On a Wing and a Prayer

"What about this idea of Tom Cruise singing and dancing in the William Holden role?"

"Tom Cruise," Schumacher informs me, "can do anything."

Since Schumacher is now an A-list director--he's had the right of final cut since Flatliners--I wonder if the studio meddled much with the various drafts of the Batman Forever script or if they left him alone.

"You always get notes from studio execs. When I was at Columbia doing Flatliners, Mike Nichols was doing Postcards From the Edge. And I would get these long notes that said, 'We think this should be changed and that should be changed and so on,' and so after a number of these, I wrote one back saying, 'Who the hell is we? Why can't you announce yourself? Who are you?" and at the bottom I wrote, 'P.S. Does Mike Nichols get these notes?' I figured that since he's one of the handful of geniuses in this business and I'm not, that maybe he doesn't. Later I found out from him that he does get notes, too. I used to hate getting notes, but when you're in a mass media, you have to listen. One hard truth about life is, even assholes are right sometimes."

"On your first day of shooting Batman Forever," I ask, "did you walk onto the set thinking, 'This movie has to make $100 million, or people are going to say Schumacher screwed up?"'

"Woody Allen [with whom Schumacher worked on Sleeper and Interiors] told me. 'You can't succeed unless you have the willingness to fail.' Of course I can fail with Batman Forever. It can be a complete disaster. But I've felt that way about everything I've ever made."

It helps Schumacher's chances enormously to have such an appealing cast. "You've caught Jim Carrey riding the big wave," I say. "What a break."

"It's not the first time this has happened on a shoot of mine. We started filming The Client _with Tommy [Lee Jones] the same week _The Fugitive came out. and we were shooting Flattiners with Julia [Roberts] immediately after Pretty Woman wrapped. I lived through that frenzy with Julia, the same kind of frenzy that Brad Pitt and Jim Carrey are going through now. and I remember Julia, at the height of it all. said to me, 'I never needed to be this famous.' A magazine called me recently and asked me why Julia and Tom Cruise had made it while some other young actors hadn't, and I said you can't put it in those terms. Just because some young actor is not Tom Cruise, he's not a loser. These people still do interesting roles and make more money than most people on the planet. These people aren't losers. And if Julia won. I'm not sure what she won. And I'm not sure what's going to happen to Nicole [Kidman] after Batman Forever, but I don't wish [that kind of fame frenzy] on her."

At this point in our interview, three people walk into the house: Bruce Berman, president of Worldwide Production at Warner Bros, Pictures, his wife Nancy and their young boy, who is Joel's godson. Nancy runs over, apologizes for interrupting, but says she has to give Joel a hug. She tells me what a mensch he is. and then the three Bermans go out and play on Joel's tennis court while we continue to chat.

"They're over all the time," says Joel. And I gather that they're among a small group of Joel's friends and colleagues who are able to help keep things in perspective. Of the others, Joel says, "I'm surrounded by people in the top level of the movie industry who are unhappy and ungrateful even though they make millions and have perks like royalty. And I'm quick to tell them that they're tragic. I'm not too big on the victim thing." No doubt because, for years, that's what Schumacher himself was. "I started drinking when I was nine years old. and later I was doing hard drugs. By the time I got back to New York from Florida in the early '60s, I was ignorant about everything except the ways of decadence. And during the '70s, in Hollywood, with all the cocaine and freebasing madness going on, I knew that if I went one step too close to the wrong person or the wrong party. I was gone. So I put on blinders and I worked. Don't get me wrong. I had my nights. Don't think that I was Brother Teresa. But I didn't see drug use as glamorous or fun. It scared me. It scares me now."

"What are you still learning as a director?" I ask.

"I go to see a lot of movies, and every once in a while. I see one that's brilliant, like Red _ or _Ladybird, Ladybird or GoodFellas. And seeing films like those makes me want to do better. And I hope that by working harder and taking on bigger challenges, I'll learn more and the work will get better and the audience will get a better product."

What's next on the agenda?

"I'm going to be directing John Grisham's first book, A Time to Kill, in Oxford, Mississippi, in September. It's about a black man who murders two rednecks after they rape and almost kill his daughter."

Our time is coming to a close--the battling Bermans need him to even the teams--so I turn off the tape recorder and say, "May you continue to age like fine wine."

"I think I've aged already," volleys Schumacher, "More like moonshine."

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Jeffrey Lantos profiled David Koeppfor the March Movieline.

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