Denise Di Novi, the producer behind such quirky fare as Heathers, Edward Scissorhands and Batman Returns, gets her way without raising her voice. Here she talks about just how hard it is getting "weird" movies made, what she thinks of the upcoming Ed Wood, and why she walked away from running Tim Burton's production company.
_______________________________
Here's something Denise Di Novi always hears about herself: "Gee, you're not like other producers." Meaning what, exactly? Well, that this producer, whose credits include Batman Returns, Edward Scissorhands, Heathers, The Nightmare Before Christmas and the forthcoming Ed Wood, isn't a high-decibel screamer of the Joel Silver variety, nor a fast-talking pitchwoman like journalist-turned-producer Lynda Obst, nor a charmins schmoozer like David Permut. In short, she doesn't strike one as a prototypical, power-drunk Hollywood monster whose raison d'etre seems to be to make others eat dirt as if treating everyone like shit somehow evens up old scores from childhood.
On the other hand, one doesn't have to look far to find people around town who call her "The Bulldozer." And then there's this to consider: Daniel Waters, writer of such past and future Di Novi projects as Heathers, Batman Returns and The Model Daughter, says," Having worked with only two producers, Joel Silver and Denise, I think of them as the same person, only different. Denise is much beloved, never raises her voice; Joel is an abusive, castigating monster whom everyone makes fun of. They have totally different philosophies--his approach is, 'We're dead, totally fucked'; hers is, 'Everything's great'--but they're both lying, controlling the information, making sure they're the ones with the power. Both always get what they want. Either way," he adds, "your brain is being melted"
As I'm ushered into her office at Sony Pictures, Di Novi initially reminds me of a chic young professor at an Ivy League school. But she's fast to trash that by laughing as she says," People do call me a 'Bulldozer.'" She then hastens to add," I do things in a quiet, steady way that's effective for me. I'm very aggressive but not flamboyant. I don't yell and scream at anybody. I know people think, 'How did she get Heathers or Ed Wood made?'
"Who knows," she continues," maybe my career would improve if I were more like those other types of producers." With a shrug, she says," Whenever I feel inadequate because I'm not like some other producers we all hear about, I think, 'Well, I'm not doing so badly. I've gotten unusual movies made, movies that I really care about.'"
And they've been profitable as well, she might add. Trying to explain why many scream and carry on but she does not, Di Novi straight off bears out the truth of Dan Waters's take on her:" Producers in this business have to have a very high level of intensity. There's the intensity that a Joel Silver or a Scott Rudin have. Then, there's my kind of intensity which is equal, but quieter. When I'm in a room with [Columbia TriStar chairman] Mark Canton or with an actor, I fight just as hard. If I really want something, really believe in it, I am relentless. But I've never yelled at anybody in my whole life. I get mad, lose my temper, sure. Whenever I work with anyone who says, 'I was in so-and-so's office and they were screaming, calling me "asshole" and throwing something across the room,' I ask them to tell me every lurid detail. I'm fascinated. More than that: I would pay a lot of money to be a fly on the wall when these people act this way. I mean, how do you yell at somebody right to his face like that, wake up in the morning, and see the same person again? I just can't picture being that way, but I'd love to see it."
"She doesn't have to see it," opines a Di Novi associate. "She's one of the few women producers who doesn't make a grand show of 'I can play hardball just like the boys.' That would be giving herself away. She doesn't play her cards. She's always a step ahead of you. She's talked you into agreeing to do something before you've even realized it." Considering how odd Di Novi's movies have been, I ask her whether she has ever felt that she and her colleagues have just gotten lucky in striking a nerve with audiences and critics." I've felt that way with pretty much all of the movies," she answers. "They've all been kind of weird. I know this sounds simplistic, but I'm convinced that movies don't have to be predictable and derivative to have people like them.
"It doesn't always work, like Cabin Boy," she says, referring to her recent flop, a companion piece of sorts to another Di Novi misstep, Meet the Applegates. When I ask the inevitable Cabin Boy query, "What were you thinking?" Di Novi says, "It's painful. Maybe I need a year's perspective on it to figure [that] out because that script was one of the funniest I've ever read. I thought the movie was funny [too]. But with every movie I make, there's always a level of insecurity about it. Like, Is this going to work again? Is this kind of weird movie really going to touch people? Tim Burton is a master at proving that point, yet we're going through that with Ed Wood right now. I think it's really Tim's most mature work, much deeper than anything he's done, but this is definitely a weird movie."
Since Di Novi has brought up Burton, with whom she's made six movies, why don't we kick around her dramatic decision, widely reported about two years ago, to exit the top executive spot at his company? True, since they split they've made Cabin Boy and Ed Wood and they are readying James and the Giant Peach, an animated fantasy that Nightmare director Henry Selick will helm. Yet the rumor mill about their split never did grind down, did it? People say Burton had become a bratty diva and that Di Novi, among others, had tired of his not giving her or anyone else a shred of credit for his successes. Some stories have the producer and director parting in a fury. Others say he out-and-out canned her.
