree. There was always something so touching about him, so moving. He really had feelings and was able to express them. And what he believed in would’ve brought so much to America, so much more quality that we’ve been living in the middle of for quite some time. Why would they shoot someone like him, or Jack Kennedy for that matter? Why would they do something like that?

It sometimes seems as though if a person becomes too evolved, they check out, or they’re taken out.

Yes, and the madmen seem to live on forever, don’t they?

Let’s go back to some of the people you’ve worked with over the years. Why don’t we start with the man who discovered you: Howard Hawks.

Marvelous, marvelous director of tremendous variety. If you think of the quality of the movies that he made, and how different each of them were, and how fantastic they all were. And he had a great sense of the motion picture, of the photography, of the shape of the screen, of the actors. He was brilliant, absolutely brilliant. I was so lucky and would have remained so lucky if I hadn’t fallen in love with Mr. Bogart, because he washed his hands of me the minute that happened. He couldn’t control me anymore. He was a control freak.

I’d say things still worked out pretty well in your favor.

Absolutely. I wouldn’t change a thing.

What about Ernest Hemingway?

Hemingway was an odd guy. He was a big boozer, as you know, but I didn’t know him well, but had dinner with him one night in Spain, when I was on location for a movie, and I was taken there by Slim Hawks, who was then married to Leland Hayward, and had known Hemingway since she was a kid. So much of Hemingway was phony. He flirted with women with his wife sitting right there, and he always said “Oh honey, just call me Papa…” He wrote wonderfully, but the way he spoke, he was always kind of batting his eyes at you. It was an odd experience, really. I was very excited to meet him, and Bogie always wanted to do The Old Man and the Sea, because he loved the story and he loved the sea so much. But, again, I didn’t really know him well, but I think he was not great with women. Martha Gellhorn (Hemingway’s third wife) was a great friend of mine, and she’s the only one who never really talked about him publicly, interestingly enough.

What about William Faulkner?

(laughs) He was adorable. He was this great writer, and Howard Hawks had known him before, and always gave him a job, because Howard knew that Faulkner was always broke. Faulkner had so many wonderful eccentricities. Did you ever hear the story about when he asked the studio bosses if he could work at home, instead of at the writer’s building in the studio?

No, what happened?

Well, the studio was very excited to have him working on this movie, but after a couple weeks, they hadn’t received any material from him, and Faulkner said ‘Do you mind if I work at home? I just can’t concentrate here at the studio?” The studio said sure, and that’s exactly what Faulkner did, he went home—to Mississippi! (laughs) He was really a lovely, very shy man, and an alcoholic, as many writers have been. But he was always glad to see all of us. We were always in Rome at the same time. He was working on a Howard Hawks movie, Land of the Pharaohs, when Harry Curtis, who was another wonderful writer and a great friend of mine, went to Rome, and wanted to see Faulkner. So he found out where Faulkner was staying, and opens the door, and this white uniform flashes by quickly—obviously a nurse. And there’s Faulkner in bed, just coming off a bender. And he looks up at Harry, who says “Hi Bill, how you doing?” Faulkner said (thick Southern accent) “Well hello Harry. I’m fine, but I just can’t seem to shake this cold.” (laughs) He never talked about the booze. He was marvelous. I have many stories about him, but that would be going far into left field, so let’s stay focused.

Fair enough. I know that you and Kirk Douglas have had a long, enduring friendship, going back to your days at The American Academy of Dramatic Art in New York. In fact, you both appeared together in the film Diamonds a few years back.

Yes, I was 15 when I first met Kirk. He is amazing! At 90 he’s still writing books, just extraordinary, when you think what he’s been through physically with the stroke. He’s a real character and when I knew him was a womanizer beyond being a womanizer! (laughs) I mean, he was so over-the-top. But, he was so attractive and just a wonderful actor. I had such a crush on him when I was a kid. And of course, he made passes at me, because that’s what he did with nearly every woman he met, but I was so young, I didn’t know one pass from another! (laughs)

In his first memoir, as I’m sure you know, he says that you were one of the only young ladies during that period who managed to hang on to her virtue after going out with him, and he admired you for that.

That’s right. But God knows he tried! (laughs) I gave him my uncle’s overcoat because he was so poor. He had no money at all. New York was, and is, freezing during the winter and my favorite uncle had a couple of overcoats, and one that he didn’t wear very much. So I convinced my uncle to give it to me to give to Kirk. Kirk lived in a walk-up, three stories, and I carried that coat up three floors to give to him.

And he never forgot that, either. He talked about that in “The Ragman’s Son.”

