If you love Romero's zombie films like I do, the name of Captain Rhodes will be very familiar to you. Yes, he's the very angry bastard in DAY OF THE DEAD (1985), the most underrated of Romero's first three Dead movies. In 2011 I interviewed the man who played Rhodes, Joe Pilato, who also has the honour of suffering what is in my view the most memorable death in horror history. We spoke about Romero, the legacy of Day of the Dead, and the character of Rhodes. Joe sadly died in 2019, but he has a reserved place in horror history.

So here is the interview... 
"CHOKE ON 'EM!"

25 years on do you think Day of the Dead is finally getting the credit it deserved?
 
Yes, I do. We were side blasted by Dawn of the Dead. Everybody wanted the shopping mall and we gave them the cave under some  budgetary restrictions. George keeps saying it’s one of his favourite films. It had a very claustrophobic situation and you had characters coming from a complete point of view. So, it stands and it will always stand because not only is it horrific, not only does it make you ‘stay scared,’ it’s also intellectually complete and George took what he had – his budget was cut in half – and he chose to go into the world of isolation. What he couldn’t do visually he did “literally.” He had points of view in collision: Logan, the mad scientist; Sarah, the buffer; Rhodes, the military man whose job was just to exterminate. So, it was a sense of confinement and ideas. People were not stupid.
   George took a sense of confinement, which was opposed to his original script. He took a sense of confinement and claustrophobia where it met mindlessness. I personally think we were originally dismissed by the press for not repeating the shopping mall scenario but instead we continued with the evolution of the story.
 
Why do you think it was not as well received when it was released?
 
For Dawn, the concept of the shopping mall at that point in time was so ingenious. But nobody concentrated on the shopping mall. They concentrated on the characters. The concept of the shopping mall was brand new at the time and a sociological statement. When you look at Land of the Dead, it’s about time shares. And, I don’t think George starts with these concepts. You look at Dawn and it’s the shopping mall and if you look at Land it’s either about assisted living or timeshares. I don’t think any great writer or director starts with a concept. I think George had a story to tell and the zombies had to evolve. If you create a species like George did, and you want to continue the story, there’s an evolution. Look at Dawn of the Dead then look at Land of the Dead and you traverse between the shopping mall and you see the journey to timeshare. With Day, I think at the time the claustrophobic concept was lost on audience’s expectations for another Dawn.
 
How does it feel to be part of horror history?
 
It really feels great. Not because of any sort of infatuation of always being accessible on DVD and other formats. The thing is the genre fans. I have never met a genre fan I didn’t like. Genre fans ask great questions. In so many ways, a family has developed, and without that family, I’m just a piece of celluloid. I have the great fortune, as well as many of my colleagues do, of having an astute and knowledgeable film family. Because of the film, I’ll be around for a longtime. But, it’s the genre fans that have been a big part of the experience. They are the people that make this thing tick, and I love them to death. With them, we are an ongoing experience and I sincerely believe that.
 
Do you ever see any of the rest of Day of the Dead's cast?
 
Yes, absolutely. I stay in contact with all of them. I’m really close with everyone. We meet up at conventions. It’s always a great celebration. Geographically, we live in very different locations. Gary, Lori, Tim and Jarlath are on the East coast, I’m on the West coast so we meet at conventions and when we do it’s a wonderful thing. I speak with them by phone at least once or twice a month. It’s funny because not until – let’s see the movie was made in 1984... until Fangoria did a reunion years later, I hadn’t seen Gary or Lori since we made the movie but have stayed in touch with them ever since. They have been a great resource in my life and I believe I’ve been a great resource in their lives and that doesn’t happen very often in film. We spent a lot of time underground and got close. And we’re still close.

So it’s silly to ask if you ever get tired of being tied to Romero's films?
 
Absolutely not. I had the opportunity to work with one of the greatest directors whose work is in the archives of the New York Museum of Modern Art.
 
Finally, what is your view on Rhodes as a character and do you really think he was such a bad guy?
 
Rhodes was not a bad guy. You go to the airport today you either get put in a chamber or strip searched or hand searched. This is the beauty of George. Rhodes is the military point of view. Sarah and Logan were the medical point of view. It’s a tough choice, we live in a tough time. I think Rhodes was like, ‘shoot ‘em in the head,’ and that’s always going to be the military point of view. Unfortunately, Major Cooper died, Rhodes would have been second in command but when Cooper died, Rhodes had to take over and it was ‘Alright. Kill ‘em. Don’t domesticate them.’ In the small circle of isolation, we had the scientific point of view, voodoo point of view – which came from Terry’s character, and of course the military point of view. And, that was the job I was given. I’m not so sure I believe it today AND I’m not so sure I don’t believe it today. Strip search me at the airport - I’d rather do that than go through the box because of the radiation - but protect me. George was always a visionary.

Oliver Stone is one of the most influential, brave, and consistently brilliant film directors of our time. He's made such films as Platoon, Wall Street, Born on the Fourth of July, Natural Born Killers, Nixon, Any Given Sunday, and many more. The first time I had the honour of speaking to the living legend Oliver Stone, who I consider a genius, was for a book on the equally great James Woods back in 2021. The chat below, pulled from the said book, focuses on Stone's breakthrough 1986 film, Salvador, starring Woods as photojournalist Richard Boyle.
   (NOTE: I later wrote a book that went into the whole of Stone's filmography.)

​When you came to making Salvador, it’s well known that you had Martin Sheen ready to play Richard Boyle. What was it about James Woods that made you sure he was actually the right man for the part?
 
Jimmy basically torpedoed Marty for the role, when he started making fun of Marty’s stiffness as a Christian. He was right in the end. Martin was not the right guy to play Richard Boyle, who was the Antichrist of the whole thing. It would have been a mistake. But beggars can’t be choosers and I was very happy to have an actor of Martin’s calibre. But I’m very happy that it happened. And he did avert him in the way I described. You never know how it would have gone down with Martin Sheen, it might have had a different charm. But I don’t think about that as much as I think that Jimmy just ended up being the right person.
 
Was there a tension between the real Richard Boyle and James Woods? You’ve said that as people they were the complete opposites.
 
Yes there was tension, certainly in every way (laughs). I think one of the philosophical issues was that Richard, who never really knew how movies were made, was so spontaneous and irreverent, and out there. He was not disciplined in the way that movies are made. So we always wanted Jimmy to be grungier, looser, crazier, and Jimmy had to deal with the problems of discipline. And Jimmy would often talk about empathy for the character, and of course it also concerned me at some point whether Jimmy was the one sanitising the thing too much, selling it out (laughs). We ended up with a film that worked at the end of the day. It was a difficult film to edit as you know, with all the interference. In the end, Jimmy gave a performance that got an Academy Award nomination. So it worked! It worked, that is the key. You never know what else could have worked. At one point Richard Boyle was going to play the role, after that disastrous screen test we did. I don’t think Boyle would have worked and John Daly (producer at Hemdale) pointed that out. We needed an actor. I was desperate to make that movie in any way I could. There were tensions on every fucking level. And Jimmy would get annoyed if Boyle was around, and he’d think that Boyle would be critical of him. And Richard resented him because he was a movie star and getting paid more than he was. ‘Who the fuck is he to do this?’ All kinds of shit was going on the whole time. I had other problems too beside those two. But I think the film benefited from the chaos.
 
