Matthew Broderick: The Hollywood Interview

Matthew Broderick in Wonderful World.

THE EDUCATION OF MATTHEW BRODERICK
How the most (arguably) iconic juvenile lead of the 1980s has not only matured into one of our finest character actors, but just keeps getting better

By Alex Simon

If we are all a combination of nature and nurture, actor Matthew Broderick is both. The son of acclaimed character actor James Broderick (best-known as the father on the 1970s hit series “Family”) and playwright/author/painter Patricia Broderick, Matthew’s upbringing in an artistic environment led him to take the stage at age 17, opposite his father in a production of On Valentine’s Day.

Two Tony awards and many decades later finds Matthew Broderick’s resume filled with some of the most iconic films of the 1980s: WarGames, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Glory to name a few, where Matthew established himself not only as one of the finest, and most versatile, young film actors of his generation, but distinguished himself on Broadway as well, in now-legendary plays such as Torch Song Trilogy and Neil Simon’s autobiographical Brighton Beach Memoirs and Biloxi Blues (a role he repeated in the film version, directed by Mike Nichols).

The ‘90s saw Broderick step into more mature roles such as the voice of adult Simba in the Disney hit The Lion King, and that of the hapless, but well-meaning, high school teacher in Alexander Payne’s scathing satire Election, a part which has become somewhat archetypical of Broderick’s later work. He also made his directing debut with Infinity in 1996, penned by his mother. The new century found Broderick again a star of the Broadway stage, originating the role of nebbishy accountant Leo Bloom in the musical of Mel Brooks’ The Producers, opposite Nathan Lane, for which he received a Tony nomination.

Matthew Broderick’s latest big screen outing is writer/director Josh Goldin’s Wonderful World. Broderick stars as Ben Singer, a failed children’s music composer struggling to find meaning in his life. When his Senegalese roommate (Michael K. Williams) has a health scare, Ben finds himself drawn to the roommate’s beautiful and kind-hearted sister (Sanaa Lathan), whose gentle, loving nature forces Ben to reevaluate his cynical view of life. Also starring Ally Walker, Philip Baker Hall and Jodelle Ferland, the Magnolia Pictures release opens in New York and L.A. January 8.

Matthew Broderick sat down with The Hollywood Interview during a recent visit from his native New York to discuss his latest role and other adventures in the screen trade. Here’s what followed:

Tell us about your character of Ben Singer and how you found the heart of this very cynical, “glass half-empty” man.

Matthew Broderick: Well, I have my cynical side so it was fun to explore that. The film is written and directed by Josh Goldin, who’s been a very dear friend of mine for about 20 years, and Ben is very much like Josh in many ways, although Josh is much more cheerful. It was nice that our friendship was able to turn into a professional relationship, and thank God it didn’t go too disastrously, so we were able to remain friends. (laughs) But I liked the part a lot.

Does it make a difference working with a director with whom you have a personal relationship? Is there more of a shorthand present in terms of communication?

Yeah, I think so. I mean, I haven’t done it that often, but I have a little bit and, knock wood, it’s always been a pleasure. I can see how it would not be. I mean, if you’re friends, you might be too careful with each other or it might be strange to be bossed around or directed by somebody with whom you’re close. But that’s never happened with me, particularly with Josh. He didn’t change personalities when he became a director. We still had the same relationship. He was not afraid to be honest with me, and vice-versa, and we always ended up having a drink after we’d shoot, so we never went to bed angry, as they say. (laughs)

L to R: Matthew Broderick, Michael K. Williams and Sanaa Lathan in Wonderful World.

How do you think people will relate to Ben’s character and what he's going through, particularly in terms of what the country has gone through in the past year?

It’s interesting because the story seems to be sort of a litmus test for people in terms of whether you see things as positive or negative, and whether your life is the way it is because of your actual circumstances, or because of how you’re looking at things. Ben sees everything in a kind of negative light when the movie begins, and he’s done it to such a degree that he’s almost bringing it on himself. He’s making things worse than they are, and his daughter, which is an interesting part of the film, his relationship with his daughter, he begins to see that he’s actually hurting her, and that’s when he says ‘Wait a minute.’ Then he has a roommate who gently nudges him along in terms of how he’s thinking about things, and then he gets involved with a romance, which wakes him up and gets him out of just thinking about his ex-wife. So he suddenly has a little luck, and also an internal change in his attitudes that makes him end up in a slightly better place than he was in the beginning of the movie.

I’ve been a huge fan of Michael K. Williams since The Wire and it was great to see him do such great work here. Tell us about working with Michael.

Josh wanted him so badly, from seeing The Wire, and the two characters couldn’t be more different, but Michael just has such great energy and is such a bright and interesting actor. I loved working with him. He’s always surprising, and very present, and has a great attitude. He’s always very happy, as is Josh, and thank God, because we shot the thing in 21 days. When you’re on that tight of a schedule, people can get cranky, but by and large, everyone stayed cool and wanted it to come out well and there was no craziness, and a lot of that was due to Michael and the attitude he brought.

Broderick and Ally Sheedy in WarGames.

We should talk about some of your other films. Why don’t we start near the beginning, with WarGames. You did that right after your triumph on Broadway with Neil Simon’s Brighton Beach Memoirs and you didn’t see a lot of that in the early ‘80s, with actors going back and forth between the stage and screen, as you do now.

