JMS: Ann Beattie. I was hoping that she would write the screenplay [for CHILLY SCENES OF WINTER] with me. And she came into my office, and she said, “You know, I don’t know anything about writing for the screen, and I don’t care.” She said, “What I’d like to do is be in it.” I said, “What?” And she said, “Yes, I would like a silent role, I’m not an Actor but I’ve always wanted to be in a movie.” So what she wanted to play was the waitress. She’d read the script, you know. No. Wait a minute--after she read the script she picked the waitress, that’s what it was. I hadn’t written it yet, but when I did. And she’s the waitress. So that’s Ann Beattie. But she was an amazingly generous author, you know. I used to have these nightmares that there’d be headlines in “Variety” and it would say, “Silver butchers Beattie’s book,” you know. Because of course I made changes, and… She and I were on a panel, I can’t rem--in Washington or something, together, and she was asked how she felt about the changes that I’d made. And she said, “If I’d thought of them I would’ve put them in the book myself.” I mean what a generous thing for a Writer to say, she was just, she was fantastic, and I loved her book.

INT: I have a question that’s a little off the subject, but maybe, and if you want to sort of say, let’s wait ‘til later, we can wait ‘til later, but it… it has to do with today, what’s going on for younger filmmakers today, or people starting out. I mean when you started, and you describe a little bit of the world of getting that film, of getting HESTER STREET out in distribution, that even several years later, you really couldn’t recreate, because already the budget’s gotten too big. I don’t know how to, what one does today. 

JMS: Well, you certainly see a lot of people still finding somehow, ways to make films. They find ways to get themselves to festivals; they find ways to get to… And now you have all these dot-com, very successful people who suddenly wanna become film Producers, and are paying… But you know, that doesn’t necessarily get it out, but some of those I’m sure will end up being distributors. I don’t know. I mean it’s, it’s very catch, sketch, can, and yet somehow, films keep getting made, and they keep coming out. I wish it were easier, I wish it was easier for all of us, and for young people as well. But I keep seeing films that I think are interesting and odd, and surprising, and you know, and… [INT: Yeah, I think the two changes that have occurred, has one to do with the incredible breakthroughs of technology. Obviously now, someone can easily make a film for 10,000 dollars if they want.] I know. [INT: You know, and then at the same time, the reverse issue, which is the incredible increase of product. So that the marketplace is such a glutted place, that to break through demands an additional kind of, sort of… tenacity, that goes beyond what one, you know, had to do way back then, and it’s, or incredible luck, who knows. You know, a little bit of both.] Yeah. [INT: But it’s a tougher place, and yet…] Oh, luck is so… [INT: It changes. It changes dramatically all the time.] Yes, the business has definitely changed. And the kinds of films that, for the most part, the studios are making, are very far apart from the sorts of films that… You know, I came up in the ‘70s [1970s], and the studios were releasing some of the great films that one can still look at with great joy and pleasure, so, I don’t really know. You know, one of my feelings--I wonder if you felt this way about UA [United Artists]. When I, when they were doing your film as well, they were getting beat up, so on… [INT: HEAVEN’S GATE.] HEAVEN’S GATE, thank you. And I always thought, you know, they go out there, get beat up, and they come home and kick the dog, and we were the dog, so I felt we were really being treated even worse than we probably been treated otherwise because they were so frustrated with what was going on with HEAVEN’S GATE. So I thought that had also something to do with it. [INT: Played a very big role. It almost broke the company down. And I think they, and what had happened was they were… the irony was is they had one interesting film after another that they didn’t release properly because their minds were on the big event that seemed, I mean, that was an ama-… it’s in the book. You know, it’s in that book that Steven Bach wrote.] Oh right, right, right. [INT: It’s all described, it’s an amazing story. I don’t know if you’ve read, I’ve read that book.] Yes. Steven was one of the great, you know, the good people on our side. But… [INT: Crazy time.] Yeah, it definitely was a crazy time, but you know, the… CHILLY SCENES OF WINTER was just revived at the Anthology Film Center [Anthology Film Archive], and there was just, I don’t know if you ever take, read their catalogs, but they have a wonderful catalog, and the film was reviewed, and it was reviewed so beautifully. And I thought, you know, the great thing about films is they live. [INT: They live.] And maybe they don’t live right away, maybe they take a little, you know, they hibernate for a while, but then they, they’re there. [INT: That’s true. Absolutely true.]