Salvador is such an exciting film to watch and I know the making of it was so turbulent. But was there a point, maybe once it was finished and released and people were reacting to it, that you started to think it was all worth it?
 
Oh yeah it was worth it. I knew what I wanted to do. But other people had doubts.

​How was it working with Jimmy, with the ad libs and all the ideas he brought to the film?
 
As an improviser he is brilliant. Brilliant. I would always encourage him, within our time limits. And if he came up with something I would be the first to go with it. But he never gave me a problem on the content. It all worked itself out. We never really clashed fundamentally, except in the way which was, how grungy should we make the character? I was always trying to make him more sleazy, while Jimmy was always on the side of caution. Boyle’s face would be a different colour everyday, so you have to understand we were dealing with a madman. I loved Boyle, but he was difficult. He’d be up and down, lecherous, greedy (laughs), wanting money all the time, scheming all the time, always complaining about something. Richard was a character, and he was the soul of the film in a sense. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without him. It was his madness that drove it forward. Of course the critics got that confused with me, as they always do, saying that I was Richard Boyle. That’s such bullshit. As I said, Jimmy was disgusted by him but I saw his strengths. And I think in the end Jimmy did too, although he has never expressed remorse about his death or anything like that. Jimmy is an actor, and he’s great at it, and this is one of his best performances. In a sense he was free to do what he wanted, and he was exciting to have on the set. But he was difficult at the time. He always thought he knew best, and he often did (laughs), but it can be hard to work with a know-it-all. And his fear of getting hurt, I understand that. You know, an explosion next to your face, I do understand. I’m more sensitive to that now actually, but I needed an actor who was willing to take risks, and that was a movie full of risks. The film was constantly testing him. I wanted him to go to El Salvador before filming and I was pushing him, but he didn’t want to go (laughs), because he was a germophobe and all that. He doesn’t want to be in shit hole countries (laughs). He did almost quit, and then I’d have been up shit creek, because it was so difficult at that point with the money and all that. The only other solution would have been to get Gary Busey, and he was even crazier (laughs).
 
In your memoir, it’s very exciting when you write of that period when the film starts to get a proper reception, it grows, and people start to laugh and respond to the Boyle character…
 
That didn’t really happen at the start, no. I was pretty down after that when I left the country to go to the Philippines to shoot Platoon. I thought it was over. It was flat, New York critics were snotty. It hadn’t opened in LA yet. We were dead in the water in a sense. I mean, it was an art film. But as we were shooting Platoon, that’s when I started getting news from the West Coast. That boosted my morale, because the West Coast were interested in the Salvador issue, and people were into it and laughing at the film. It was a big deal for me, after all the shit I had gone through with these studio types who’d seen the movie and expressed their disgust. They didn’t see the humour in it. And then that witch, the critic (Pauline Kael), she didn’t even bother to review it until months later and she was saying it was a scumbag film, but it was of interest, and that caught the interest of her crowd and brought it back to New York. It started making money on the West Coast, got good engagements in its second run, then her review led to it getting picked up again in New York.
But Platoon was the big thing that made people pay more attention to it. They knew Platoon was coming, then all of a sudden it was heating up, this invisible heat, that this was a hot film about Vietnam. My regret is that Platoon should never have been competitive with Salvador. The film crowd, the critics, were saying, ‘Oh yes I think Salvador is a better movie.’ It’s like, God Almighty. Both were different films, both made under impossible conditions, and actually succeeded in spite of this. So you don’t compare them, you just say thank you. It was all I could do. But it was quite annoying. And then in later years people would say, ‘I think Salvador is the better film, because Platoon got all the awards, but it’s not as good.’ That’s one thing I hate about the film business, its snobbism. I am not a snob director, I am a man of the people director. But Salvador was too disgusting a film for people, for middle America I guess. Even to this day people haven’t bothered to see it. It doesn’t have great distribution either. Hemdale went out of business and was sold off to MGM. Salvador was seen as a throw away after Platoon. So it never really had the shelf life of other films.
   But with Jimmy, we ended up as friends. That took some time, it was a tough shoot and I did want to strangle him. But he did say those lines to me, as I noted at the time in my diary. He came up to me after the shoot and he seemed very happy with it and satisfied. Which was pretty good for Jimmy because he had been critical all along of the film ever getting out there. When I got Jimmy, you must understand that only The Onion Field had gotten notice. Once Upon a Time in America hadn’t done business in the States. So no one was waiting on Salvador because of him. It didn’t change the financing or anything like that. When it came out and he got the Academy Award nomination, we were all surprised, but we felt it was genuine on the part of the community. They were surprised by his performance. But unfortunately it was the seventh time Paul Newman had been nominated, this time for one of his lesser films, and he won. But I do think Jimmy was robbed. It does happen.

Read more about Oliver Stone and James Woods in these books, available from online retailers and this very website...

Here is an interview I did with Lydia Corbett, about her time sitting for Picasso in 1954. The chat is included in two of my Picasso related books, PICASSO THE LATER YEARS and PICASSO'S MUSES...