Yeah, that happened purely by luck. I was auditioning for WarGames the same time I was auditioning for Brighton Beach and they both worked out and there was time to shoot before the play began. I was cast in the play before I was cast in WarGames, I think, and then luckily the film shot in time for me to be able to do the play, as well. So it was just luck. I didn’t have some master plan to do both. It just worked out that way.

How does your early work hold up for you now?

I don’t know. It’s hard to…my younger things, there are always moments I think are not very good, and I would do better now but at the same time, there’s a lot that I probably wouldn’t do as well. There’s something very nice when you start out and you don’t know too much and you’re more trusting and there’s an ease about the work that’s good. You can’t lose because you’re just thrilled to be there, basically. Then also the nice thing when you’re starting out is the audience is just happy, or hopefully happy, to see this new guy. After a while, that goes away and they’re saying “Hm, is this different from the other thing you did?” And they start to have opinions about you, preconceived things, so you never get that fresh feeling again. So that was an exciting time, because nobody knew what to expect from me, nor did I.

Broderick in an iconic pose from Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

Speaking of that, we have to talk about Ferris Bueller, which is your most iconic role. I remember reading an interview with you a few years back where you said, after the film’s huge success, you were afraid of getting typecast as that guy for the rest of your career.

It’s not that I didn’t want to be typecast, I just wanted to make sure my career could withstand being identified with such an, as you say, iconic character. It’s like when, back in the old days, if you were cast as Superman, it was hard for audiences to see you as anything else. So, as silly as it sounds now, that part almost had people thinking of me as that guy. So I was just trying to make sure I had a career, and I did, so no complaints.

What was the experience like of making the film itself? It looked like everyone was having a ball.

We were. It was really fun to shoot. It was all about John Hughes. He was so bright and funny, and had such an original mind. It kind of seemed like a new type of film at the time, something that hadn’t really been seen before. It was a big shift, and John’s work was very much on everybody’s mind at the time. I had seen The Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles, and then to be asked to do his next one was really thrilling. We shot it in Chicago, which is where John was from, and knew every inch of. He showed us around and we just formed this great camaraderie: me, Alan Ruck, Jennifer Grey, Mia Sara. It was a very special time.

L to R: Alan Ruck, Mia Sara and Broderick in Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

What film after that would you say helped redefine your career in terms of moving into another genre comfortably?

I don’t know that there’s any one that redefined me. I just think that, after a while, if you keep working you start to feel as though you’re not so defined by one thing. I mean, I liked Election a lot. That was a different way to go. Glory, I think, was different. Then a lot of the plays I’ve done, like The Producers those are different, too. So I’ve had a lot of variety, and a lot of things that didn’t work, too.

Broderick in Ed Zwick's Glory.

Glory is one of those movies with a blessed cast: you, Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington, Andre Braugher, Cary Elwes, and others. You all either launched your careers with that film, or sent your careers into a new arc.

It was amazing, wasn’t it? I don’t really run into Denzel that much anymore, but his career has really been magnificent from then on. Some of my favorite actors are in that film, so I was very happy to have been in it with them. Morgan Freeman was one of those people. I mean, I grew up watching him on “The Electric Company,” playing Easy Reader. (laughs) Of course Morgan has had a tremendous career, as well. The director, Ed Zwick, too. So yeah, it’s fun to look back and say ‘I knew them when,’ although we were all pretty established at that point, but no one was really a “star,” per se.

You’ve gotten to work with some amazing directors during your career: Mike Nichols, Sidney Lumet, John Hughes, to name a few. When you directed your first feature, what lessons did you take from them?

Well, you take different lessons from different people. There are so many ways to be a director, and those are three very different directors with different styles. Sidney’s technical skill is just incredible, and I wish I had that, which I knew I didn’t have. Sidney Lumet has directed ten thousand movies and four thousand live television shows, so he just knows everything. Mike is so great with actors and you just want to be around him. He’s a very fatherly director and everyone just wants to hang around near the monitor and talk to Mike. So I couldn’t do that, either. (laughs) John Hughes was a little more shy, a quiet director, but knew exactly what he wanted, but was a little more reticent, I think. But very, very funny when he wanted to be, and very smart. Plus, John wrote all of his films, and when the writers are directing they tend to have a more exact notion of what they want, whereas if the director didn’t write it, he or she is more likely to say “Well, what do you think we should do?” They’re a little looser sometimes. They’re all different, and those three are three of the best.

Broderick and Marlon Brando in The Freshman.

You’ve also worked with some of the greatest actors in the world. We’ve got to talk about Marlon Brando. Any stories about The Freshman?

Oh God, I’ve got a million. (laughs) I mean, he was just so thrilling to watch. He was very friendly to us, to all the actors. He really liked actors. Me and Bruno Kirby would hang out in his trailer, trying to get information. Marlon was very entertaining, liked to talk a lot, and I just hung on everything he said, and I loved watching him work. I can’t remember any stories, really. Sorry. (laughs)

Did he tape his lines on you?