INT: I wanna digress also for one second, ‘cause this might be the time, and I don’t have it exactly, but you also had involvement in the theater, or was that later, was that during this period? 

JMS: It was a little bit coming after this now. It was when I was starting… You know, almost all the Actors that I worked with said to me, “Why don’t you do theater? You’d love it, you’d love it. You love working with Actors.” And I said, “Listen, I, you know, I can hardly do the films.” My kids were small, I just felt like I couldn’t cope with any additional thing, but by then, they were getting bigger and I felt I could. So I started working in the theater, and enjoyed it tremendously, ‘cause I just, I do enjoy working with Actors. I’ve had wonderful experiences in theater working with Actors. And you know, it’s fun, once you start, I mean, they keep in touch with you, and whatever they’re doing, they let you know when… With another Director, another theater Director named Julianne Boyd, I developed a revue, really, called A… MY NAME IS ALICE. It was sort of a comic, feminist revue about what was happening with women. And those Actors have remained close as well. It had five women. [INT: What year was that, when did you do, or what period of time was that? The early ‘80s [1980s], or was it…] Yes. I think the first one was in the ‘80s, and then it had a sequel, which was… I’m sorry I don’t have the dates exactly in mind, but it’s… [INT: So that’s the theater work you had done. You conceived that with Julianne…] Yes, but I also directed other, you know, just did regular. But then the thing I was gonna talk about, A… MY NAME IS ALICE, is how wonderfully it all comes back. I have a grandson, who’s an 11-year-old musician, and he was at Interlochen Camp [Interlochen Arts Camp] as a junior member, of the, in the juniors. But the seniors put on some shows, and one of the shows they put on was A… MY NAME IS ALICE, so, you know, it’s amazing. [INT: It’s sweet. It is, it is.]

INT: So after that, really, I see a couple of things. We can skip some stuff, or talk about some stuff. I don’t know… HOW TO BE A PERFECT PERSON IN JUST THREE DAYS, was that, I don’t know what that… 

JMS: Oh, that was just a small, kind of fun. It was fun because Wally Shawn [Wallace Shawn] was in it, and I got a credit with Wally Shawn. It was just an odd little thing for a company that I’d already worked for, and… [INT: I see, got it.]

INT: Because then, the next sort of big HBO thing was the FINNEGAN BEGIN AGAIN. [JMS: Yeah.] Which I absolutely loved. [JMS: Thank you.] And was aware, at the time, I think even before you committed to it, I think I had read the script, and didn’t feel, myself personally, right for the film. And what I loved about what you did is it seems like a movie that came out of you. 