Many people have different views and ideas about Picasso, the man, the artist and the myth. Ask his wives, particularly Francoise Gilot, and you will get a very different portrait to the one his friends or associates might speak of. Quite often, the perception of an individual person is down to the perceiver themselves, and the summarisation might be made up entirely of what traits came forth in your particular relationship with the subject. In the case of Picasso, he was many things to many people; superstar to the world media, genius to his army of admirers, handy PR man for the Communists, complicated man to family and friends. To Lydia Sylvette David, now known by her married name of Lydia Corbett, Picasso was a warm, funny, fun and approachable man, an artist in the truest sense who later inspired her to take up painting herself. She met Picasso when she was 19 in 1953, and as luck would have it, he ended up painting her in a series of legendary art works the following year which have transcended their time. Indeed, Lydia, or Sylvette as the world knows her, has become a myth, a symbol in Picasso folk lore, and as we agreed in our chat, immortalised forever, rather like a goddess out of the mythological tales Picasso so adored.
   As with much of Picasso's work, especially his truly great pieces, there is a certain magic to his Sylvette paintings, almost as if they could have been painted at any time in the past, any time in the future, or even on another planet. In the various masterworks, Picasso captures her innocence, her shyness, her unconscious mystery. No question, he is clearly fascinated with her, though his fascination is unique in the Picasso timeline. She was not his lover, though it remains a mystery if he wished her to be so or not, and that perhaps explains why the pieces are so flattering. Also, Picasso clearly respected Sylvette; that much is clear from the way he elevates her in the paintings.   
   She sat for Picasso regularly between April and June and the results were monumental. Her boyfriend Toby came by too, and she has since noted he was not jealous of Pablo's gaze upon his young girlfriend, though many men would have been. Picasso, though, would not start working until her boyfriend left, and then the magic would begin. If Picasso was painting her to forget about his worries after the departure of Francoise, then she was not just a muse, but also a councillor, a silent presence who brightened his days and filled his mind with good thoughts, making him temporarily overlook his heart ache. Though many negative critics have done so, to overlook this work as a stop gap between wives and inspirations is doing the paintings a disservice; after all, they are wonderfully painted, fun even, playful and full of light. Though he did not paint her again and their friendship drifted away when he hooked up with Roque, these paintings deserve classic status, and Lydia needs to be seen as one of the important muses, even though they never shared a romantically intimate moment. It is for this reason perhaps, that Sylvette deserves even more credit. She enjoys her own exclusivity in the Picasso story.
   The fact that the pictures are not pained, tortured, contorted or emotionally charged ensures that certain people do not take them seriously; which is a shame, as they highlight the more loving, affectionate and positive aspects of Picasso's work. I feel Chrstoph Grunenbery, director of Kunsthalle Bremen in Germany, who exhibited half the Sylvette works several years ago, hit the nail on the head when he spoke to the BBC in 2014:
   “The idea that this series lacks emotional engagement is a rather superficial psychological argument. I don’t think you can reduce Picasso to a kind of flesh-eating vampire who feeds on other women and his subjects – it’s more complex than that. Maybe it was her resistance to be seduced by him that made him need to see her: because he didn’t conquer her, he needed to conquer her on canvas and on paper and in sculpture. But even in the very sketchy portraits, where he tries to capture Sylvette in just a few lines and strokes, there is always great painterly expression. So one has to be very careful not to be judgemental.” 
   Sylvette must have been a hugely important inspiration to the ageing Picasso. He sculpted her, painted her, drew her, and in every piece she is positive, full of life while still being totally still and impenetrable. ‘I had this gorgeous hair and, like Coco Chanel," she told the Mail a few years ago, "I used to tailor a man’s shirt or jacket to fit me. I was like an iceberg. You couldn’t get close to me. They didn’t dare come near me, the men. That was why Picasso was intrigued.”
    The works were acclaimed upon being unveiled and Lydia became world famous, known as The Girl with the Pony Tail, inspiring the look of Brigitte Bardot, who wanted Picasso to paint her too. He refused of course, for though Bardot was a beautiful and fashionable girl of the time, she was no Sylvette in the eyes of Picasso. She didn't have the innocence, the quiet allure and the mystery.
   Writing for Fosse Gallery in 2015, Anthony Sheridan put it beautifully: "Beyond her pale almost translucent skin, Sylvette was flesh and blood; she was bohemian and unconventional. Whilst reserved she was no stranger to love, and she refused to be either “a goddess or a doormat” in Picasso’s terms. She was not what Picasso was used to. Sylvette David was not a blank empty presence that he could project on to, that would have been without challenge..."
   When she left his studio for the last time, Picasso said to Lydia, "Thank you for being here during my difficult time." Correctly perhaps, Lydia thinks she might have been a healing force between the two women in his life, soothing his pain in a challenging time by being straight forward in her reserved manner. Though she did not accept money, he gifted her with one of the portraits and handed her a book of drawings. One must agree, the painting was a much better gift than a mere pay cheque.
   Lydia was 83 at the time I originally wrote this piece. I spoke to her one rainy day in April, 2018, gazing out of the window as she spoke of her first hand encounters with the most iconic artist of the 20th century. As soon as she picked up the phone I felt her warmth and positivity glowing out and heading down the phone line. She entered Picasso's life at a vital time - after the departure of Francoise and the children no less - and some say he found a kind of peace and comfort in the young girl's innocence and hopeful naivety. It must be added that Picasso created more works of Lydia/Sylvette than he did of any other woman in his whole life in one sitting. Certainly, he depicted Jacqueline more in terms of numbers over their twenty year relationship, but Lydia gets the most in one collection. Though some critics sideline these paintings, they are among my personal favourite Picasso works. They are uplifting, classical, timeless, but also mysterious, though they remain pleasing on the eye and seem to say something deep about youth. Lest we forget, Picasso was already in his early seventies when he sat down to paint the young girl before him.
   Lydia took me back to that remarkable time in the mid fifties, in the hills above Vallauris, where Picasso had a villa and she encountered him over 60 years ago. Creating is about capturing something in that moment you are present; an essence, a feeling, a quality you cannot bring to life in any other way. Interviewing remarkable people like Lydia is also about capturing an essence of them and their memories. And when she told me about sitting for Picasso, I could almost smell the paint... 
 
What was it like the first time you met him? He was already a legendary figure, so you must have been aware of his stature. Was it an intimidating meeting or was it more relaxed?
 
No, it was very relaxed. It was a little village in the south of France. I had a boyfriend who was a metal worker in a little shed. Picasso could see us because he had a studio further up the hill. I think he could see me going there to see Toby, my boyfriend, and he got interested in me. He knew my name, because he must have asked around. And then another day we sat on a terrace; the potteries have a big terrace where they dry the pots in the sun, you know. And I had friends who lived near that pottery, so we all sat on the terrace drinking coffee, smoking away. In those days you could smoke as much as you wanted. Nobody cared.
 
A bit different now then...
 
Yes! I loved that. Everybody smoked cigarettes. Anyway... So Picasso saw us. He came over his wall with a sketch of Sylvette, the girl with the pony tail. So that is how it started. He opened a gate and we all rushed into his studio and he said 'I want to paint Sylvette...'
 
Wow. Amazing really.
 
Yes and I was so amazed because I was very shy and simple. Not at all exciting. Funnily enough, I was very shy and I had my boyfriend, you know, from England, and so when Picasso said he wanted to paint me I was just amazed. I said yes, I would love it. Because he was very friendly and father like. He was not at all frightening. He was 73.  You know, I don't know how old you are...
 
I'm thirty two.
 
(Laughter) Oh very young. So it is hard for you to imagine what it is like to be 73.
 
Yes exactly, my dad is only 64.
 
Yes so he is quite young too.
 
That is why I am so fascinated by the idea that you were so young and he was in his seventies when he painted you, and now you are older than he was at the time. He was already a legend by then. I suppose I am wrapped up in the myth of Picasso, but you were actually physically there.
 
Well I did not know much about him. I knew he was in the village, you know, and he went to the pottery where he did pots. But I did not speak. I was speechless, because he was a big man. Everybody knew that. I was shy, I did not talk much, but he didn't talk much either. What he did like was my hair, my long neck, and thin body. And I was shy. I think that is what he liked best.
 
What I like most about the pictures he did of you, is how there seems to be a lot of respect there. It is clear in the paintings.
 
Yes, you are right! That's it. I think he made me look like a goddess of the Greeks or the Egyptians. Like the Sphinx. Do you know what I mean?
 
Oh yes, definitely.
 
So I am really honoured near the end of my life, to have been made into a goddess in a way. (Laughter)

​Yeah, you have a point. It's like timeless myth really.
 
Yes, timeless myth, that's right. You know, so he did it and he said it was me. I was amazed.
 
How many pictures did you sit for?
 
Well I don't know if I sat for as many as he did, but I think he did more than I sat for. It was very quick, but he made sixty paintings, lots of drawings and sculptures. And the metal sculptures, Toby was cutting some of them out for him. I did not want to be paid as a model, as I was afraid that he would ask me to pose in the nude! (Laughter)
 
Yes, as soon as he hands the cash over he can pretty much do what he wants then can't he?
 
