Oliver Stone: The First Stone

Q: How much did you heed your father's advice to do something you don't want to do every day?

A: My father also said, "Don't tell the truth. Because the persecutions are going to come again." That was Jewish persecution. He'd say, "Don't tell anybody you're Jewish." Which I wasn't, I was half Jewish. He'd say, "They'll get you, they'll come back." And maybe he was right. We don't know the end of the century yet. He did not want to be a Jew. He didn't practice it, he didn't believe in it, he thought it was a bunch of rabbis with beards and didn't like that ostentation. He was more a man of the '50s, where a man held it all in. You wear short hair, get a haircut every week. He didn't go to church. But he felt communication with a God. He was very much in communication with his God.

Q: Not a liberal God, I take it.

A: No. [Laughs] Not a liberal God. My dad wanted to be a writer. Perhaps in some ways my own life is a working out of some of his secret wishes. As with my mother's life--she wanted to be a movie star. So in some ways, in the movie business I've been able to bring together both parents and fulfill a subconscious desire. But Dad would say, essentially, Stay out of trouble. Be anonymous. Do your work well. Put truth in your work. Don't expect rewards in this life; none of us are getting out of here alive. A man does good work and through time it will be its own reward. Unfortunately, he worked very hard at the stock market, he was one of the best, and he didn't make any money from it at the end of the day. He died in a rented apartment in New York. He left my mother an insurance policy and he left me $19,000. After all those years that was all that was left. When people say I'm from a rich family, it's not quite true, because that implies that you're set for life. I was never set.

Q: As a boy, though, you came from wealth?

A: Privilege. Until I was 14, my life was rock solid like some Tolstoy or Nabokov end-of-the-century story. Then it all fell apart. My father divorced my mother in a horrible 1960s New York adultery-type suit. Private detectives were necessary--you had to prove it. He locked her out of the house, then rented the house and moved to a hotel. My mother had no home and went back to France. I had a family one day and then no family. They didn't even come and see me at my boarding school. I had a phone call from my godmother telling me that they were getting a divorce. My mother claimed she called me, but I don't remember a call. I wish this had happened when I was 17 instead of 14, because I would have had three more years of security. Security's important for a child. It really is the foundation for his happiness. Much of the pain I have suffered and put into my work is based on insecurity.

Q: Have you ever worked this out with your mother?

A: To some degree. If you don't resolve it with your parents, how can you begin the road? I'm much happier because I've dealt with my mother better now, because I still have a lot of hate for her. It was a treacherous relationship. Recently, with the birth of this new child, she's become very happy, because she always wanted a daughter to give her jewelry to. And I have gone to therapy, yes, and talked about my mom, I'm working it out. She's a strong woman, my mother. So was my father. I had two strong parents and they both rocked my boat.

Q: Did your mother really take you to a nudist colony when you were nine?

A: Not nine. It was after their divorce. She took me to Europe on a trip to explain to me what had happened, [and that's when] she took me to a nudist colony. I couldn't do anything about it, though I felt strong urges. Beautiful women in Europe. I was very embarrassed and shy I didn't have any pubic hair. [Laughs] That was a real issue with me for a few years: no pubic hair.

Q: Is it true that you've had erotic dreams since you were four?

A: Yeah, but I don't know if Movieline is the right place to go into this. Essentially, I seem to have a very strong dream life and very strong erotic impulses. I find it motivating. It's an interesting life force. It can be perverted, it can be lustful, and it can reach excess, definitely. But it's a life force and I welcome it.

Q: How old were you when you had your first wet dream?

A: I don't know. I was a late developer. I didn't even grow to this size until I was about 20. I was smaller when I went into the Army. The first women I really knew were in Asia, hookers--and they were a great introduction, because I got to play out a lot of what American teenage boys think about.

Q: I thought your first experience with a hooker was the one your father got you when you were 15.

A: Yeah. Do we have to get into that?

Q: It is an interesting introduction.

A: It was an effective way. My father was a practical man. See, I didn't grow up in a high school setting. I was very retarded in that sense. Because I was different and an outsider, I didn't have girlfriends. I was very lonely.

Q: Was your father's gift to you a good experience?

A: It was great. She was a professional woman. She was nice. I didn't feel the taint of money or anything. It didn't have to be associated with falling in love, thank God, because you don't. Some boys fuck and they have to marry. They haven't learned that lesson yet. I think my father did the right thing, given my needs and insecurity. I wish I'd had a girlfriend--it might have been easier. But that wasn't the time in which women made love very easily.

Q: Were you close enough to your father to talk about the experience afterwards?

A: That's a good question. I loved my father and respected him, but we never talked too deeply about any subject, especially when it was personal. My father wore a tie and a jacket, like Nixon. He had a great sense of humor, but feelings were not part of that "man thing." My French grandfather, my cousin, my uncle, they were big men, they were in World War I and II, these guys were really tough, but they also kissed, so I had a whole other example.

Q: Of all the corruption you've seen, what corrupts the most?

A: Nothing corrupts as quickly as luxury. All Americans dream of luxury and materialism, but it's very corruptive.

Q: You've said that money was your father's Achilles heel. What does money mean to you?

A: Most of it I've been separated from. [Laughs] I've lost most of it in a divorce. I've never been a materialist, but I was always concerned to have enough to live.

Q: Did you ever play the stock market like your dad?

A: No, I didn't like that. I did the opposite of my father. He was a good father, but tough to understand, to get to. Always a hidden, mysterious section to the man I could never understand. It was as if he was perverted in a way. Perversion is hard to understand; it's like a black hole in somebody's personality. So your father becomes perverse because sometimes he won't wish you well, sometimes he wants to hurt you, sometimes he resents you because you're taking his place or he's getting older and you're younger or you're not good enough. All those thousand reasons. Fathers can hurt sons, deeply, with a word. It's very violent.

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