Stephen Frears: An Englishman Abroad

Q: Martin Scorsese must be a big fan of yours, since he produced The Grifters. How did you get to know him?

A: He sent me The Grifters after he saw My Beautiful Laundrette.

Q: What was Scorsese's role as producer?

A: Not much. We just went off and made it. I'd call him to chat, or we'd sit together in silence. I now say to him, "You were very lucky having me, because I could sort of look after myself." If we'd made a film that embarrassed him or had gone wildly over budget, then he would have been brought in.

Q: Wasn't it Scorsese who thought you should direct Donnie Brasco, the Mafia film that never got made?

A: I talked to him about it, yes. He has a vested interest in Italian-American stories, it means something to him. The position of Italian-Americans in American society clearly matters enormously. So when he found a script that was intelligent and well-written, he was very keen that it should be made.

Q: In M magazine, you wrote about your frustrations dealing with stars when you tried to get Donnie Brasco made. Were you surprised when the magazine revealed the names of the actors you tried to conceal?

A: I had no idea they were doing that. [Editor-in-Chief] Clay Felker was a bit of a cunt to have done it. Am I allowed to say that? You going to print that? I wrote to all the actors involved and apologized to them, but they knew by the way the magazine printed their names in a box and not in my article that I hadn't any intention of saying who they were.

Q: You indicated that you wrote that piece on the advice of your therapist.

A: That was a joke, it wasn't true. But I am in therapy.

Q: For how long?

A: Oh, like Woody Allen.

Q: During that Brasco fiasco, you described Alec Baldwin as being depressed and frustrated. One of his complaints was that it was too much like a Barry Levinson movie and he wanted it to be an Alec Baldwin movie. How do you deal with actors who are like that?

A: There's really not much I can do. I mean, we were all depressed and frustrated about that one. In the end, the actors are the ones who came out favorably because they were right not to do it. It was too soon after GoodFellas and The Godfather, Part III.

Q: Al Pacino wanted to make Brasco if he had the leading part you wanted Tom Cruise for. When Cruise passed, however, Pacino still wouldn't do it. Why not?

A: You tell me. He gave a reading when he read for the other part--Lefty, the role I wanted him to play--and I heard it was a terrific reading.

Q: It was--I was there.

A: There, you see! So why didn't he do it? I don't want to work with actors in the wrong parts, it would be ghastly, very painful. But as Lefty, Pacino would have been wonderful. He was born to play that part. If he said he wanted to do it now--playing Lefty--I would get back into it. But it's up to him.

Q: But other than that, it's not a project you want to do?

A: It's something I think should get done, but I don't think I would do it.

Q: Did receiving an Oscar nomination for The Grifters change you in any way?

A: Not really.

Q: Was it important for your career?

A: I don't know. I already had this picture, Hero, before the nomination. My next picture will be a television movie in Ireland, curiously enough, about a father and his daughter who won't tell her family who got her pregnant. I liked the script, so I'm going to do that.

Q: What's it take to be successful in this business?

A: I'm not all that sure I know. I'm not an American, I don't fully know this business. But I am fascinated by it. There's nothing quite like it anywhere. The way people are friendly and competitive.

Q: Is there a cutthroat atmosphere in Hollywood, as Robert Altman portrayed in The Player"!

A: Yes, of course. But these people treat me very well so I can't pretend I suffer from it. But I don't know how they sleep at nights.

Q: Meaning?

A: Meaning that it must be very, very tough living here. It's very competitive. And one sees how tough it is. But I feel like a guest here.

Q: Alan Parker said that you hate the fact that you work in Hollywood, and that you're a complete phony in that respect.

A: That's not true. I like Alan, but that's a bit of a tease. I very much like working here. I like making films here-- and the world likes American pictures. They may not like America, but they like its movies. I love American films, too. I'm no different from anybody else.

Q: What's the best part of being a director?

A: Making films is good fun. I love it, I love organizing, I love being in the shop.

Q: John Huston said "sadism."

A: Well, I can give you a smart answer, too. I'll tell you what's wonderful about it. You can ask questions of people like a child. You know: "What was Brando like?" And you'll get an answer. Because somehow it's okay to ask questions when you're a director. I met David Hockney and asked, "What did they do in the Renaissance?" And he loved talking about it. He loved when you asked very direct questions. So you are allowed to ask, you can exercise your curiosity.