JMS: Oh, thank you. Well it did have a wonderful script. But, a script which needed some adjustments, and we worked a lot with improvs. And in fact, I had an interesting experience of the, it’s a story of two people, played by Mary Tyler Moore and Robert Preston. She has a lover-boyfriend, who’s not an appropriate choice for her, played by Sam Waterston, of all people. And he’s bogged down with a sickly wife, and a difficult life, and of, not so much success at his work on a newspaper. And somehow these two unlikely people meet, they… It’s romantic comedy. And after the first read-through, we made it in Richmond, and Mary Tyler Moore said to me, “Can I see you please?” And I said, “Yes,” and she said, “I’m going home.” And I said, “What’s the problem?” And she said, “Well, it’s his movie.” Well I felt like saying, “Mary, you read the script,” but, you know, it was his movie, true enough, and I said, “Well, Mary, I think we can make it more your movie. Why don’t we work with improvisations? I’m used to that, and I think we could do some wonderful stuff,” and she said, “I can’t improvise. I hate it, I don’t wanna do it, I’m not good at it.” And I said, “Well, let’s give it a try, and if you still hate it, we’ll think of something else to do.” So, after lunch, she and… we were gonna do improvs with Sam Waterston, because he played her boyfriend, and then also Mary and Press, Robert Preston. So I said to Preston, “I’m gonna start with--” [INT: You called him Press or Preston?] Press is what you called him. That was what he wanted to be called, yeah. [INT: I didn’t know that.] I said, “I’m gonna start with them, so why don’t you come over in about an hour, let me work with them first.” So he said, “Okay.” So I go into my room, which all these things seem to take place in my hotel rooms, you know. And we start, and there’s a knock on the door. And I open it and it’s Press, and he says, “I don’t have any place to go.” So I said, “All right, come in here and sit there and be quiet, listen, okay?” Well, it was such a lucky thing, because he laughed. And everything that they did that he enjoyed, he was just one of these, just terrific guys, you know. And he enjoyed himself, and they felt they had an audience, and they came up to it. And of course I’m madly taping everything, and then I, you know, wrote… from that, I made, I did the same thing I did at BETWEEN THE LINES, I scripted scenes, and so on. And then of course, Mary Tyler Moore proved to be fabulous at improvising, and Press was unbelievable, unbelievably good. [INT: Yeah.]

INT: You know, you know, you feel it in the movie [FINNEGAN BEGIN AGAIN], you feel it in the movie. It’s such a special movie and I, and I have several questions about it, but… How many times, and it’s a shock to hear it, and yet it’s what we do, to have the Actor, maybe even the star, and I had this with Richard Pryor on a movie, where he said, “I’m not gonna do the film,” because of something in the script. And it was in a hotel room, which was his, in which it was like, you know, I had to go as far as to say, “Okay, you’re not doing the movie. You’re not in the film. Just tell me the problem with the script, so I can get it fixed.” And after an hour and a half, he was, you know, he was back in. [JMS: Yeah. Absolutely, absolutely.] And what a moment, when, you know… How did you feel? 

JMS: Well, I mean, she [Mary Tyler Moore] was the reason the movie was being made. She was the, considered to be the, you know, she was a big television name, and this was for HBO, and I felt that would not be a happy thing, but I also felt that, that I liked her, and she liked me, and we could find some solution to it. [INT: She’s wonderful in it.] Oh, she’s marvelous in it, and she was wonderful to work with, and you know, she was such a star, that of, the general country… As I said, we made it in Richmond [Richmond, Virginia]. And when we were out, shooting outside, there would, people would gather around just to watch her, and she was so lovely to them. She was so gracious to them. I was so impressed with how she behaved toward the public. You know, she really took that as part of her responsibility, not every Actor does, so she was wonderful about that. Press [Robert Preston] was just, oh, what a dream. He was a dream to work with. [INT: Yeah. I actually was, that’s so interesting, after I saw the movie I was like going, you know, he’s so incredible. Why was there not more about him, and then I read, he died the following year, or two years later of lung cancer?] Very soon after. [INT: I was so surprised.] I wrote his wife just a, he had lung cancer, he smoked, you know, and I wrote to his wife, I was just devastated by it, and she wrote me back a letter that meant a lot to me, saying that this had been one of the last things he’d done, and that he was very happy with it, and it was one of the, it was great that he went out on something he felt so good about, which, of course, you know, dissolved me. But, he was a person who had a great confidence in himself, and in his abilities. And Mary Tyler Moore would often upstage him. I don’t know whether she did it instinctually, or… I mean I don’t know how it was, but she was sort of, you know, and I would try to prevent that from happening. ‘Cause I wanted to do a scene with the two of them, I didn’t wanna always be on his back, and, or over his shoulder, whatever, so I took him aside, and I said, “Look, Press, she’s upstaging you.” And he said, “Yeah, so?” And I said, “Well, if you’ll cooperate with me, I can stop that from happening. I mean I can organize it so it won’t happen.” And he said, “Do you like the character I’m creating?” And I said, “Well I love it.” And he said, “Do you think my work is good?” I said, “I think your work is fabulous.” And he said, “So forget it.” So, I’ve never seen anybody so sure of himself, he just knew what he was doing. [INT: He did.] So we went along, and of course he emerges fantastically from the film, I mean, he was just, he just had a, just a super quality. I hung around with him almost continuously; I just adored him. [INT: Also, something in the Sam Waterston character, kind of, when you started telling the story, and he played against that tremendously, kind of, he was had kind of a joy of life almost, amidst all the troubles he was in. He was like infectious. And that sort of helped…] He’s wonderful, yeah. [INT: Yeah, explain a little…] Yes, I thought it did too. I thought he, that was a, just a super contrast.