Yes, exactly. I thought 'If he asks me to do that I am not doing it.' Anyway, he never dared to ask. He knew I was very not touchable.
 
Maybe that is what he liked the most, that quality...
 
Well he did. I was a bit like a child. He loved his children. And they left him. Francoise and the children left him. So that is where I was, in the middle of that sadness. And there was another woman in the pottery, Jacqueline Roque, so I was kind of in the middle of all that.
 
You kind of arrived at a vital time didn't you?
 
Yes definitely, to cheer him up really, to make him forget about his troubles. An artist, you know, goes into another world. I am an artist now too, and I go into another world. I do not think about the problems of life, I really don't. I go to a peaceful state, dream-like. Life is great that way, total peace. You're creative too, you know that.
 
Certainly. It must be strange to look back on the Picasso connection, to be this kind of iconic symbol.
 
Well I am honoured. It is an honour. Thank God for everything, and now I am doing a big art show of my own, three rooms of my art in London. I do more oils than water colours now, because my eye sight is not so good. Creativity is the key to happiness. You agree don't you?
 
I do, definitely. It's also like an addiction. But Picasso must have influenced your art. It is there in your paintings for sure, the spirit of Picasso...
 
Oh, he has inspired my art a lot. A lot! It is all in my work now. I can see the influence. I loved the way he drew lines so quick, and clear, you know? Marvellous drawings. I do the same, a bit. Well, I try to. I am not as good as him! Picasso liked mythology; he loved the Greeks and all those people. He liked all those stories. Me not so much, I am more into spirituality, the spiritual world, I love God and Jesus, and all religions.
 
So faith and creativity keep you so positive as the years go by. You are still active even now you are in your eighties. And it's remarkable that in his seventies, Picasso was still as creative as ever before too.
 
Yes. I was there in 1954, and of course he died in 1973. I had two babies by then. Unfortunately I did not really stay in touch with him after. I saw him last in 1965 with my eldest daughter. I remember my daughter swinging him round in a chair. But he moved on with his wife Jacqueline and he was getting old.
 
I'm interested to know what it was like to have those famous black eyes staring at you while he painted you. I know he was not intense with you personally, but it must have been amazing to watch him studying you like that.
 
Oh no, he was not intense with me. He looked at me and maybe, I don't know, maybe wondered about me; what is she doing, what is she thinking and what will she do later? Because I was quiet and shy. I spoke about it all with my daughter, I spoke into a little machine and she recorded me, and it was quite emotional, you know.
 
Does that often feel like a different life to you, almost like a different person?
 
Yes, because when you are 83 you are not 19 anymore, but you know, young people, they do not think that far away do they? They do not see the future. They live day by day... that's how I lived. Thirty is a nice age, but fifty is better. You have that to look forward to!
 

​The career of Jonathan Lynn has been a long and varied one. After studying law at Cambridge University, and being a part of the Cambridge Footlights and the lively Cambridge Circus, he worked on the West End and began writing for various sitcoms, such as Twice a Fortnight and Doctor in the House. After writing a few episodes of On the Buses, Lynn created Yes Minister and Yes, Prime Minister with Anthony Jay. He then shifted into directing films, his first movie being the wonderful cult favourite, Clue (1985). Adapted from the well known and much loved board game, it boasted a fabulous all star cast, including Tim Curry as Wadsworth the butler, Michael McKean as Mr Green, Christopher Lloyd as Professor Plum, and Colleen Camp as Yvette the busty maid (who made quite an impression on me when I was a nipper). Lynn later followed Clue with such gems as My Cousin Vinny and The Whole Nine Yards., as well as theatrical and literary works.
   Having been a great fan of the film since my childhood, it was a thrill to ask Jonathan some questions about its making, how he ended up writing the screenplay, and eventually signing up to direct the movie itself.
 
It's odd how you came to direct Clue. At first you were writing it for the original director John Landis, and you crafted it for his style. Was this a difficult process, actually putting together a screenplay with a director in mind, or did it help you in some ways?
 
No, it wasn't difficult. John had thought a lot about the project as there had been 5 previous writers hired.  He had a rough story, a series of events but without any explanations for them.  Furthermore, "character is plot", as Graham Greene said, and there were no characters - just colours. I had to choose the period in which it was set, create character and motivation and, above all, find a way to make the old idea of a country house muder mystery seem fresh.
​
You said you thought it was a daft idea at first, making a film of Clue (Cluedo here in England), but once you had the task of writing it, were you able to put the board game stuff aside and just craft a high paced murder mystery? Did you enjoy writing the film in those three bursts?
 
No, I wasn't able to put the board game aside. I needed to use all the 'characters', weapons and rooms on the board, as well as the secret passages. Did I enjoy writing it? Intermittently, yes. Like all writing, it feels good when it's going well. It's obviously less fun on a day when you don't think of good dialogue or you get stuck on the story.

​It must have been surprising then being asked to direct it. What kind of preparation did you do for it? How nervous were to be directing a big American movie?
 
Yes, I was surprised. It was John's suggestion when he decided to direct Spies Like Us instead. He knew that I had been directing in the theatre for years, and he'd certainly read reviews. It was very generous of him. The usual preparation: casting the actors, the crew, and working with Victor Kemper the DoP planning shots. Although I changed some (inevitably) I started the film with every shot  in mind. I have done this ever since. Was I nervous? You bet!
 
Did you have a choice in any of the casting? It's got an amazing cast; Tim Curry, Christopher Lloyd, Michael McKean, Madeline Kahn, Lesley Ann Warren...

I made every casting choice, though of course I listened to advice from Debra Hill (the producer) and the excellent casting directors Jane Jenkins and Janet Hirshenson.

Is it true Leonard Rossiter was your first choice for Wadsworth? Was he ever actually on board to be in it? This would have been fabulous, because Rossiter is one of my favourite ever actors. 
 
Half true. I certainly had Len Rossiter in mind while I wrote the character of Wadsworth the butler. I had recently directed him in a revival of Loot by Joe Orton. He was superb and we had become good friends. However, by the time it came to cast Clue, Leonard had suddenly died. In any case, i doubt that Paramount would have allowed me to cast him
 
As a kid I remember watching it and my dad saying, "I don't know why people didn't like this when it came out". It got a mixed reception but now, especially over in America, it's a kind of beloved cult film. What do you think of it now, and have you seen it at all lately?
 
I'm glad your Dad liked it. And yes, it is a much loved movie in America now. I like most of it very much, but it was my first film and of course I see mistakes and many things I could have done better with more experience.
 
It's well understood that My Cousin Vinny is a sort of perfect film, a comedy masterpiece. You obviously mastered the form of directing comedy. What did you learn on Clue, what to do and not to do for future directing?
 
Thank you for your kind words about My Cousin Vinny.  After Clue I made Nuns On The Run, and learned a whole lot more, especially about editing, staying on schedule and many other practical things. One never stops learning, and one never stops making mistakes.
 

For more information on Jonathan’s career, visit his website:
http://www.jonathanlynn.com/

For my 2021 book on the films of Theo Angelopoulos, I spoke to Isabelle Renauld, who had a key role in Theo's Palme d'Or winner, Eternity and a Day, Here is the interview... (Photo provided to me by Isabelle herself.)

How did you get the role in the film?
 