"All that was really sad," Di Novi observes. "Because people said, 'They hate each other' or, 'They had a fight.' It was painful because I was very proud of my relationship with him. I thought we had been really good for each other. It was not true that he was upset and that I was upset. Tim called and said, 'Why can't people think or believe that everything is okay? Why do they have to see that what happened is bad, negative?' It was, in a strange way, a positive thing. But that was such an alien concept to people, that they couldn't accept it to be true until we made another movie together, like, five minutes later. Then, it became clear that we didn't hate each other."
Right. But what actually happened! "Directors hate most producers," she admits. "There are not many producers who can work with great directors over and over again. Or producers directors want to work with. There are not many alliances formed. Tim is a very sensitive person; he saw that I was unhappy and said, 'What the heck is wrong with you?' I said, 'I like making movies but I just don't like running this company thing.' I also felt like I needed more personal freedom. I delivered my son a month before Edward Scissorhands opened. My son was only three months old when I started Batman Returns, a project which, by definition, isn't so much making a movie as running a city. Thank God I did it, I was one of the luckiest people in the world, but I cannot describe the enormous weight of that. So, it had been a very intense time. I needed to not be responsible for another person for a while. I think Tim sensed that and he deserved to have somebody who wanted to do that. It was a great job. I think he saw that he should have somebody different, too, to run his company and to be his partner. He said, 'You're not happy. What do you want to do?' I said, 'I just want to produce a movie with you.' He said, 'Then that's what you should do. What's the big deal?'"
How did Di Novi's work methods--she is a meticulous planner and organizer--mesh with Burton's looser, more intuitive . approach? "Tim is a genius, and I don't use that word lightly," Di Novi says.
"The definition of a great artist is someone who doesn't care much what other people think. Tim cares what people think of his movies but he has that core essence, that compulsion, to do his art. I accept that about him. And his instincts are unerring. I've never seen them to be wrong on any small or large decision. Ever. His instincts emanate from a place that's very pure, truly artistic."
Has Burton become, as rumored, stingy about acknowledging the contributions of others? "To me, the question of 'Is he generous?' or 'Did he give me credit?' wouldn't arise. He wanted to work with me, and he validated my contribution. I don't know if he did that in the press, but he really doesn't talk that way to the press. It's not about getting credit. It's about, did the movie turn out well? Was I part of a really great movie?"
But one can freeze in a genius's shadow. Did she ever feel her role in her projects with Burton to be overshadowed? "It's overshadowed, definitely," she agrees. "But if that bothered me, I should be a director, not a producer. The only way to judge a producer is by what choices and associations they make. There are producers that like to work with weak directors or always hire first-time directors. I could have chosen to work with another director than Tim. I'm proud that I chose to work with somebody like Tim and that I did contribute. I know I contributed."
I ask Di Novi why so many Hollywood partnerships peter out. Think David Brown and Richard Zanuck, Peter Guber and Jon Peters, Lynda Obst and Debra Hill, and scores of others. "Because they're as much a marriage as a man and wife," she asserts. "And how do 75 percent of marriages turn out? They end, and for all the same reasons: you get sick of each other, grow in different directions, build up petty resentments. Like a marriage, you are either with somebody who lets you be who you are or they resent who you are. Tim and I got to a point where we just accepted that we were each who we were and that we needed to do what we needed to do to be happy. It's like a married couple that divorces and stays best friends. What I miss about him the most, on a daily basis, is that he's the funniest person I have ever known. He is incredibly witty, like Dorothy Parker."
Di Novi adds, "Making a movie is really hard; it's amazing that any relationship lasts long. Really, it's against the odds. Whenever you're a partner, at some point, you want to differentiate yourself. The thing Tim and I have in common is that we don't like that many movies. I think he's genuinely happy that I'm getting to make Little Women, a script and a project that I really love."
Little Women will be directed by Gillian Armstrong, and features a cast that includes Winona Ryder and Susan Sarandon. Sony executive Amy Pascal gave Di Novi the shot at producing the fourth feature version of the classic novel over many disgruntled moviemakers who also hoped to do it. Di Novi is aware that, despite this plum, there are those who insist that her career independent of Burton may have encountered a roadblock or two recently. Her women's Western, Outlaws, a project considered for Nicole Kidman and director John Duigan, got left in the dust of two other women's Westerns, Bad Girls and The Quick and the Dead. Then Jodie Foster left Trackdown, an action movie in which she was to play an American who teams up with the Scotland Yard to fight terrorists, to make Nell with Liam Neeson and Natasha Richardson. These setbacks triggered a Hollywood Reporter story that drew conclusions Di Novi didn't appreciate. "The headline was like 'Foster Drops Off Di Novi Project,' and the story sort of insinuated that Outlaws didn't go and Trackdown didn't go so . . ." she recalls. "Believe me, the connection between the two was very tenuous. Outlaws we could have made right away, but we chose John Duigan and he was directing Sirens. By the time that was finished, Bad Girls had been made and The Quick and the Dead was underway. On Trackdown, Jodie is a friend and was involved in its development, but, when she left to do another movie that she'd been trying to get made for years, she said, 'If you don't get somebody else by the time I finish this movie, call me.' I still think those movies may get made, but the margin for error on both is slim. I feel a responsibility that a woman's Western and a woman's action movie work. If it takes two years to get them to be good, so be it."