JMS: And I like Sylvia Sidney in it [FINNEGAN BEGIN AGAIN]. She played the ailing wife, and she was excellent. And of course I’d seen her, you know, for so many years in so many movies, and… You know, recently I reread or I read a biography of William Wyler by Axel Madsen, and I liked reading it, and I’m interested in Wyler’s work, and I decided to treat myself to looking at the movies, Wyler’s movies of the ‘30s [1930s]. So one of the movies that I looked at was DEAD END, and Sylvia Sidney, of course, is very young, this is the ‘30's, and played just a really fascinating character, and didn’t get along well at all with Wyler, according to the… but she was wonderful. I mean she was a very, kind of feisty, interesting woman, and I liked her a lot, I loved working with her. I liked the script, and I liked…. Everything about that, you know, was very pleasing to me, and HBO was wonderful to work for. [INT: Yeah, it was a very successful television movie if I remember.] Yes, it was.

INT: There’s a shot [in FINNEGAN BEGIN AGAIN] that I wanted to ask you about. It’s that great shot, and again, your stamp of great long shots. It’s when, right before he discovers the house has been ransacked, and he walks down the street, veering up, and singing, and, classic Robert Preston stuff, but it’s totally in character, and it’s that great crane shot, that pulled back, back, back, and seeing the little figure going… 

JMS: I was so happy to be able to have, finally have a crane, and not just, to be able to have somebody’s… You know, I had an excellent, excellent cameraman, Robby Muller. [INT: Right.] And, European cameraman who, for some reason, was willing to do this; I was thrilled. And it was wonderful to work with him, he had excellent ideas, and perhaps that was his, I don’t remember anymore. But he was very, he was wonderful to work with, and he was very much with the story and the characters, and it was tremendous. [INT: Because to see him as a small figure, far away, as opposed to when you’re right on, there’s this great idea sometimes in film, and since I too have, you know, not in addition to doing all the things I’ve done, but the studying of film. We were so interested in, in other people’s films, and as you mentioned, looking at the Wyler [William Wyler] stuff, and I… What I loved about that shot was I wanted to see him. I wanted to be close to him. So the shot made me stay close, even though it was this incredible thing far away, ‘cause it allowed my imagination to go, as to see…] You know, that’s so nice for you to say. I think it’s something that doesn’t exist as much as it used to. Because if the… you see it all the time in European films, and that is that you need to participate in order to know what’s going on. It’s not just handed to you, so that you can just sit there and, you know, be fed. [INT: Right, I mean we are aware--] And it’s fun. I mean then it’s an active experience, and it’s an excellent one. [INT: Right.]

INT: The choice of music, again, I mean, it was the David Sanborn score. I don’t know, was that something that you were part of, or do you remember what the…? 