(laughs) No, by that point he used an ear piece and an assistant would feed him his lines if he couldn’t remember. You didn’t notice it, and he rehearsed a lot, too. So it wasn’t that he didn’t care about it. He just didn’t like to know his lines too well. He said if he knew his lines too well, then it wouldn’t be spontaneous, because a part of you is always thinking “What’s the next line?” He didn’t want that part of his mind going. That’s what he said. But if he could read them or hear them, it took his consciousness away from “What am I saying next?” He was a very unique person, and a great actor.

What about all the great actresses you’ve worked with? Any who stand out in particular?

Well, the danger of these questions is that I’m going to leave people out that I don’t mean to. But I’ll tell you one who comes to mind, and that’s Sanaa Lathan, from this movie. She had to work very hard, and very late sometimes, and always cheerfully. She had to learn dances and accents and really make you believe she was from Senegal. She did all of it. What other actresses…Marsha Mason was terrific in my first film (Max Dugan Returns), Ally Sheedy was great. I’m just going chronologically. I don’t know…I’ve worked with great women. I don’t know where to begin. (laughs)

Reese Witherspoon and Broderick in Election.

In terms of the diversity of the roles you’ve played, where would you say Ben Singer falls?

Gosh, I don’t know. I mean, I hope he’s different. It’s nice because he’s not soft. He has an edge to him, which is nice, because I often get parts which are softer. At the same time I don’t like to play something that’s too foreign to me, because I want to serve the script. I don’t want to be doing some exercise for someone else’s enjoyment. I want to play parts that suit me. It’s tricky to know what those are sometimes, but I don’t necessarily think I should break too far away from how I am, or how I’m thought of. You can go a little bit out there, but not too far. That’s my opinion.

You’ve also managed to continue your balance of stage and screen work, again one of the few actors who has managed to do that now. Is it a different process acting on the stage versus acting on film, or are they first cousins?

They’re first cousins, I think. Technically the process is very different. You never have enough rehearsal on a film. Everything you’re seeing in a film is the first day of rehearsal. So I like plays, because it gives me time. On the other hand, there’s immediacy with film that’s very nice. The fact that you haven’t done the thing 200 times is kind of good. It’s fresh. But scenes either play well, and you either work in it, or you don’t. I either suit a role and bring something good to it, or I don’t. I’m never sure which way it will go, and it doesn’t matter if it’s the stage, film or TV. That part of it is always the same.

Broderick and Nathan Lane in The Producers.

But when you play a part like Leo Bloom in The Producers hundreds of times, I’d imagine that you are able to go deeper into the character just because you get to spend so much more time with him.

Yes. We did that for a year, not including Chicago. Then we did the movie, and then we jumped back into it on stage for maybe another four months, me and Nathan (Lane). I think for like six months you get better, and then after that, maybe you don’t, looking back on it. Some things get better, but some things don’t. Sometimes things can get too much better, too strange. I don’t know if that happened with The Producers, but luckily I had Nathan, and that kept me sane. That made it possible to do it 500 times. We kept each other awake.

Read More

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 for about 14 people. I had never wanted so badly to be domestic in my life, because I'd totally fried myself! I just wanted to hold linens and open ovens and do things that were completely real, and stay completely out of my head. That was very intense, doing those two in a row.

The Ice Storm was one of the great movies of the past decade. It really captured that era down to the tiniest detail. Tell us about that and also about working with Ang Lee.
They sent me a lot of magazines from the era so I could get a sense of what (my character) Janey Carver was looking at all the time. I think for Ang, it was kind of an Asian idea where you had children behaving like adults and adults behaving like children. It's unnatural to do that, so nature will have repercussions. It was a very Bhuddist way of looking at the story. We began the shoot with a Bhuddist ceremony where we burned incense and bowed to the four corners and yelled "Big luck!" It was an amazing experience.

Map of the World must've been an intense experience.
Yeah, we shot it in about 30 days and did several scenes every day. It was very challenging because (director) Scott Elliot just sort of let me go, whereas Roman kept me very reigned in. So it was like living through that experience. It was one of the most satisfying professional experiences I've ever had. It's a film that a lot of people are discovering through video. When it was released theatrically I think the theme of losing a child, especially so early on in the film, was difficult for a lot of people to take.

Is there anything you haven't done acting-wise that you'd like to do?
I'd like to do some more theater. I actually spoke to John Cleese last night about doing a restoration comedy, which would be fun. In many ways I'm looking forward to the strike. It might give me some time to develop some good projects. I'm working on something about Gypsy Rose Lee that begins after she stops stripping, her relationship with her son. She was a marvelous woman.

Looking at your filmography, you've been in lots of amazing films over a relatively short number of years.
I really have been lucky. With Heartbreakers, it's the kind of part I've been waiting for all my life. The other day I was thinking 'Wow, you've really managed to accomplish a lot of the goals you've set for yourself as an actor.' So now it's time to sit down and make up some new ones.

Read More

Jerry Hall: The Hollywood Interview

This interview with Jerry Hall originally appeared in the August 2003 issue of Venice Magazine, during Jerry's run as Mrs. Robinson in the play of "The Graduate".