The co-production of the film was French. It had therefore been decided that the actress who would play Bruno Ganz's wife would be French. Théo had done part of his studies in France and spoke fluently. Bruno spoke French perfectly too. Theo's big desire: for the actress to remind him of his own wife, Phoebe. I had just shot Catherine Breillat's film Perfect Love which he had seen. Luckily he liked my performance, and Phoebe and I had the same hair! Long and curly...
 
Do you remember your first meeting with Theo?
 
Oh yeah! It was made at "la closerie des lilas', a very popular and chic restaurant in St Germain des Prés. I didn't have any tests, I was just very elegantly invited to lunch with all the makers of the film. Theo of course, but also the French producers, the distributors... Only men. I was very impressed.
   After lunch, around 4 p.m., a courier brought the script to my house. At the time, I lived in a small house with a gate at the entrance. I was not supposed to be there so he threw the script over the grid, without an envelope, without protection... I was horrified! But the most disturbing thing is that the script was very thin, barely 30 pages. No dialogue or barely...
 
How was the first day of filming? How was it to see Theo at work?
 
The filming lasted over a year. I was brought to Greece a week before filming started and I spent a lot of time with Theo. I attended all the meetings and the birth of the famous film music. I came with the famous Paris polka dot dress plus two others to give him the choice. He immediately liked the peas... Theo's indication was: "I would like you to feel on vacation, relaxed", which I found very beautiful to play a deceased character. Theo hated lunch breaks on the set, so there weren't any. We each came in the morning with a sandwich. The days ended early, around 4 p.m.
 
The scenes with you in are shot very beautifully. How long did it take to please Theo?
 
It's a very good question because with Theo, time did not exist. He was able (and he did) to send me back to France without filming because the weather was not what he wanted! He liked the gray sky and if it was sunny we wouldn't shoot. I could come to Greece, repeat the sequence, go back to France and come back to shoot it 2 months later!
 
What are some of your fondest memories of working with Theo?
 
My fondest memory is the sequence shot of the house when the whole family arrives and everyone walks outside, towards the beach, the crib and the dance. It all happened in one plan. The camera rails are hidden under the planks of the wooden terrace and the technicians removed the planks one by one just after our passage so that the camera could roll with us, behind us when we left the house. I had never seen this!
   I have a thousand memories of this film, of the shooting, of Théo and Bruno. He made all of Théo's films with Yorgos Arvanitis (the cinematographer); they were like an old couple and I remember memorable encounters between them - in Greek. Theo was very funny, he could be the devil and an angel. I think he liked me... Bruno was darker; he seemed to carry all the Nazi pain on his shoulders. I remember the boat sequence where we are at the bow and where he tells me about his childhood memories. During a take, he was so beautiful, so accurate, that I forgot to say my line. I was fascinated by his playing, bewitched. I heard Theo say "Cut". And we had to redo everything... Bring the boat back to its starting point and start the whole shot over (Theo was mainly working in a sequence shot). Bruno has never forgiven me, I believe...

You can get the book on Angelopoulos' films at Amazon, Barnes and Novle, Blackwells, eBay and more website...

Will Self is undoubtedly one of the most important writers and thinkers of our time. His novels and short story collections have received wide acclaim, he currently teaches Modern Thought at Brunel University London, and he continues to write articles and columns on the issues that concern and interest him. I was honoured when Mr. Self  agreed to answer some questions about his novels, short stories, and thoughts on the creative process, especially given some of the questions were about stories he wrote decades ago. Thank you for indulging me, Mr. Self…
 
What I love about your short stories is the fact they are spare and detailed at the same time. You get to the core of a moment or a character in a single detail that often says so much more than if you went on to over-describe every single thing, as some writers do. Was it a purposeful decision when you started writing fiction to reach a sort of balance, of not being over descriptive? I know you have always written for yourself, but was it a conscious stylistic decision?
 
No, not really – and while I’m gratified that you say that (it’s certainly a very satisfying phenomenon for a reader), I can’t claim that it’s the way I’ve intentionally gone about things – rather, with the early stories, I was animated by the riff: most of them actually began as sort of bullshitting to friends; What would it be like if there were a Native American tribe characterised by being... boring? What would it be like if there were only eight people in London who actually had free will – and they controlled all the rest? And so on. When it gets to the novels – and especially the later ones, more influenced by Modernism. I think I really have a problem with not being too exhaustive when it comes to the world the characters inhabit... Modernism has to be, in part, precisely a revolt against the schematic quality of fictions that leave this description out because they assume their readers occupy a commonsensical world... 
 
My favourite story of yours (at the moment anyway) is Ward 9. It's such an exciting, engaging story, but there are some fascinating points raised in it. At the end, Busner says, 'You had the choice to be a patient or a therapist, you decided to become a patient.' Were you making bigger points about mental health and how hospitals can heighten and even create states of madness? Also, did you ever imagine the main character escaping the ward instead of being swallowed up by it?
 
Well, thank you – but I wrote the story almost 35 years ago, so can no longer speak definitively about intentions or motivations – suffice to say, it was inspired by the fact that I knew several psychiatrists and psychoanalysts at that time whose children had succumbed to mental illness – I was also very influenced by the anti-psychiatrists: Foucault, RD Laing, and especially Thomas Szasz, whose concept of ‘the therapeutic state’ informs all of ‘The Quantity Theory of Insanity’. Basically, I was proposing that a lot of the mental pathologies – as then (and still, now) defined – were iatrogenic, and I believe that the most recent research bears me out on this, whether you approach the issue from the position of psychology, or genetics... Here’s a link to a review article of mine which sets the issues out clearly:
 
https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjk6vnNmdL9AhUFaMAKHUUqBW4QFnoECBUQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.spectator.co.uk%2Farticle%2Fwhy-america-s-attitude-to-mental-illness-is-dangerously-deluded%2F&usg=AOvVaw3lbcEHpFp9oQH8plyOgfnF
 
Then there’s Chekov – my Ward 9 is actually a response to his Ward 6, so in order to understand my motivations in respect of the ending, you have to know the other story...
        
I saw you do a talk fairly recently when you read parts of Scale, and you were pleased it had aged well. That is still such a wonderfully surreal story. May I ask where you got the idea for it? Did it just pop in there one day, or were there ideas in it which had been bubbling away in the kettle of your mind for a while?
 
My first marriage was breaking up, I had two young children and an opiate addiction, we lived outside Oxford near to the M40, I often took the kids to the model village at Bekonscott... so it was fairly autobiographical... I was also obsessed by alterations in scale, which Levi-Strauss observes: ‘Always sacrifice the sensible in favour of the intelligible...’ The actual proximate inspiration for the writing was John Major’s speech to the Tory Party conference in 1991, the centrepiece of which was him inveighing against the lack of services on British motorways – he cited the newly-opened M40 as a major culprit when it came to kids pissing themselves in the car... I just thought it showed up the extraordinarily ephemeral character of contemporary politics, and immediately thought: but what will the people in the distant future make of these monumental earthworks...? But of all my work it probably came the easiest: I remember sitting down and writing it in in more or less a complete draft at one sitting... but then I also remember giving the then Prince Charles a blow job – and I’m pretty sure that never happened...   
 
https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiuuPTgm9L9AhUKTcAKHcM-AjoQwqsBegQIIxAF&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DQGlmqJzEVe0&usg=AOvVaw3E9erhk5aLMKsIrMC9LSp9
 
Shark is one of those books that is addictive and constantly unsettling at the same time, both a dream and a nightmare. How challenging and invigorating is it to work on such a long and intense piece like that?
 