JMS: Yes, and David Sanborn was just a fabulous instrumentalist. And he came in and improvised to various parts of the [FINNEGAN BEGIN AGAIN]… Oh it was marvelous to see, and he was fabulous. He was just a terrific, terrific musician.

INT: Now here you are dealing with the bigger issues, and you’ve got a lot of material shooting in the bus. And was that of any issue for you, or was that just… 

JMS: Oh, buses, I mean… [INT: I know, I mean so much stuff in the bus, and I was so impressed that it felt so comfortable, and…] You know, it was amazing what, how easy and nice it was to shoot in Richmond, Virginia; it was just wonderful. For example, we shot in the newspaper, I can’t remember the name of the Richmond newspaper, but the newspaper, in places that were not in use, while the paper was being put out, you know, and journalists were running around in other parts of the building. And they let us do it. I, you know, that’s just astonishing. And they were wonderful about the buses, you know, they would go back every--the thing, of course, about the buses is that once you go, if you want, you’ve gotta go back all the way around, go again, but… Everybody kept saying, “Not as bad as a train,” you know, which is really hard to go all the way around again. But no, that seemed to be okay.

INT: Here we are from FINNEGAN BEGIN AGAIN, three years go by, and we go to CROSSING DELANCEY. 

JMS: CROSSING DELANCEY… [INT: Which is a wonderful movie.] Thank you. CROSSING DELANCEY came from a play by Susan Sandler. And she had written to me, dropped me a note, as many Writers will do, you know, to see if you’ll come and look at their work. And I often hesitate, because sometimes you go to see a play, and you’re watching it, and the Writer is sort of sitting nearby watching you watch it, and it can be kind of uncomfortable. And I don’t think I was inclined to do it, but the Director dropped me a note, and she said, “This is a good one, you should see it.” So I thought, all right, don’t be such a hard head, go down and see it. And I fell in love with it. [INT: Where was it?] It was at the Y on 14th Street, at their theater. And I met with Susan, and of course she was delighted, and the problem was that the play was, it was mainly the grandmother’s story. It was wonderful, but the grandmother was… And I said, “Susan, you need a character who goes from one place to another, the grandmother’s like a force of nature, I mean she’s the same at the beginning as she is at the end. She acts upon people, but she’s not really, you know, going from one place to another, and I think that this should be Isabelle’s story.” CROSSING DELANCEY is the story of a 32-year-old young woman in New York, career woman, whose grandmother, from the Lower East Side, decides that she should get married, and hires a matchmaker to make sure that she does. So that was the story. And I just love the story, and I loved Susan’s work, I thought the grandmother was such a wonderful character. So we started to work, and Susan herself said the first two drafts were the play, with different margins, because it took her a long time--it’s very hard for a playwright, you know. You’ve seen it work on stage, and therefore you… So, we finally got past that, and little by little by little, and I remember at a certain point in time, I just was feeling we weren’t making any progress, and this wasn’t happening, and I took her out to lunch, and I said, “Susan, I don’t wanna drive you nuts, and I don’t want you to drive me nuts. It isn’t happening, maybe you should, you know, agree to disagree and just say…” She said, “No, no, give me one more chance.” And that was a breakthrough for her. Of course I certainly hadn’t intended that that would be, but that is how it worked out. She had wonderful ideas, she worked slowly, but she, her ideas were wonderful, and it brought out wonderful ideas on my side as well.