"Ms. Hall, you are trying to seduce us!"
As a riveting Mrs. Robinson in "The Graduate," Jerry Hall does exactly that.

by Terry Keefe

Benjamin Braddock doesn't stand a chance against Mrs. Robinson today. It's the beginning of August in Manhattan, and under the hand of director Peter Lawrence, the National Touring production of "The Graduate" is running through the famous seduction scene between Benjamin and Mrs. Robinson in a large Broadway rehearsal space. As Mrs. Robinson, Jerry Hall puts the moves on the hapless Benjamin (played to jittery perfection by Rider Strong of Cabin Fever and "Boy Meets World" fame) and some legendary lines are uttered. Rider remarks nervously, "Mrs. Robinson, you are trying to seduce me." And after a good laugh and a few disarming comments to the contrary, Jerry comes back with Mrs. Robinson's infamous "Would you like me to seduce you?" Over Benjamin's protests, she proceeds to do just that, setting the groundwork for the affair that follows by letting Benjamin know she's available to him and thereafter stripping nude briefly. After that fateful encounter, Benjamin is hooked, just as the audience will be. Even in this bare rehearsal setting, Jerry Hall is a magnetic presence that you can't take your eyes off of. Incredibly poised, she creates a Mrs. Robinson of great physical power, who practically hypnotizes Benjamin with the strength of her stare. In her voice, there's an underlying current of challenge to Benjamin, as if she's saying, "I dare you to walk away from me. I know you can't." There is also a layer of sadness and decadence in the performance which achieves the difficult task of making you feel a bit sorry for Mrs. Robinson, even as she's wrecking the lives of everyone around her.

The show is, of course, based on the landmark 1967 film of the same title, directed by Mike Nichols, and starring Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft. And in turn, the film was adapted from the 1962 novel by Charles Webb. For those uninitiated as to the plot, Benjamin Braddock has just graduated from college with honors and has returned to spend the summer at home with his parents. He wants a future that will be "different," although the staid upper middle-class Californian existence of his family offers exactly the opposite. Confused and naive, Benjamin embarks on an affair with Mrs. Robinson, the bored wife of his father's business partner. It's all just a fun diversion until Benjamin meets Mrs. Robinson's daughter Elaine (played in this production by Devon Sorvari), and falls in love with her. The play opened in London in March 2000, with Kathleen Turner as Mrs. Robinson, and was an instant hit. Jerry Hall would soon step into Mrs. Robinson's sultry shoes on the West End for a successful run of a few hundred performances. And she'll arrive this month in L.A. for a series of shows at the Wilshire Theatre.

Although "The Graduate" has become the stage role that Jerry Hall is most famous for, she's been practically living onstage these past few years, also appearing in the West End productions of "The Vagina Monologues" (as well as in the North American touring performance of that show in Austin, Texas) and "The Play What I Wrote." She also recently received raves for her 52-minute monologue in "Picasso's Women," which toured England. There were some successful prior acts in her life, of course. Hall is one of the world's most famous models, having embarked on that career at the age of 16, when she left Gonzales, Texas, to move to Paris. Along the way, she became equally famous as the wife, and then ex-wife, of Mick Jagger (who she speaks about fondly and regards as a close friend). But from the looks of things, it seems safe to say that she'll also be remembered for her acting talent. During the course of our conversation, she expresses her desire to continue acting on stage for the rest of her life and mentions Blanche in "A Streetcar Named Desire" as a future dream role.

There are two things that immediately came to mind when speaking to Jerry Hall in person. The first is that she barely appears to have aged since her modeling shots from the 1970s. The second is that she makes you feel like the only person in the room, despite the fact that there are several people working in different sections of the rehearsal space during our interview. Like we said, Benjamin Braddock never stood a chance.

What were some of the biggest challenges of creating your Mrs. Robinson?
Jerry Hall: Well, you always have to have sympathy for her. But she's having inappropriate sex with a young boy who's her best friend's son. So that's horrible, that's really not good. She's an alcoholic. She's a bitch, she says bitchy things to her daughter all the time. But you have to find the sympathy too. She's an intelligent woman, she's very well-educated. She's in a loveless marriage with this boring guy because she got pregnant young and had to get married. And she's restless. In that time period, a lot of women were frustrated with just being housewives. And so instead of just giving up, she's fighting. She's fighting her own battle. So I admire her for that. And in the end, she wants her daughter to rebel, you know? She's pushing her to rebel. So she does have some redeeming qualities that you have to find.

She's so matter of fact about the negative portions of her life. Like when she asks Benjamin, "Did you know I'm an alcoholic?"

She likes to shock. She gets a perverse kick out of shocking. I mean, the whole thing with her being nude in front of him. And it's funny how even nowadays when you see somebody nude on stage, it's shocking. The audience is shocked.

What do you feel from the audience at the moment you appear nude in this show?

They're shocked! [laughs] Benjamin's so freaked out and so they're [also] laughing. It's a lovely thing for the audience to be both shocked and laughing. I think laughter is very good for people. I love comedy. Comedy's the kind of thing I'm trying to do the most.

Did you find you were a natural at comedy right from the beginning?

No. I love doing it. I find it really funny, and that's kind of contagious. If you sort of find it funny, the audience will sort of find it funny. But to do comedy, the timing has to be exact, you know? And you have to play it straight, really straight, otherwise it's not funny. You can't play it for laughs. Comedy really comes from the seriousness of it.

