You can either keep tinkering around with that time machine in your garage, or you can just flashback the easy way with a field trip to Movieline's Vault. This week we're unveiling our archives from 1998, which has yielded one of the most resounding bounties of vintage interviews and revelations to date -- starting with Nicole Kidman's very early insights into Eyes Wide Shut. And don't overlook bra shopping with Sarah Michelle Gellar, Kate Winslet simmering down about James Cameron, Christopher Walken's favorite roles, and David Duchonvy finally setting the record straight about the Jews.
· While Movieline did pick up some cast impressions of last year's 10th anniversary of Eyes Wide Shut, it's especially intriguing to hear Nicole Kidman's recollections of her collaboration with Stanley Kubrick and then-husband Tom Cruise -- a year before it came out:
Q: You and Tom were off and about for quite a while working with Stanley Kubrick on Eyes Wide Shut.
A: Yeah, that took a year and a half and will never be seen by anybody! But it does exist.
Q: Looking back, how would you assess the experience?
A: People looked at us like we were crazy to go there. But we weren't giving up anything, we were working with Kubrick. Yeah, could we have done three other movies and made lots of money--who cares? This was an epoch in our lives. I will forever remember it for being this strange, wonderful experience.
Q: And how was Kubrick to work with?
A: People ask me if it was hell. I say, "No, it was the complete opposite. It was an honor." I would do it again in a second. Stanley is extraordinary to be with. I would just go and sit in his office when we weren't shooting, just to be around him. We'd talk about everything, politics, World War II, Peter Sellers, airplanes, computers. You name it, he knows about it. He's a genius and I love him. I miss him now.
Q: Do you think Eyes Wide Shut will be a major film?
A: I don't know, I really don't. I wasn't allowed on the set when they were shooting the scenes I wasn't in. I read the script, but it changed.
Q: Does it have the potential for greatness?
A: I know that Kubrick has never made an uninteresting film. What's the difference between an interesting film and a great film?
Q: You said Kubrick reminded you of your father.
A: Stanley won't like to hear that--he doesn't like to be viewed as a father figure. He was just very kind to me. I respond to kindness. If someone is beating up on me I'll try to rise to the occasion, but I respond to nurturing.
Q: Did you and Tom bring the characters home with you?
A: It was intense.
Q: How different are the characters from what you are?
A: I can't answer that. I'd love to, I'm dying to talk about it, but once I get into that ... I've just got to be careful. There is so much interest in this film. Tom's been in a lot of films that have had a lot of interest, but nothing like this.
Q: Does that scare you?
A: Yeah, because you can never live up to expectations.
Q: What was your first meeting with Kubrick like?
A: We sat in his kitchen. I was nervous. I thought he was going to see me in person and go, "Oh my God, I made a dreadful mistake." Tom was also really nervous.
Q: You said in Vanity Fair that you don't like to work as much as you used to. Is that a result of your experience on Eyes Wide Shut?
A: On the film I got to live a lot, because I had a lot of time off. I went to London, Rome, Paris. I learned Italian. I still want to work, but now I want to live my life more than I want to work.
I can't begin to tell you how nostalgic this makes me. So much more here.
· Not long after Kate Winslet survived her Titanic ordeal, she had much kinder words for her director, James Cameron. OK, maybe not "much kinder" words. More understanding words, perhaps?
"He's a genius and a maniac," Winslet says. "A genius in terms of his vision, a maniac in terms of getting what he wants. But that's to be absolutely admired, because to be the controller of a thing that's so absolutely huge is amazing. Some of the visions he had in his head I found really frustrating, because I couldn't quite understand what he meant. I finally came to realize, though, My God, this man has been visualizing nothing but this for the last two years."
· Check out this unbelievably adorable interview with Matt Damon in the days before he was an Oscar-winning screenwriter awaiting a date as Private Ryan: Money quote: "Can you believe it? This is a chance of a lifetime. I get to put on a soldier's uniform, hold a pretend gun, shoot fake Nazis -- and with Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg! I don't know how to react to the great and wild year I've had." Awwww!
· David Duchovny dared to wade into the whole neverending "Jews own Hollywood" mythology:
If you look at it objectively, Jews created a lot of the studios, Jews do a lot of the agenting, Jews do a lot of the producing. But when you say something like "Jews run Hollywood," it's an anti-Semitic comment, as if some other race or religion is better suited to running it. As if the Jews have an agenda in the movies that they make. I don't believe that. It's like when people say Jews are bankers. Maybe so -- but why? Because they weren't allowed to own land and the only thing they could trade in was money or jewelry, that's why Jews are jewelers and bankers. Not because they love money and are all a bunch of Fagins and Shylocks, it's because that was the only avenue opened to a Jew in ancient Europe. I think it's a pity that Brando would have to say something like that, but objectively there's a lot of truth to it. But I think Brando's smarter and more sensitive than that.
· About that time we went bra shopping with Sarah Michelle Gellar...
· Christopher Walken didn't think he ever made a good Hamlet on stage, but as for the film roles he did like himself in? "I enjoyed myself in At Close Range," he told Lawrence Grobel. "I love my dance number in Pennies From Heaven. My performance in The Dead Zone was good. I like King of New York. My bits in True Romance, Pulp Fiction. My performance in Things To Do in Denver When You're Dead was very interesting because it was very focused--I was just a head."