JMS: She [Susan Sandler] had seen CHILLY SCENES [CHILLY SCENES OF WINTER], and she felt that Peter Riegert was a perfect person to play the pickle man [in CROSSING DELANCEY]. And the question was who would play Isabelle, the young woman who works in a bookstore, and thinks of herself as very Upper West Side, and very progressive, and certainly the kind of person that needs a matchmaker. And I went to a screening with Ray [Ray Silver], and it was in a big theater, and we were sitting on the aisle, and across, a little bit down, was Amy Irving, and she was scarfing popcorn and, like this, and she just looked so, and her hair was sticking, you know. And I just thought, she looked like somebody from the Upper West Side; she looked like somebody who--she looked like Isabelle. So, in order to get to her, I sent the script to her Agent, and her Agent sent it back and said that, that Amy does not wanna make small New York films. So luckily, I knew one of her friends, Peggy Siegal, who’s a publicist. And I said “Peggy, I wanna get this to Amy, I think she would like it, and I don’t think her Agent wants her to see it. Is there anything you can do to help me?” She said, “Well let me see the script, and if I think it’s all right, I’ll send it on.” So she loved it, and she sent it on, and Amy wanted to do it, so that’s how it all came about. [INT: She’s perfect for the film.] Perfect. I mean, I’ve never--[INT: I can’t imagine another actress.] I can’t either; she’s just totally perfect. The hardest part to cast, really, was the grandmother. You know, the casting pool follows opportunities, and there weren’t that many opportunities for, you know, elderly Jewish grandmothers, and who represent a real ethnic, strong ethnic kind of grandmother. And, I mean I was at the point where, I had seen… I saw Richard Dreyfus’s mother, I mean I saw everybody you could think of. I was really at the point where I said to Ray, who was the Executive Producer, I said, “You know, I think, I’m gonna have to go to Warner Bros. and say, ‘I can’t make this movie.’” He said, you know, because I can’t… Well, I had heard that there was a woman named Reizl Bozyk, who was part of the Yiddish theater, but she refused to come in and meet me, or read for me. She said, “Why should I read for her? I’m, you know, 75 years old and I’ve been at this--” Well I sort of liked that, but… So my Casting Director, who was wonderful, manipulated a little bit and we got her in. And I remember, before she sat down in the chair across from me, and I thought, ah, I’ve got her. She didn’t, hadn’t even spoken a word. As she walked into my office, she kind of bustles in, and she sat down, I thought this is it. And she was fabulous, I mean, people just… She was one of the most adored Actors I’ve ever worked with, within the… You know, at the end of every shoot, I’m sure you did the same thing, when an Actor is finishing, the AD [Assistant Director] says, “This will be the last day for Reizl Bozyk, so we just wanna say thanks Reizl,” and then everybody gives a polite applause and so on. Well, when they did that with Reizl, she and I were sitting on the set and we were on a couch, and the crew just went nuts. They clapped, and clapped, and stamped, and stamped and whistled, and clapped. Finally I said to her, “Get up and take a bow, or we’ll be here forever, I’ve got a movie to shoot, you know.” So she got up, and she took her little bow and, but she was just, she was just a total delight, and everyone adored her.

JMS: Another Reizl [Reizl Bozyk] story that was interesting too, she had a very nice stand in. And we had a scene, and the cameraman was Theo van de Sande, wonderful. And he and I had walked through the entire movie [CROSSING DELANCEY], it was done on the Lower East Side and on the Upper West Side, and set up all of our shots, and we made a shot list, or the AD [Assistant Director], Louis D’Esposito sat with us and made the shot list, I mean, we were set to go, and we knew that we were gonna be able to meet our schedule and get all the shots that we wanted. And one of the things that we wanted was a long dolly shot of Reizl, the grandmother, the bubbie, the Jewish bubbie, walking down the street to the barber shop, walks up the stairs to the barber shop, because she wants to talk to Peter Riegert’s character, who’s at that point getting a shave and she knows it. Or getting a haircut I guess. And her stand in, we have, we built a very long dolly track, and the stand in walks along, and Theo was operating this as well as being the DP [Director of Photography], and he kind of looked at me and I kind of looked at him, and we said… It was nothing. It was just a long boring shot where somebody walks. So Theo says, “Should we 86 it?” And I said, “No, you know, the guy spent so much time setting up all the track,” I said, “let’s at least shoot it.” Out comes Reizl. She made that walk into, you know, I don’t know what, I mean she bustled along, you could see her determination, you could see that she wasn’t gonna stop until she’d gotten what she wanted. Which is marvelous, and it’s a wonderful shot in the movie. That goes to, you know, you’re always learning in the movies, right? [INT: That’s true, that’s a great story, yeah, because, it went back to the initial plan, and then all of a sudden, the character came to life.] Absolutely, and she was just, oh, she was marvelous. And of course Sylvia Miles was the matchmaker, and, hilarious, and wore all of her own clothes, and just brought, she brought so much to it. She was terrific.