This is a role that was created by Kathleen Turner, onstage at least. Is there anything you did to deliberately make the role your own?

Well, I didn't try to copy her at all. She's an amazing actress. She has such strength. She delivers lines like Mae West. And she's very, very funny. But we're very different. You just make it your own. It's a big mistake to try to copy, even a tiny portion, because it throws it all off.

Did you study the film much prior to doing the show or did you choose not to look at it?

I watched it like three years ago, once, before doing the show the first time. But then I decided not to watch it again. Because it's very different. The show is actually more like the book. The book is much more helpful to get the character the way she's written in the play.

How were you cast originally?
John Reid, the original producer in London, used to be the manager of Elton John. He's a friend of mine. I had been to the Cannes Film Festival and was wearing all these jewels and things. All these pictures in magazines and in the papers. And I guess he saw that and said, "Oh, she'd be a good Mrs. Robinson." I'd been to see the play with Kathleen Turner and loved it so much. And Sacha Brooks, the other producer, was there. He said he saw me outside smoking a cigarette in-between and he thought, "She'd make a good Mrs. Robinson." So the two of them at the same time sort of thought, "Let's get Jerry in for an audition." I got an acting coach to help me and I worked on an audition. I worked really, really hard and memorized the whole thing. I went in and auditioned and they were like, "Great! You've got the part." I was really thrilled.

Were you nervous the first night in front of an audience?
Oh God, yes. On my first preview, around 100 people stood up and took pictures while I was standing there nude. It caused a riot with them trying to get them to stop. And then they [the British press] reviewed the first preview.

Which they're not supposed to do.

It was just the worst. It was like walking through fire, I was just getting through it. But we got through it. And then some of the people came back and reviewed it on the right night and they wrote some nice things. We had a huge hit and we were sold out for 6 months. So it was good.

Because you started as a model, has it been a challenge to get the press to take you seriously as an actress?
I got my best reviews on my 3rd play. Because my second was "The Vagina Monologues," and they were like, "Well, anybody can do that." They were quite nice but then when I did my 52-minute monologue (in "Picasso's Women"), they were like "Wow!" So that was nice. But look, like anything in life, acting isn't something you just get up and do. Especially theater acting. You need to practice. You need to work at it. You need to get up vocal power. It's just been an amazing learning process. But I'm totally hooked on the magic of it.

Do you have a favorite scene in the play?
I love the scene which is gearing up to the hotel bedroom scene. When I'm asking him if he's a virgin, asking him if this is his first time. Very awkward, you know [laughs].

Did you "find" Mrs. Robinson again pretty quickly after the hiatus from doing the role, between this production and the West End production, or did it take some time?

It took a while. It's kind of hard in the beginning whenever you go into rehearsal with a bunch of strangers. And you're terrible and feel awkward. And everyone's doing their bit but badly. It takes awhile to get good. A lot of bonding things are going on too, and I like that. You gear up and you start to get up to speed. It's a whole growing process. There's a very different dynamic with different actors. But I love the actors [on this production] and I love the director. Peter is beautiful. He's great, he helped me a lot. It's also always fun to come back to something that I've done and have another go at it, having had a lot of work in-between.

How many Benjamins have you been through since you started doing the show?

Three [laughs, indicates Rider Strong]. He's the third one. They're all different and they've all been very good.

Do you remember the first time you saw the film version of The Graduate?

Oh yeah, I do. I loved it. I adore Anne Bancroft. She's one of my favorite actresses. I always try to see anything that she's in. If I read in TV Guide that she's in some movie, I always make an effort to see it. That movie was such an important movie for the times. It was about young people having a voice. Of course, people can say it's dated but I don't think so. Because it's such an internal story of this boy and it's a story about love. How Benjamin and Elaine love each other and through all sorts of obstacles they manage to get together in the end. So it's like the classic fairy rescue story - the prince gets the princess from the wicked mother [laughs]. People also always like a sexual comedy, and there aren't that many of them. I always hear people tell me, "Oh God, that reminds me of when I was 17, this woman who seduced me. It was my first older woman." [laughs] So that brings out this kind of fantasy for a lot of men, there's that whole thing that people enjoy. Also, having done the play for so long, it's always amazing to me how many different things you can get out of this play [as a performer]. Using the same words you can still find new meaning. I think one of the great messages about this play is that parents shouldn't try to control their children. Let your children be who they are. Let them have a voice. And I think that's one of the hardest lessons to learn as a parent. I have teenagers and it's hard to not say something sometimes. You have to let them be who they are. That's one of the things that touches me about the play. It's fun also playing the older woman who's a seductress, you don't get many parts like that [laughs].

Have you talked to any of the principals from the film version since doing the play?

Mike Nichols came to see me in the play in London and he sent me a big box of olive oil. Because [in the show] I rub olive oil on my skin. And he wrote me a note which said, "This is to rub all over your beautiful body." He's lovely. I did another play which he came to see me in called "The Play What I Wrote." Mike Nichols took it to Broadway. They asked me to come to Broadway to do it, but I was doing another play then. But I did go do it in Belfast, Ireland, which was great. Great audience. I loved it. The audience there is kind of rowdy. They drink a lot and like to have a good time. And that play is kind of rowdy.

What would be your typical routine during the day of a performance?