It’s pretty intense... ‘Shark’ is tightly structured for a long novel with now paratextual apparatus – chapters, section breaks – and no supervening narrative voice... I also wanted to summon up at least two worlds with painful exactitude: that of the USS Minneapolis, and Genie’s childhood... But the novel was (is) part of a trilogy, and when I’d finished ‘Umbrella’ I knew where I was going with it, which was to express a dialectical relation between technological ‘advance’, psychopathology and warfare... I also had my methodology: an intense focus of the minutiae of human experience that’s usually eliminated by schematisation in fiction (see above)... I like ‘Shark’ a great deal... but I’ve yet to meet anyone who understood what was going on in the last twenty to thirty pages...
 
Chest is one of my favourite stories. There is a specific moment when you describe something being as bright and rich as a peacock's tail under a taxidermist's glass dome. Such details are mouth watering. You have said you take much pleasure in using rich and varied language in your work, but I wondered if you derived as much satisfaction from these types of descriptive detail. These little moments seem so minutely specific I am sure they please you as you tighten and hone them...
 
Yes, maybe – but you can’t really build fictions entirely out of well-constructed metaphors, and indeed, I came to believe that metaphor is a bit of a blind-alley for fiction (and by this I mean constructed metaphor, not merely allusive or colourful language)... The Umbrella trilogy is, in part, precise a reaction against so much English literary fiction, which goes along like this: tum-te-tum-te-tum ‘metaphor’! Tum-te-tum-te-tum ‘simile’! I really wanted to get past this – and if you read the trilogy with any attention you’ll see there isn’t a single constructed metaphor in all of it’s 1.500 very odd pages...
 
 I feel creativity is a restless pursuit of sensory satisfaction. How much do you think fiction is an exercise in trying to create the ideal aesthetic? Do you often feel it's an unfeedable hunger, that there is truly never enough to satisfy the creative urge?
 
No, I like making love, drugs, bringing up children and physical exercise when it comes to sensory satisfaction – and I have this much in common with Herman Goering: when I hear the word ‘culture’ (which is really socialised aesthetics – but then all aesthetics are... socialised)  I, too, reach for my gun... I write out of an urge to express and communicate, and also so as to have worlds that I alone control: I am the demiurge of my fictions...

The Indian Mutiny ends with a horrific nightmare (again a detail so graphically described), but the rest of the story is so believable. (It reminds me of Unman, Wittering and Zigo.)  Was this story inspired by a true event at all or was it from your imagination completely? (I had a teacher go mad, but he didn't kill himself.)
 
Again: it’s a long time ago, and I can’t remember the end of The Indian Mutiny... I thought the teacher just went mad in it... It absolutely was based on a real incident – indeed, there’s scarcely any invention at all... Pretty harrowing, really – and having worked as a teacher myself now for the past decade or so, my sympathies are squarely with the pedagogue... 

How much is fiction a cathartic act for you? Paul Auster told me that writing frustrates him but without it he is just an everyday neurotic.
 
I think I might have seen it that was a few years ago, but what with the way the world has turned, and I have changed, I no longer do: I write because I enjoy doing it – for no other reason at all...

https://will-self.com/
​

Here's an email Q and A I did 13 years ago for Hound Dawg (a free online PDF mag I was running back in the old days), with the great Victoria Coren-Mitchell, writer, poker player, broadcaster, and host of the wonderful Only Connect. I was an avid Only Connect viewer back then... and I still am, only now I watch it with my wife and daughter. 
   So here it is, unearthed, for the CHRIS WADE INTERVIEWS BLOG...

Your book For Richer, For Poorer tells of your long life love affair with the game. When did poker first enter your life?
 
When I was a kid - we always played lots of games, but when my brother started playing poker (I was about 14 at the time), it was clearly the best ever.

Being the first woman to win a European Poker Tournament and the first to win both a televised professional tournament and a televised celebrity tournament, do you think you've had a big part in the public perception of women in poker?
 
I hope so, I mean, I don't think there was a negative perception before, I just think people believed poker was a game played only by men. Obviously anyone can play - old, young, male, female, black, white, fit, fat - it's just a card game! But maybe if people read about my win, it encouraged a few more women who might have wanted to play but believed they were "the wrong sort of person".

Is it important for you to have a varied set of activities, work-wise?

I don't know if it's important, it just happened that way. I always wanted to be a writer and I've loved playing poker since the day I first played. The TV stuff... that's just a bit of fun on the side really. 
 
Did you always wish for a career in writing?
 
I never thought of it as having "a career in writing". I just wanted to write. I started writing stories when I was about 5. I didn't give much thought to how I was going to earn money as a grown-up (if I gave it any serious thought, I wanted to be a teacher or maybe a criminal barrister, that looked fun) but I always thought I'd write. As it turned out, I make some of my living from writing, some from playing cards, this and that, but nothing I do is much of a grown-up "career". I hope it's still not too late for me to be an astronaut.
 
Do you remember the excitement of getting your first piece published in The Telegraph, the teen column you continued writing for a while?
 
The first piece I ever got published was actually a short story for Just 17 magazine, when I was 13. I was a weird kid. I wrote all the time. I sent this one in, and they wrote back to say they'd like to buy it for ninety pounds. That was definitely the most exciting moment of my childhood; I still have the letter framed on my study wall. But it isn't addressed to me, because I sent the story in under a false name.
 
How did you get involved in writing for the Erotic Review?
 
I honestly can't remember. I think I met someone at a party who asked if I had anything erotic to write. I said no, but my friend Charlie and I always thought it would be funny to review porn films as though they were "proper" films, so we did that.
 
Did you enjoy your time there?
 
Yes. Well, I wasn't "there". I just watched the films at home with Charlie and we wrote silly things about them. I did enjoy it, it was funny, we drank cups of tea and discussed the characters and plot with great earnestness.

The porn flick you made, or should I say directed, The Naughty Twins, the making of which is the subject of your book Once more with Feeling, how did it actually compare in the end with other porn films, given the fact it was your attempt to make a better one?
 
It is in many ways the greatest porn film ever made. And, in many ways, the worst.

Did you see any reviews of Naughty Twins?
 
There was only ever one review, and we wrote it.

How did you enjoy the latest series of Only Connect, and will there be a follow up to it any time soon?
 
I love Only Connect - the teams are very much my kind of people. There will be a new series in the autumn.

What is in store for the rest of 2010 for you? It seems you have a good year for poker coming up.
 
Umm... yes, there are several poker trips, a new series of Only Connect, the paperback of For Richer For Poorer is out in September. Other than that, I don't know yet. I'll see how the wind blows.
 
Some quickies here: Fave film?
 
Mary Poppins

Fave actor and actress?
 
Edward Norton and Mae West

Fave song?
 
Better Not Look Down by BB King

Who are your 4 ideal guests for a dinner party?
 