Q: Huston also gave John Milius some advice: "Never raise your voice, never get excited on the set. And always sit down when there's a scene, to conserve energy."

A: Very good advice, I wish I took it. I pace around.

Q: Let's talk about My Beautiful Laundrette. One comment about that film was that you deciphered the culture of an alien underclass as well as the moral reality of the homosexual heart. Is that what you were attempting to do?

A: No. I was just making a movie.

Q: What was it about to you?

A: I thought it was about economics.

Q: That should send readers running to the video store.

A: Well, I know, but you asked me to give you an answer.

Q: Laundrette was originally intended for television. Were you surprised by its success as a feature?

A: Yes. I was amazed, delighted. It was a really good, fresh piece of writing but I don't think it was necessarily better than the other films I made for television.

Q: Did you have any idea of the size of Daniel Day-Lewis's talent at the time you made Laundrette?

A: No. He was just Danny. Then he did My Left Foot.

Q: When you made Prick Up Your Ears, it was written that you focused on the cultural class and on the romantic mortality of homosexual lust. Accurate?

A: It sounds good, but that's not what it was about. Prick Up was clearly about homosexual relations and about marriage.

Q: Joe Orton's diaries indicate he led a very promiscuous life. In an article I read, you suggested he may have made the diaries up. Do you think that?

A: No, I think his diaries were true.

Q: You've said that you felt the need to "romanticize" the gay sex scenes in the urinals--why?

A: Because when I went to see the real ones they were so tight, I thought it couldn't be very pretty doing what they did in a place so close. I wanted to open it up, make it the great ballroom of urinals, so you could use your imagination as to the goings-on there.

Q: When you made Sammy and Rosie Get Laid, you ran into problems with the last two words in the title. Newspapers refused to run the "Get Laid."

A: It seemed foolish.

Q: You began and ended that film with Margaret Thatcher's voice--how much do you miss not having her to kick around anymore?

A: I don't miss her at all.

Q: You've said that you made that film to bring Thatcher down. Was that your true intention?

A: Yes. But she got reelected anyway.

Q: The relationships in Sammy and Rosie are somewhat out of the ordinary: mixed, distorted, free. Or have those relationships become the ordinary?

A: I would think so, yes. I remember hearing how many children were born out of wedlock and being rather shocked. Then I realized that two of my children were born out of wedlock. People lead complicated lives, and I enjoy that.

Q: You've lived together for 19 years,- why haven't you married?

A: Why rock the boat? If it ain't broke, don't fix it. She's never wanted to get married.

Q: Your early film, The Hit, with John Hurt and Terence Stamp was about assassins and their victim, yet it was also bizarrely funny. Intentional?

A: I love things being funny. I mean, I make them as cheaply and vulgarly as it's possible to make them. If I could be cheaper and more vulgar, I would be.

Q: In The Hit, the strongest character is the girl played by Laura Del Sol, who has a tremendous will to live. You seem to be attracted to strong women roles: Claire Bloom in Sammy and Rosie, Glenn Close in Dangerous Liaisons, Annette Bening and Anjelica Huston in The Grifters.

A: I guess I do. I've had strong women in my life: my mother, my wife and the woman I live with.

Q: What was your mother like?

A: Very strong, very much like Thatcher. She had that in her. She raised three boys. My father left during the war, when I was about four, and he really didn't come back. After the war, he left what he had done, being an accountant, and became a doctor, so I really didn't know him until I was 18. He was carefree, a rather attractive figure--unlike my mother, who resented that she had to stop her life to raise us. My mother could sometimes step on us, she could be suffocating. There was a certain feeling of being sat upon. And that created both fear and resentment. I grew up and learned how to irritate her.

Q: Did your father remarry?

A: Yes. He was very charming. One of the things that Dangerous Liaisons was about was charm, the danger of charm, so there are rather complicated feelings I have about charm.

Q: Do you now see your father as irresponsible?

A: Now I do, yes. I can see how he made my mother suffer, yes.

Q: Your mother was Jewish--do you consider yourself Jewish?

A: I'm more Jewish now than I was 15 years ago. My Jewish-ness was concealed from me. And it was really only when I was about 30 when I discovered I was Jewish.

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