Well, I sleep to 11. Because I think it's very important to be "peak" at 8 PM. You just can't do that if you wake up too early. And I do yoga every day and I meditate every day. I think the meditation's very important to keep focus. And then I spend time with my kids. I've already got my head in the part by about 3 PM. You have to save yourself a bit. You get like an athlete so you're really on, mentally and physically, at 8 PM. Then afterwards, you get this adrenaline rush and you've got to eat and chat with everyone and have a drink. But you can't stay up too late [laughs].

Read More

Billy Bob Thornton: The Hollywood Interview

Actor/Filmmaker/Musician Billy Bob Thornton.


BILLY BOB'S TRIPLE THREAT
By
Alex Simon

Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in the November 2001 issue of Venice Magazine.

Few Hollywood insiders have lived the real-life Cinderella stories they often portray on-screen like Billy Bob Thornton has. Born in Hot Springs, Arkansas in 1955, Thornton's years of struggle on the fringes of Hollywood were finally rewarded when his writing/directing/starring labor of love, Sling Blade (1996) became the toast of the indie, and legit, film world, copping the Arkansas native a Best Original Screenplay Oscar for his efforts. From then on, Thornton's spot on Tinseltown's A-list was etched in cement that would have made the denizens of the concrete around Mann's Chinese theater jealous, delivering memorable starring and supporting turns in diverse films such as The Apostle, Primary Colors, A Simple Plan, Armageddon, and Pushing Tin, to name a few.

2000 also saw Thornton direct and produce an elegant, lyrical adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel All the Pretty Horses, and pen (with Tom Epperson) the supernatural thriller The Gift. As 2001 comes to a close, Thornton brings his talents to three distinctly different projects: Barry Levinson's Bandits, in which he plays the screen's most neurotic bank robber since Woody Allen bumbled through Take the Money and Run, The Coen Brothers' moody noir thriller The Man Who Wasn't There, as a stoic barber embroiled in a murder plot, and Marc Forster's Monster's Ball, a visceral masterpiece of a film that has Thornton sizzling the screen as a racist prison guard who finds his life coming apart at the seams. As if that weren't enough to have on one's plate, Billy Bob releases his first solo album this month, entitled Private Radio, a unique blend of country, blues and folk sung by Thornton in a voice described by Rolling Stone.com as "a cross between Leonard Cohen and Tom Petty. These preceding reasons alone are testament to Thornton's versatility and evidence that his status should be elevated from writer/actor/director/producer/musician to that of national treasure.

Billy Bob Thornton sat down with Venice recently over a plate of freshly-sliced papaya to discuss his newest films, the greatness of High Noon, and the beauty of keeping it simple.

We have a lot to talk about. Let's start with Barry Levinson, your director on Bandits.
Billy Bob Thornton: Barry is, first of all, just a great guy, probably the funniest human being I've ever met. We could hardly wait for him to say "Cut" so he could tell us another story. Plus, he's very intuitive. You can real feel him with you while you're doing the scene, and that makes all the difference in the world for an actor, especially if you're doing comedy. I've been pretty fortunate in my career to work with, for the most part, some pretty amazing directors.

Even early on, when you were just doing small parts, you worked with some heavyweights.
Oh yeah, I worked with Taylor Hackford (Blood In, Blood Out), Adrian Lyne (Indecent Proposal). I tell you what I really loved about Taylor, is that he's a music guy, like I am. We hit it off right away because of our mutual love of music. Any time someone's musical, we always hit it off. Bruce Willis is very musical and during the Bandits shoot he would play for the crew a lot of times. That was great. Bruce loves music and does a lot of recording in his home studio, just like I do.

Is that where you cut Private Radio?
Yeah, the whole thing. We mixed at A&M on the radar system, which is where you use all the modern technology, but it still sounds stripped-down, like analog.

You mentioned Bruce Willis earlier. You guys had a great chemistry on-screen.
Yeah, we actually already knew each other. We've been friends for several years. He's the sort of guy that's always been there for me, and I've never forgotten that. In terms of hanging out together, I don't really "hang out," so to speak. I have friends and I'll see them over at their house or if they come over to mine. I'm not a partyer. I don't like going to premieres, and haven't even been to the premieres of all the movies I've been in. I don't like going out to big functions just because that atmosphere makes me uncomfortable. Sometimes you have to go, and when I do, once I'm there I'm usually okay. It's like flying. I don't like to fly, but once I'm on the plane I'm fine. But not before.

Did you guys improv a lot? The whole film had a very naturalistic quality.
We did some. Harley Peyton is such a great writer that we didn't really want to stray too far from the script. But Bruce and I have always found it really easy to sort of riff with one another. Cate (Blanchett) is the same way. Cate's my buddy, so we work real well together. We've been friends since Pushing Tin, and Cate's just one of the coolest people on the planet. When you get to make movies with friends like them and work with a director like Barry, it doesn't get too much better than that.

Tell us about The Man Who Wasn't There, and the Coens.
Once again, it was an honor just to work for them. I'd always wanted to and we'd spoken about it before. When I was nominated for A Simple Plan and they were nominated for Fargo, they sat behind me at the awards show and we got to talking, and every time we saw each other after that, we'd always say "You know, this would be a perfect fit." But part of their genius is that they bide their time. They know when it's the right time and the right part. And this was it. It's one of my favorite parts I've ever played. It's one of the hardest parts I've played, because there wasn't a lot of dialogue to work with.