My four closest friends. I'm a terrible conversationalist; I wouldn't want it to be strangers.

The acclaimed director of The Onion Field, and other gems such as The Boost, City Hall and Sea Of Love, spoke to me about meeting James Woods for the first time, casting him as Greg Powell, and the making of The Onion Field. The interview was conducted in 2021 for my book, THE FILMS OF JAMES WOODS...
 
Do you remember how Jimmy got the part?
 
Yes. I even remember the first time I met Jimmy Woods. He came to see me and he was a relatively unknown actor. The part had been written - and remember this was based on a true story. The actual character he was going to play, the actual killer, was residing at San Quentin. We were going to tell a true story, to bring the reality of  the character to the screen. So we needed a very special actor for that. And Jimmy, who did not look anything like Greg Powell, I knew he had it in him to be Greg Powell. The picture hung on that whole portrayal; the energy and the drive of the picture, the reality of the movie, is tested by that performance. And it was to me and the world at large an amazing performance. It literally drove the movie. We’ve seen a lot of killers on the screen and everything, but he gave it such an intensity that you felt more in the moment. We were really watching this cold-blooded cop killer. He sort of left the artifice behind.
 
It’s fascinating hearing your views, because I love that film so much.
 
I mean, I can remember vividly - and this is over 40 years ago, we’re talking 1978 - I can remember the first time I met him. I remember our first meeting. The script describes him as having icy blue eyes and blond hair. Nothing like Jimmy, but before the audition was over I knew that Jimmy was the character. That the inner character was there and the rest would take care of itself. It was a big moment in my life, and in Jimmy’s.
 
Is it true that Joe Wambaugh was set on the other actor, and you had to persuade him that Jimmy Woods was the right guy?
 
That’s right. Joe, who wrote the book, a brilliant writer, but being a writer and knowing the actual people, when he saw Jimmy he did not strike him, and to him that was not Greg Powell. He thought of a blond with icy blue eyes. And Jimmy said he’d do a screen test for us, and of course that screen test proved to me, and Joe, that we had the right actor for the part.
 
When you come across a special actor like James Woods, is it a stand out moment for you?
 
Oh yeah, it always is. When you find the real thing it’s always a moment, you know? And I can’t imagine the film without Jimmy. He lent such credibility to that character. This is a cold-blooded killer who kidnaps a cop, takes him to the onion field, and shoots him point blank in the face. To do it with conviction, that’s what goes through you.
 
Greg Powell is such a weird character. I mean, I know he was a real guy, but in the film you can immediately tell he’s a sociopath, yet he also has this strange little way about him. Like the mole and the little skip over the road. And then all of a sudden, even he seems surprised when he blows Ian Campbell away.
 
Well, the interesting thing is that first half of it is a crime melodrama, and the second half is a series of trials in which time the character is fleshed out and you get the depth of him, and it takes the second part to really inform you who this Greg Powell was. It was not just a two dimensional character who puled the trigger.
 
Yes, and that’s what is so interesting about the film. It is a film in two halves, but it doesn’t feel jarring.
 
Exactly, and that was the challenge of the movie. You see the other dimensions of the character when Jimmy Woods as Greg Powell is brought in for questioning. You are already beginning to see the other dimensions of him; the bravado falls away and you get into the depths of the person who was behind that gun. That is what made it, to me, a memorable performance and a memorable movie. 

Well I think the scene in the onion field is one of the most disturbing and haunting scenes I have ever seen.
 
Oh, it felt so real. And Franklyn Seales, as we were shooing it, when Jimmy pulls the trigger… it’s hard to describe it even now, but Franklyn Seales started screaming! That was not in the script. It was not rehearsed. It’s in the film. He started to scream. That is how affected he was, that is how affected everyone was, it was that real, and that is what I wanted to create. I wanted to create that kind of depth, because we have seen plenty of shootings and mayhem on screen, but this just had to be real. Joe Wambaugh said to me that the most important words in the script were, This Is A True Story, and that was my responsibility. I found Jimmy, I met James Woods, and I knew I had the character who could carry this movie.
 
If you watch key films from that era, when a key actor first arrives, like Robert De Niro in Mean Streets, you know something is happening. I think when James Woods comes into The Onion Field, you feel that same level of magnitude.
 
Exactly! It’s something that goes beyond. You experience something that goes beyond what you normally get from a film, beyond entertainment, that you are watching something real. And that is the hardest thing to get, to go beyond the cliché.
 
What kind of direction did you have to give in that film?
 
The important thing is to create an environment in which the actor can express the character. You don’t direct actors in terms of the acting, but in terms of the direction you go in. You create an environment. Like with Franklyn screaming there, he forgot he was in a movie. He was living it! And that’s what you wanna feel like when you are watching it. All I had to do was set the stage for the performance, and that performance has to reach beyond. There are a million adjectives for it, but the final thing is to just do it. It’s like catching lightning in a bottle. You know when you have it. That was the heart of that film. I think it’s one of Jimmy’s most indelible performances. He never met Greg Powell - he didn’t have to. He had to bring his own inner self to it.
 

Read more about James Woods and his movies in THE FILMS OF JAMES WOODS, available on Amazon....

The renowned novelist Andrew Klavan answers some questions about writing for the screen, how prose is his first love, and the screen adaptation of his novel True Crime, directed by Cline Eastwood in 1999.
 
A number of your books have been turned into movies. How was the experience of writing the screenplay for A Shock to the System from Simon Brett's book? Was it a challenge to adapt another writer's work for the screen, especially when making certain changes? 
 
There's always a challenge adapting a book because a movie is so much more condensed and structured than a novel. And in theory, my loyalty is toward the movie audience, making sure they get their money's worth. But Simon is so amazingly good at what he does, with "Shock" it was actually kind of a party. It's a fantastic book, a classic of the genre, and the only real challenge was making sure I did it justice.
 
Even though you did enjoy doing the script and liked the movie, you weren't chasing a Hollywood career at all were you? Were people surprised that you just weren't that keen on being a part of the film world?
 
When the 'Shock' producer first called me in, she said she would pay me to write any script I wanted. I told her, thanks, but I didn't want to do movies. I wish I had a picture of the look on her face. It makes me laugh to think back on it. A lot of writers would sell their mothers — in pieces! — to work in Hollywood. I respect the craft of screenwriting but, just for me personally, it has nothing near the depth or pleasure of writing prose. I'm an old fashioned writer, with a vision and a muse and all that antique baggage. Movies are made by directors. I enjoy the work, but writing prose is what I love.
 
With True Crime... Where did you come up with the idea for the book, and how long did it take you to write it? 
 
I'd always found the idea of execution terrifying. Knowing the hour you'll be killed with nothing to do but wait. It's a nightmare. But the story had been done so often it was a genre cliche. Then one day I was watching a documentary about how the system worked, and it came to me that with the rise of political correctness — the idea that nice people don't speak uncomfortable truths — the only person who would know if a white man was wrongly convicted would be a guy who wasn't nice at all. That's an original story. In fact, looking back, it sort of seems to me to predict the rise of Donald Trump: a not-very-nice person who is legitimized by the fact that none of the nice people is willing to say the obvious thing he hasn't got the decency not to say! All told between the research and the writing it must've taken me two years to get it in shape. 
 