INT: I was knocked out by Peter Riegert, also, actually [in CROSSING DELANCEY]. 

JMS: Yeah, Peter’s, that was one of the great performances. You know, Amy [Amy Irving] kept saying to me, “He’s not giving enough, he’s not giving enough.” And I said, “Well that’s the way Peter is.” You know, I just had worked with him, and I said, “He’ll come through, Amy.” And then I thought, you know, maybe there’s something to what she says, maybe I should provoke him to do a little bit more, and I did during one scene, and he came up to it, but it wasn’t him anymore, and it was very artificial. So I dropped back again and let him do it on his own level. Once you saw it on screen it was fantastic. It was, you know, the same story of how you don’t really know until you see what an Actor gives you on the screen. Amy was one of the most generous Actors with… She didn’t hang out in her trailer. She stayed on the set, and when somebody new would walk on the set she was the first person to walk over and say, “Hi, I’m Amy. I’m so glad you’re here, do you want to go over lines?” I mean she just was… And it made everybody so comfortable, because she never did the diva thing in anyway, she was just… She went out and bought her own clothes, because she would say to me, she’d call me up and say, “You know, I saw something, and I think this is such an Isabelle dress.” And I’d say, “Okay, Amy. How much is it?” you know. And she would say, “And it was even within the Isabelle pocketbook,” you know? And of course she would come, and it was ideal. She had tremendous taste, even in the things that she picked for Isabelle; she had a good feeling for the character. [INT: It was great. INT: And then, of course, what casting, I mean, you got David Hyde Pierce in some small little role, and…] That was his first movie. And my daughter Claudia [Claudia Silver] played the other, Cecilia, the other girl with all the hair, who also worked there. It was great for fun; they were terrific. They were a wonderful group, and I adored David.

INT: And that’s the film [CROSSING DELANCEY] that, Paul Chihara did the music, is that correct? [JMS: Yes, but…] But there’s a lot of songs there too. 

JMS: Well, the way the music happened was very good. Susan [Susan Sandler] said to me, you know, “The Roches are coming to The Bottom Line,” and I loved The Roches, so I said, “Should we go?” She said, “Let’s.” So we go to The Bottom Line, and The Roches were three sisters who wrote their own music, and sang, and recorded. And Suzzy [Suzzy Roche] was sort of their MC. She did the palaver between the numbers. And she was very appealing. And I said, “You know, Susan, she should be in the movie,” and Susan said, “Yes, she should play Marilyn.” It was just like that. Never been in a movie, had no connection to the movies whatsoever. So I brought her in, and of course she was just wonderful, and she was ideal. Then we wanted to have some of The Roches songs, and they, what we couldn’t afford was to buy the ones they’d already done, so--‘cause we didn’t, couldn’t pay, you know, the rights to the recording company and the publishing company, but they had a tape that they’d made of themselves, like a garage tape, which had a number of songs in it, and they’re in the movie. Great. [INT: Wow.]

INT: In terms of putting a film like this one [CROSSING DELANCEY] together, because this an interesting… It’s an independent movie, but it was made for Warner Bros. Did they finance the film? 