Do the Coens give a lot of direction or do they leave you alone?
They kind of cast the right person for the part and then love it if you come up with something on your own. Again, they're such good writers, you don't want to digress too much from the script. I did come up with little things that we put into my character. For example, if you look closely at (my character) Ed Crane in the movie, you'll see that he's always doing this little nod. We started calling it the "Ed nod." And that became part of their direction. "I think at the end of the scene it might be time for an Ed nod." That kind of thing.

Let's talk about your background. You grew up in Arkansas.
I was born in Hot Springs but grew up in a little town of about 110 people up in the mountains. We lived in my grandmother's house, which is kind of common among poorer southern families. Close-knit families. I remember when we were really little, we didn't have running water or electricity. I tell my friends that and they laugh: "Billy Bob, you're describing the 19th century, that's impossible." But they don't understand that in the rural south, there are areas where when it's night time, it's pitch black because there's no lights! I mean, we weren't like Lil' Abner, or shit like that, (laughs) but we didn't have much.

Your parents sound like a real study in contrasts: your father was a high school basketball coach and your mom was the town psychic.
Yeah, dad was a hot-headed little Irishman and mom is part Italian and part Choctaw Indian. I remember I'd come home from school as a kid and there'd be all these little white-haired ladies from town waiting for their turn to have a reading. The Gift was based on her and an experience we had as kids. It was a strange household. My dad and I were never close and he died when I was eighteen, of cancer.

Do you have siblings?
Two younger brothers, one of whom is now deceased, also. He had a heart condition and passed away when I was going through a real self-destructive period. His death really made me come to terms with that, get out of the self-destruction and into self-preservation.

That must've been tough for an 18 year-old boy, losing his dad.
Tough on a lot of levels. I'd just graduated high school, and now suddenly I had to be the man of the house. It's also made me really terrified of older men. Maybe it's a need to be accepted by them, or something, 'cause my dad and I never really came to any understanding before he died. (pause) And people wonder where I get these stories, right? (laughs)

Did you take to acting and writing early on?
No. First it was rock n' roll, then it was baseball. I thought I'd try to be a professional baseball player because I was pretty good in high school. Then when I went to try out for the pros, I got injured, busted my collarbone, and that was the end of that.

You struggled for more than a decade out here, supporting yourself with some really demeaning, miserable jobs.
Yeah, but I had this catering job that changed my life. I was working this party where all these real powerful Hollywood types were just filling the room, like a who's who of Hollywood, right? Then this little German guy asks me if I'm an actor. So I said 'Yeah,' and we started talking. He said "You'll never make it just being an actor. You're not good-looking or ugly enough to stand out. Can you write?" I said 'Yeah, I can write. My buddy Tom (Epperson) and I have written a couple things.' "That's the ticket," he said. "Stick with the writing and you'll make it." I go back into the kitchen and one of the other waiters says to me "So what were you and Billy Wilder talking about?"

No way!
Can you believe that, man? (laughs) I had no clue who the man was! But that's when I got really serious about writing. And that is what changed everything.

One False Move (co-written with Tom Epperson) really put you on the map in terms of your career as a writer, jump started your career as a character actor, and was a huge indie hit in 1992.
Yeah, I'm very proud of that and a lot of the credit should also go to the director, Carl Franklin (Devil in a Blue Dress) who's really brilliant. It really upset me how controversial it was for its violence though. I mean, here you have these summer action movies where dozens, hundreds of people get killed with squibs going off in every direction, and it's almost sanitized, like a video game or something. We had a couple scenes of violence in that film that showed violence for what it was: ugly, sick, horrifying, with lasting consequences. Which is worse to show to someone with a sick mind? If you're going to show violence on film, you should be honest about it, and not glamorize it. That's when it becomes dangerous, I think.

Then Sling Blade took you up to the next level.
Yeah, it's funny. The way they do movies now with all this test-marketing stuff. Sling Blade tested very average, was made for $900,000 and then made something like $27 million at the box office. I've had other movies I've done that tested through the roof, like A Family Thing (co-written with Tom Epperson), which was made for $15 million and earned something like $13 million. So you never know.

What kind of film did you shoot Sling Blade on?
We shot it on 35mm with Panavision, the whole deal. But because I shot it back home in Arkansas, a lot of folks were real nice and helpful and we got a lot of stuff for free. We had a great time doing that movie, shot it in 24 days.

Sling Blade had a true genesis from one man show, to short film, to feature. Tell us about that.
The short film was done because I'd worked with the director, George Hickenlooper, on another film and he asked if I had any scripts he could look at. I said 'Yeah, I've got this short film,' and he liked it and we took it from there. I like the short very much. It all came from the character, really, and just grew from there, sort of took on a life of its own. I just knew what this guy looked like, talked like, how he walked, how he smelled. I do that when I read a script. When I read A Simple Plan for the first time, I just knew what this guy looked and sounded like. You just know.

