Tony Scott: From Macho to Mellow

What, besides pursuing his new domesticity, does Scott do to escape the pressure-cooker environment of the business? "Funny you should ask, because I was thinking recently how I measured my major achievements for last summer by saying, 'I finished Crimson Tide and I spent three days and two nights climbing 3,500 feet of El Capitan at Yosemite with just me and my friend," he says, laughing. "I've climbed all my life--6,000-foot walls in the Alps in my youth, but it's a little different when you're 25 than when you're 51."

"I love climbing because it requires concentration, extreme effort and it transports me to other places. Unlike making movies, in which there are a hundred ways to do any one thing and any of those can be right, in climbing the choices are black and white. I never believe I'm going to drop off and die, but it psychologically screws up your sense of time and place. It's like a major drug. My buddy, the maniac, who's one of the top 10 climbers in America, takes bong hits all the way--he needs the substances to calm him down. I'm not good on that shit. It kills me. When I make movies, I'm kind of whining and paranoid about the choices I've made. Climbing makes the choices more clear-cut. It's pretty scary sometimes, but that first day of production on any movie is a lot scarier, because you're faced with 150 people looking at you like they're saying, 'Why the fuck is he there and not me?'"

What's his explanation for why he, and not any of the 150 others, is there? "I'm more tenacious than most," he says, with the chuckle of a born son-of-a-bitch. "Most people don't realize how hard it is, physically and mentally, when you're doing a movie. I've got more energy than most."

One person who is in a position to know about all this is Tony Scott's brother, Ridley. The two are in business together now with their company Scott Free, but is this genuine brotherhood, or a triumph over sibling rivalry? "My brother and I are about as thick as they come. I've always looked up to Rid. If you ask me my top 10 movies, three of them are Blade Runner, Alien and The Duellists. We grew up in a northern family and northern families are very tight. My mum and dad grew up in the '20s and '30s and their survival was a desperate thing. There are very strong family ties. Ridley is my best friend, and now that we've bought Shepperton Studios in England together, and with the financing deals we have through Disney and Largo Entertainment, he's my best business partner, too. If you mix blood with business, there's nothing stronger."

But things can get competitive even between people who love each other, maybe especially between people who love each other. For instance, there was a much-publicized contretemps about the fact the brothers were both pursuing competing projects about Pancho Villa. "They're totally different," Scott declares. "Ridley's script, Poncho's War, was about two gunrunners in Mexico at the turn of the century. In fact, it's Lethal Weapon at the turn of the century, and Pancho Villa is only in it for 30 seconds. My project is an epic, like Lawrence of Arabia and The Wild Bunch rolled into one. It's a smart, character-driven love story between [cowboy screen star] Tom Mix and Pancho Villa, a brotherly love in which Pancho educates Tom Mix in the laws of life and survival. Tom is a perfect role for Brad Pitt, and I hope he'll do it."

Tony Scott is going to direct a smart character-driven love story? "I think I've turned the corner in terms of having been perceived as sort of an 'action director,'" Scott asserts. "I've gotten spoiled by shooting scripts by Shane Black--his script for The Last Boy Scout was quirky, different, a lot better than the movie I made of it--and by Quentin Tarantino. Both of those guys write wonderful dialogue, structure and characters. Because I'm a romantic, I changed Quentin's ending for True Romance because I couldn't have those kids die like he wanted them to. Quentin educated me to a world where you don't have to think about using light, camera angles, mysticism and tricks to camouflage things in a script you're uncomfortable with. He brought people to life for me in a way I'd never experienced before. It changed my life. I always used to think critics were taking cheap shots at me by saying that because I shot so many commercials, my work was slick. I can be more objective now about my early movies and see what was missing. There's a lot more content and depth in True Romance, Crimson Tide and The Fan compared to my early stuff. So, getting Tom Mix and Pancho Villa right in script form is what must happen before I commit to it, and after two drafts, it's not there yet."

With the Tom Mix project in abeyance, Scott enthuses about a flock of offbeat movies he and his brother are developing for Largo Entertainment and Disney. "We want to be a combination of Miramax and Castle Rock," he says, "and to be able to make Top Guns and Reservoir Dogs, too." To prove his point, Scott cites a Marek Kanievska film about the Amazon, a bullfighting drama from TV commercials director Hugh Johnson, and a hip, extreme thriller, The Gun, which will mark the feature debut of Jake Scott, son of Ridley.

Scott's next project may be Down and Under, an unconventional Mafia chase comedy cowritten by Scott Rosenberg, who's known for Beautiful Girls and Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead. He surprises me by saying that he's been tempted recently not by such big, brawny action stuff as Daylight or Eraser, but by smaller fare. "I read Beautiful Girls and just loved it," he says of the ensemble movie that ended up being directed by Ted Demme. "I just wasn't ready to handle a coming-of-age movie, but the characters were brilliant. I also loved and was tempted by the Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead script. I'm now mulling taking over a project my brother originally developed for himself that I've talked with Bob De Niro about doing. I don't want to tempt providence by saying any more about it, but it could be very good. See, I'm not good sitting doing nothing. I get paranoid and insecure, brooding about why I didn't get things right on movies, why I didn't do something another way, why I didn't do it better."

Given that he likes to test his physical limits on mountain peaks, does he ever ponder his own mortality? "It will happen when it's going to happen," he says. "In order to be buried in certain places in England, you have to either be born there, die there or have spent a number of years there. When I got married for the second time, I got married in Wordsworth's church, a beautiful church that overlooks a valley, so that I could be buried there. I always believe that my spirit will continue in the mountains that I grew up near in the north of England. But I think I've got more time, more movies to make."

So, Scott plans to keep testing his limits on the peaks of Hollywood, too? "I think there's nothing more exciting or stressful, outside of being President of the United States, than what I do. I've worked with three of my greatest heroes: Robert De Niro, Gene Hackman and Robert Duvall. Now, I'd like to be thought of as a director who has the ability to cross the whole board. I love my life. I love what I do. How many people are lucky enough to be able to say that?"

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Stephen Rebello interviewed Edward Furlong for the March '96 issue of Movieline.

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