What did you think when Clint Eastwood acquired the rights and was planning on making the film?
 
It was funny. I was living in London then and had flown to Hollywood and had a meeting with the producer who'd optioned the book. And she very gently told me that development had stalled and the movie would not be made. That was par for the course so I shrugged it off. I flew home to London and almost instantly got a call saying Eastwood was doing it. I shrugged that off too! I thought: Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. And my agent said: No, you don't understand. When Eastwood says he'll do it, it's as good as done. It was in production shortly thereafter. It was kind of dizzying. I'm not sure I believed it till I saw the completed film.
 
Was there ever a possibility that you might get involved with writing the screenplay or was it never even a consideration?

I was asked if I wanted to do it, but I said no. I had poured my heart into the book and didn't think I had anything else to give it. Plus, they paid me so much money for the book, I thought they'd want someone with a bigger Hollywood name and I didn't want to slow down the process. Also, as ever, the movies were not my first love.

What did you think of the film when you saw it? I love the performances by James Woods and Denis Leary in particular. What did you think upon first viewing? It's a shame it was a flop at the time. I feel it's aged really well. 
 
Yes, it has aged well. And Woods is the greatest, perfect for the part. Listen, I love Eastwood. He's brilliant. He's made some of my favorite films. But he was too old for the part. A 35-year-old womanizer has some wicked charm. But at the preview, when a much older Eastwood started flirting with a 25-year-old in the film, I was watching the women in the audience and I could see their shoulders rise up around their necks and I thought: We're doomed. Also, Isaiah Washington was wonderful, but making the condemned man black kind of ruined the original idea — the idea of a story so politically incorrect only a bad guy could report it. So it lost the book's originality. 
 
I was wondering, if they made True Crime now, do you think they would make changes in the plot, perhaps put even more emphasis on the race of the man arrested? Do you think they'd even make True Crime these days, especially with someone like Clint in the lead role?
 
No, they wouldn't make it. No mainstream studio anyway. I'm not even sure they would publish the book. At the time, it got great reviews. Now it would be eviscerated.
 
You still write screenplays. Do you enjoy writing scripts? A writer told me recently that he might come up with an idea that he knows in his mind is strictly for the screen, not the novel format. Do you think in similar terms or do you just go with the flow and whatever ideas come forth to you?
 
I really enjoy writing scripts, and I enjoy working with other people. But it's just not the first thing I want to do. Also, I strongly believe I was black-listed from Hollywood for my conservative views, so I don't think there's much market for me there anymore. But new indie venues come to me pretty frequently and ask if I want to do things. It has to be really good for me to get onboard. 

Go to Andrew's site for updates:
https://www.andrewklavan.com/
 

To kick-start 2023 into gear, I am thrilled to present a brand new Q and A with the legendary Sharon Stone. Sharon has been one of my favourite actors since I was a kid, when I was marveling at the string of dynamic performances she gave in such films as Total Recall, Scissors, Basic Instinct, Intersection, The Specialist, Casino, The Quick and the Dead, Diabolique, Last Dance, Sphere, The Muse, Gloria... and that's just SOME of the 90s work! Since then she's proved herself in comedy, TV, supporting roles, indie flicks, and mainstream blockbusters. Overcoming serious health problems, doing admirable work for charity, and writing one of the finest memoirs of our time, The Beauty of Living Twice, in a time when people idolize celebrity for the sake of celebrity, Stone is someone who's genuinely worthy of admiration. Biased as I am (she's my favourite actress), Stone remains one of the most engaging presences in cinema. 
   In this Q and A, I got to ask Sharon about her book, some of my personal favourites of her film roles, as well as her more recent work. Thanks to Sharon for taking the time to answer these questions. 
   Here it is...

​Your book, The Beauty of Living Twice, is so beautifully written. What was your main motivation for writing it?
 
I decided to try to look at why I had a stroke; or moreover, why I got my self in that position. It was for me, a reckoning.
 
The audiobook version of the book is also terrific. What I love about it is the genuine emotion in your voice throughout. It's one of the most 'real' narrations I have ever heard.
 
I did it during Covid. So it happened in my bedroom. I put a photo of my best friend on the table and read it to her.

​I have some very specific favourites from your movie career. One of them is Last Dance. Bruce Beresford told me of your technical skill during that film, which kind of stunned him. You write about how being under the skin of Catherine Trammel affected you and was extremely hard work from day to day; I was wondering if you had the same struggles during the filming of Last Dance? 
 
I can say that shooting the scenes in the real prison on death row, on the killing block, on the death march, on the real death machine with the real guards and prison warden, being hooked up to the real machine, is something which I now know and understand in a way no other living being does. As I also did it while processing those genuine emotions,   I have grown immeasurably from this experience.

I think Casino is one of the greatest films ever made, and as you might know I adore your performance in that film. I was wondering, what kind of research did you do into the real Ginger/Geri? Did you meet any of her friends? Did you talk about her with Lefty Rosenthal? 
 
I did it all. Yes to everything and way more; police files, FBI files, secret meetings, tons of real documents and photos, and then working with the greatest living actors, director, cinematographer and crew. It was five months of an altered state in Vegas .

I was wondering what your personal view of Ginger was once you had finished your experience of portraying her?
 
She is dear to me.
 
One of my favourites of your performances is in When A Man Falls in the Forest (2007). You totally disappear into that part.
 
It was way before it’s time. The writer-director was in college. I met him when looking for someone to write yet another story way before its time.
 
I also feel that your comedic roles are often overlooked. Do you not really separate comedy from drama when you look back on your roles?
 
I prefer comedy. That's what I'm far more trained for. I started waaay back in comedy improv.   
 
I always really liked Diabolique and the performance you gave in it. Was that an enjoyable or satisfying character to portray?
 
The best part was the games we all played between scenes when we weren’t working. I mean, THINK of the brainiacs on that film! We had so much fun.

You worked with Dustin Hoffman on Sphere not long after being with De Niro on Casino. What was it like to work with such cinematic giants?
 
De Niro is a focused, brilliant giant of a human. Incredibly, they're so generous, so gifted. Such team players. There is nothing but the work.

What I love about your recent work is that you seem so free and to be enjoying the varied roles. There are loads I could ask about - I love Mosaic, the Flight Attendant role, Ratched etc. Do you feel you have reached a point where you can pretty much do whatever you want - within reason, that is? Is there a sense of being more liberated in your choice of work than in the 90s when you were holding up massive movies often completely on your own?
 
I want to grow as an artist. With Ratched I learned to be a supporting actor; to support, to stand beside, to help, to be there for whatever’s needed. It was so great not to have the weight of carrying the project. With Flight Attendant I wanted to process a parent dealing with addiction in a family. The resentment, the stoicism, the boredom, the anxiety, the disconnected love. To be honest, with Mosaic, I just wanted to work with Steven Soderbergh. He’s a freak of a genius and i thought we would get along...

Follow Sharon Stone on Instagram.
www.instagram.com/sharonstone/

If you want to read Chris's book on Sharon's entire filmography, you can get it from Amazon.
www.amazon.com/Sharon-Stone-Complete-Film-Guide/dp/1716010314/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1672830280&sr=1-1