Mike Nichols is one of the greats. Tell us about working with him on Primary Colors.
Mike is another director like Barry Levinson. He gets a kick out of the whole process, laughs a lot during the shoot. He gets very immersed in the movie itself, talks with the actors a lot about the story and their characters. He's a very psychological director and our rehearsals consisted of sitting around a table and psychoanalyzing the characters. Another really terrific thing about that movie is that Elaine May, who wrote the screenplay, was there. So we got to hear Nichols and May comedy routines every day! That was a lot of fun.

Your character was based on Clinton campaign manager James Carville. I know that you're friends with President Clinton. Were you initially gun-shy about doing that part?
I actually called him and asked if he'd mind if I did the movie. He said "Are you kidding? It's a great part. Play it." I played a character based on Carville, but I didn't want to imitate him. I tried to imitate his attitude, but that's it. I wanted to make him a more laid-back, smart-ass southern guy, as opposed to a hyperactive one. (laughs)

It was Mike Nichols who turned you on to All the Pretty Horses, right?
Yeah, he was thinking about directing it for a while, but thought I'd be better for it. How can I start this story? Okay, let me start by saying that my favorite movie of all time is High Noon. I watch it probably three times a month. I think it's a perfect movie. Everything is in that movie. Everything you need to know about human beings is in that movie. The poetry of that movie is so beautiful, yet so simple. I believe in simple stories with complex people, about behavior. When I was given the book of "All the Pretty Horses," I didn't want to direct someone else's movie. I didn't want to film a book. It just all seemed to me like way too much. I get over to Sony and they said "Mike Nichols really wants you to do it! We really want you to do it! Which was probably bullshit. I'm sure they really wanted Spielberg or somebody, but they probably went "Well, Mike wants this asshole..." I'm not sure what happened. Anyway, I had a deal with Miramax, so they had to be involved, too. So we all started to hook up and they started to tell me how things should go. At that point I said "Look, I don't have to direct this movie. I don't need to. I kind of don't even want to. But I love the book. I think Cormac McCarthy is a great writer, and this is the kind of book where if I were as good a writer as Cormac McCarthy, I might have written it. So I would like to do it, but I'm using my crew, not the Star Wars crew like you want. They said "We want a big movie." I said 'Yeah, but the desert's already lit. My crew can probably do this better than your crew. They understand me and they understand how I work. What's hard to light is a 12x12 room, and that's what we do best.' I said 'You understand that I see this as a big character story. So when we're inside, I'm going to shoot this movie just like Sling Blade. When we're outside, it's going to be John Ford. You understand that by hiring me, this is what you're going to get. Is that what you want?' "Oh yeah, yeah!" Then they say: "Who's gonna be in it?" I said 'Here's who's gonna be in it.' They said "We don't want those people. We want these people." So I argued with them for several minutes. Finally I said, 'Fine, make the movie your way, I'll walk away with no hard feelings. I've got stacks of stuff at my house that I want to do. I don't have a problem with a choice of movies to direct. But if you want me to do this one, here's what you're going to get. Are you sure it's me that you want to do this? You realize that this is an epic movie that's going to be about three hours long?' "Oh, of course!" So they agreed to all the rest of my terms. We went and shot the movie and I had the best experience I've ever had doing a movie. The minute we were done, it became a nightmare, and they proceeded to change it into a love story with an airbrushed poster aimed at getting 14 year-olds into seats. They cut out any of the edge, and what was meant to be a three hour movie became a less-than-two hour movie and they removed Daniel Lanois' beautiful music score.

Is there any chance you'll do a "Director's Cut" DVD?
Well, it doesn't exist in that form except in a very poor quality VHS version, with the original score. They originally told me I was going to get to do a DVD, but then said it was going to be too expensive to do, and not worth it. I don't want to point any fingers, but no one's ever going to see the film as it was intended, which was about three hours and forty or fifty minutes long. You know, against my better judgment, when that 3 hour, 50 minute assembly was done, I screened it for the executives at my house. They all wept during the movie, clapped at the end, were all patting me on the back, with one guy telling me that not only was it the best movie he'd ever been involved with, but the classic American film of all time. And then they proceeded to re-make it into a two hour movie and took the guts out of it, in my opinion. Now, in spite of what all this must sound and read like, I have no hard feelings against any of those people. I want that to be clear. I understand what they do. They are business people, and always will be, no matter how much they love or hate movies. The bottom line is, they want 14 year-olds to come to their movies. If they give you $50 million to make a movie, you can be damn sure they're going to double that number with 14 year-old butts in seats. The problem was, they took a movie that was about the end of the west, and one kid's journey into manhood and the future which is unknown and realizing that he can't live in the past even though the past is where he thought his future was. And that's what that movie is about.

I always felt that a good companion piece for it would be The Last Picture Show, which explored many of the same themes.
Absolutely! Great comparison, great analogy. And it could have been that kind of film, too.

Well, look at what Coppola just did with Apocalypse Now. It doesn't have to be over yet.
Well, maybe...We'll see.

With that war story in mind, any advice for first-time directors?
Don't pay any attention to anyone's advice. Make your movie about something that's close to you, that's your thing, as opposed to trying to make something that you think "they'll" like. Basically know what it smells like, feels like, tastes like and sounds like, and then go do it. And nobody else has to know what you're doing, except you. That's my advice.

Read More