No, he never forgot. He’s a dear.

You had the rare privilege of being on location for The African Queen with Mr. Bogart, John Huston and your good friend Katharine Hepburn. What was that like?

It was amazing. First of all, Africa was fabulous, and I loved every second of it, unless I saw some creepy Tarantula or snake, then I didn’t love it so much. John Huston was to me, a genius. I thought he was the best director of all. He always chose subjects that weren’t what you would think of as “commercial.” They were never based on hit books, or plays, or anything like that. He did things that were interesting and fascinating. He was so wonderful to work with, and he was such a character. He and Bogie were really close pals. Anytime he made a movie, he wanted Bogie in it, and Bogie followed him blindly. Although John was not known for choosing locations that were comfortable, Bogie would go along with him in a second. They really liked each other a lot. John was unique in every possible way, and a funny, funny guy. I remember one time, we were all flying to Paris for the weekend: Katie, John, Bogie and myself, were on the plane from London. And Katie was going to meet the Kanins: Garson Kanin and Ruth Gordon, and Spencer (Tracy) was there, so she was going to have a little rendezvous with those four. In the hotel we shared a suite, Bogie and I had one bedroom and John had the other, with a joint living room. John was so hysterically funny there are no words to describe it. (laughs) How rare a thing is it to have someone like John with a brilliant mind who is a great director, amazing actor, a wonderful writer and really unusual and then have him be wonderful company, as well? Unpredictable, but always interesting. Just an amazing man. I was lucky.

Do they even make people like Huston, Mr. Bogart, Miss Hepburn or you anymore?

No, they don’t! They aren’t people like us anymore. The standards, the principles, it’s all about money now, which makes me sick. I mean, I like money as much as anybody else, but I think this country has become so commercial and my profession has become all about money. It’s as if making $20 million a movie somehow makes you a better person, you know? Most of the great geniuses that are running the business now seem to think that. Huston’s standards were very high when it came to his work. The work always came first, not the money.

In The Shootist you got to work with two of my all-time heroes: John Wayne and Don Siegel. Tell us about that.

Duke Wayne and I got along really well, considering that we didn’t agree about anything! (laughs) It was quite amazing. He was great to work with. He really liked me, and I really liked him. We had great chemistry together. But he was so awful to Don Siegel. He kept saying things like “You call this a set-up? What kind of a director are you?” Duke wanted to direct the movie. He was difficult, boy. And Don Siegel was a wonderful director. I like the movie a lot and after all, Duke was a dying man making that movie. It was quite an experience.

As a teenager you had a fortuitous meeting with Bette Davis, didn’t you?

Yes, I did. She was absolutely my idol growing up. I just worshipped her. She was the most amazing actress, and had this quality about her that was unparalleled, and I still feel that way. My Uncle Jack had a friend named Robin, who was Bette Davis’ assistant. She was coming to New York, and Uncle Jack arranged a meeting for me and my best friend. So we went to her hotel, I think it was the Gotham Hotel, and I was so nervous I was shaking from head to foot. My whole body was shaking! We went up to her suite and sat on the sofa in the living room, and suddenly out comes Bette Davis, with that walk! I thought I was going to keel over. Fortunately, I didn’t! I said ‘I want to be an actress,’ and she told me that I’d have to work very hard…and the fact that she allowed us to be in her room and have a conversation with her, was just amazing. We didn’t have a very long time with her. She gave us tea, and I was afraid I was going to break the cup because I was shaking so badly. (laughs)

Did you wind up getting to know her at all once you became a famous actress yourself?

No, funnily enough, I never did. She was not easy to know. She was not a very warm, open, friendly woman. Katie Hepburn, for example, was a very warm, open vulnerable woman. She was very easy to get to and to approach. When I was on the Warner Bros. lot even, she mentioned to Jack Warner that I should be cast in a film they were doing. Other than that, I never had any direct contact with her until much later. Also, after the meeting with her I wrote a letter thanking her, and she wrote me back! That was pretty amazing, too.

Do you still have that letter?

I think I have it somewhere. I’m sure I kept it, but over the years, who knows? Things fall through the cracks. But later I was on Broadway in Applause, of course, playing Margo Channing, which was her role in All About Eve, and which will always be her part, because it was on the screen, and the screen lasts forever, thanks to Martin Scorsese. So I feel a connection to her through that, as well.

Let’s talk about some of your stage work.

Well, Applause was certainly the highlight of it, because it was my first musical, and I’d always wanted to do a musical.

And you won a Tony for your first musical.