So production delays like this have nothing to do with the fact that Di Novi no longer has Burton's weight on her side? "I think that, two years ago [after she stepped down from running Burton's company], I was naive, thinking, 'I'll get these movies going really quickly,'" she replies. "I remember reading something Dawn Steel said: 'I didn't know, even after everything I've done, that it takes three years to get a movie going.' I thought, 'Oh, I don't want it to take three years.' But it does. It also takes long to hold out for movies you really want to make. This is the land of temptation. Every day I face the temptation, thinking, 'Gee, I could get this made.' Meaning, I know I could set up a project because the studio wants a certain kind of movie or an actor wants to play a certain role or a project's timely or cheap. You have to remind yourself a lot in this business of the simple values of life. I sit down and think, 'Is this project important to me? Am I going to be proud of this?' Now that I have this three-year-old boy, I think, 'Is my child going to be proud of me for making this movie?' I'm not by any means antiviolence or pro-censorship, but I feel more responsibility now for what we put out there."
I wonder if Di Novi has thought about what role her past played in making her gravitate toward producing, and in putting her at ease around geniuses. "There are people who do this because, very simply, they love movies," she observes. "And there are people who are attracted to this job in a compensatory way. Being in this business can make up in a big way for a lot of areas of pain in your early life. But only in a superficial way. I was born bossy. I tried to run things from an early age. My father is a jazz musician who played and practiced several hours a day. My mother was a dancer who gave it up when she had kids. Although she was happy, I think she regretted giving up her career. Being the eldest child of two artistic, heads-in-the-clouds parents, I learned how to take care of an artist, genius or emotional type of personality. At an early age, I got positive reinforcement for getting things done."
With her father often on the road, Di Novi also got reinforcement from the movies she and her mother would watch nightly, and from the books she hoarded. "Books and movies were my life," she says. "I was the kid who, at recess, would run out and pretend to be on third base, then, when nobody was looking, run into the bathroom and read until recess was over. That's why Heathers was so close to me, that's what I was really about."
After earning an English degree from Simmons College in Boston, Di Novi pursued journalism, but ditched it quickly. She became a TV reporter in Toronto, Canada, and found she didn't like being on camera, so she aligned herself with producer Pierre David and learned the nuts and bolts of moviemaking by "making four terrible tax-shelter movies a year." Back in the States she worked with producer-to-be Arnold Kopelson. Later, she spent several years writing scripts, which she calls "agony, because control is a big issue of mine and loss of control as a screenwriter was really painful." She was attracted to producing, she says, because unlike "actors and writers, who really put their ass on the line, in producing I have a distance that's comfortable for me."
Di Novi cut her teeth on the razor-sharp Heathers, a black comedy that proved to be a calling card that brought her to the attention of Burton. She's barely looked back. And she has managed to ply her trade without becoming a fixture on the preview/premiere/party/charity circuit. "I tried doing that at the beginning, but now I don't do it," she asserts. "Relationships are everything in this business, but if I could have three meaningful encounters where I really sat and talked with somebody, that's worth more than seeing them every week at screenings. Most of my friends are not in the business. Whenever I used to go to industry screenings, the audiences' reactions were so unlike what my friends felt, I thought, 'I'm not learning anything here,' so I stopped going.
"The way I cope with the movie business is that I try to do it only a certain amount. If it becomes everything to me, I get this strange, scary, insecure feeling. Nights are for my family or my friends that are not in the movie business."
However Di Novi works it, she seems in the business for the long haul. After Little Women and James and the Giant Peach, her dance card includes The Model Daughter, a scalding look at the modeling world that she calls "a Heathers reunion" of director Michael Lehmann, writer Dan Waters and herself. But don't expect her to be involved with the third Batman movie, which Joel Schumacher will direct. "There's no reason for me, contractually, to be involved," she says. "If Tim was directing it, I certainly think I'd do it. But, really, one of those movies in a lifetime is enough."
As Di Novi and I talk, the outside world continues to press for her attention. There is a call from Winona Ryder, whose mother, Di Novi mentions in passing, edited an anthology which includes Little Women author Louisa May Alcott. Then a production crew member calls, hoping to work on that same movie. Di Novi herself interrupts to phone an agent back merely to thank him for sending her an early copy of the hot script of the instant.
"I really believe that you can get the job done and not be a killer," she tells me as she walks me out of her domain. "I think it's part of the mythology that you have to be that way." I observe to Di Novi that, as she undoubtedly knows, there are many ways to kill. She thinks this over, laughs, then after a moment, adds, "My father taught me: 'Kill them with kindness.' Sometimes when people are being horrible to me, I am even nicer to them and it's very humiliating for them. I find that works. It's important for me to feel okay about myself. I hate to hate myself. Nothing is so important to me to make me feel really bad about myself. Not even making a movie."
____________
Stephen Rebello interviewed Alfre Woodard for the May Movieline.