Yes, and I won for Woman of the Year, too, funnily enough playing the part that Katie Hepburn played in the movie version, which came first. (laughs)

Does the process of working on the stage and screen differ for you?

Well, the major difference is time: when you do a movie, it’s a much shorter process, but you don’t see the final product until a year or two later, and by then you’ve moved onto other things. But on the stage, that’s the real place for actors, because you have an immediate response from your audience. Doing eight shows a week is difficult. It requires stamina and tremendous energy, and you really don’t have room in your life for much else but it is, I think, the most rewarding and gratifying way to be an actor because it’s live, and you connect with the audience.
Another great experience you had in the theater was being directed by the great playwright Harold Pinter in Tennessee Williams’ Sweet Bird of Youth.

Oh, Harold is one of my heroes! I adore that man. That was the only time I’ve been lucky enough to speak the words of Tennessee Williams. That was the beginning of this wonderful friendship I’ve had with Harold over the years. Plus, opening in London was amazing, because it’s one of my favorite places in the world. It’s the greatest theater city in the world. You can go to The National Theater and see three different plays. There’s always something you want to see, although it’s usually not playing when you’re there. (laughs) The other great thing about London in my profession, they appreciate actors who are in flops. If someone was devoted to John Gielgud, they stayed that way whether he was in a hit play, or not! In America, if you’re not number one, two, or three on the list, you’re out. Move on to the next one.

It’s interesting: every European actor I’ve interviewed has said the same thing: in the States it’s a business, and in Europe, it’s a community.

Absolutely. They’re interested in quality. They have standards and respect for the medium they’re working in, whether it’s in the movies or in the theater.

Was it a different experience being directed by someone who’s also a writer, as Mr. Pinter is?

Well, I’ve found in other plays that I’ve been in that have been directed by someone other than the writer, the writer always has to be there in case something needs to be changed, or to make sure that you don’t change anything. But Harold, being the great writer that he is, was meticulous about sticking to the text of Tennessee Williams. Harold had tremendous respect for his words, as he should have.

You also got to work with the great Robert Altman twice. Tell us about Brother Bob.

He was extraordinary, a unique talent. He knew what he wanted and his choices were fascinating, because his point of view came from another place, much different than most of us have. I think the sad thing is that Health was not paid more attention to, because it was perfectly timed with the election of Ronald Reagan, and it also involved the characters of Adlai Stevenson and Dwight Eisenhower. I had a great time on that, but unfortunately Pret a Porter was not so good, but he was not in good health when we were doing that. There was some great moments in it, though. He was an original.

Another original you’ve worked with recently is Lars Von Treer.

(big laugh) I’ll say!

What was that experience like?

He’s another real character. You had to unlearn everything you’d learned about working in movies working with Lars. He was holding the camera all the time, so you never knew if you were in the scene, or not in the scene. And there were no sets. It was all drawn out on the soundstage, on the floor. It was a fascinating experience. I finally liked it very much, but we all felt kind of peculiar initially because we didn’t understand the way he wanted to do it, until we realized. But he’s a very talented man. I loved Breaking the Waves, which was an amazing film, and why I was so thrilled when he asked me to do Dogville. It’s funny, a lot of people still ask me what that film was about. (laughs) I always say, ‘Don’t ask me, ask Lars.’

You’ve certainly seen films and filmmaking change since you began in ’44.

Yes, it has and they have. I wish there wasn’t so much violence in films today. I saw two films recently, There Will Be Blood and American Gangster, both very good films, but they were so violent. With all the violence in the world, and with all the dialogue about decreasing violence, why are movies so violent?

We’re living in a violent time, and I think that art, especially film, holds up a mirror to the time in which they’re made. Look at the films of the late 60’s and early ‘70s: Bonnie & Clyde, The Wild Bunch, Straw Dogs, A Clockwork Orange, The Godfather, all those films were emblematic of the time in which they were made.

Yes, that’s true. And now, the time we’re living in is under a government that doesn’t care about art, any kind of art, whether it’s painting, or sculpture, or the performing arts. You don’t think George Bush gives a goddamn about any of that, do you? The main problem is that the government that represents us reflects itself in the art that the country creates. And there’s certainly nothing that encourages creativity in this bloody government. It can’t get any worse, I don’t think.

Any final thoughts?

Well, I hope that I keep my health and I hope that we elect a decent President because I can’t stand the thought of living with more of this kind of horror that we’ve been living with now for so many years. It is so disgraceful, and why Bush wasn’t impeached immediately, I’ll never understand. By the way, if you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m a liberal—the L word! (laughs)

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