JMS: They financed the film, but it was negative pick up and I had final cut. Oh, it was wonderful. Nothing like final cut; I love it. So--[INT: The picture was made for what, roughly, remember, what the budget?] I think it was about five and a half million, I’m not exactly sure. But I believe that’s the correct number. Afterwards, there was a screening at Warner Bros., we showed it to them, and they didn’t really care for it. And they asked if I could make this change, or that change, and I was only required by my contract to listen to their requests, and to consider them sincerely, and to do what I thought was best for the film, so I did what I thought was best for the film. And, which was not to make those changes. And therefore… Then they had a screening, a focus screening. And people went nuts. So they said, you know, “What do we know, take your film, you know, put it out there, let’s do it.” And the film was extremely successful and well regarded.

INT: Did it [CROSSING DELANCEY] shoot all in New York? [JMS: Yes.] So all the interiors, you--were they sets, or all practical locations? 

JMS: Both. In the case where we needed to be able to look out windows, like at Reizl’s [Reizl Bozyk], we used… But we also rebuilt that. It was so tiny that we couldn’t shoot there, so we got the angles that went out toward the water were in a real place, and then the rest of the set, all the other angles were on the set. So there was both a set and… [INT: Yeah, beautifully shot.] Yes, I love what he did with it. It was wonderful. And it was also a movie where there was tremendous, kind of esprit. You know, there was a good feeling in almost everybody, and… I mean, it just, I just had a lot of fun with everybody. You know, there was just a great crew, and a great cast, and the material was wonderful.

INT: You know, I checked some things out of about it [CROSSING DELANCEY], and what was fascinating, and I don’t know if you remember this specifically, but there’s this website about box office and all the stuff, and I checked, and it was a very successful movie, I mean I think it made, you know, in its release it made 16 million dollars, five and a half million dollar movie, I mean, or six, you know, it was terrific for that kind of film. But it opened in one theater, and it made 40,000 dollars, which is phenomenal. Do you remember that? Have I got that right? 

JMS: I had forgotten that. As a matter of fact I think it actually made more than 16, I don’t know. I don’t know if that’s… I think it made about 20 or something like that. I know it was very successful. But, I believe what they did was they said, “We’ll open it in New York, and see if anything happens.” And I think they opened it in New York and I believe they also opened it in LA. But that was, they didn’t, you know, it was just a little tiny movie for them, it wasn’t important, and I think--I’ll tell you how the movie got made. Amy [Amy Irving] was married to Steven Spielberg. [INT: At the time.] At the time. And before hiring Amy, I felt I wanted to meet her, I didn’t wanna hire her long distance, I just, this movie meant a lot to me, and the character meant a lot to me, and I felt, I wanna, you know… Let’s see what kind of a rapport we have. At that time, Steven Spielberg was directing EMPIRE OF THE SUN, and they were in Spain. And I think that the, it coincided with our 30th wedding anniversary. We had gone to Paris for 10 days to celebrate it, and then I was supposed to go down to meet them in Spain. We’d had a wonderful time, and I said to Ray [Ray Silver], “I just don’t wanna go down, it’s gonna be difficult, and you know, Hollywood.” I just thought… And so of course, Ray said, “You’ve gotta go, you’ve gotta meet her, you’ve gotta go through with your plan.” And I went down. And besides the thrill of watching Spielberg work, which was… I mean the word “dolly shot” doesn’t even exist until you’ve seen him do a dolly shot. I mean, they ran with the dolly. I mean his dolly shots went so fast; they were so gorgeous. I could’ve stayed all day. Amy [Amy Irving] and I would go to the set and she’d say, “Okay, let’s, come on, let’s go, let’s go talk about our project.” I’d say, “Well let’s just stay for one more set up, you know, let’s just stay for…” ‘cause I was enjoying it so much. Anyway, he liked the script very much, and he said, I said, “Look,” we were having dinner one night and I said, “I don’t want any false pretenses here. I’ve not got this set up anywhere. Nobody wants to make this.” And he said, “What? Nobody wants to make this?” He said, “But this is a good script.” And I said, “Well…” So he said, “Have you been to Warners [Warner Bros.],” and I said, “No, I don’t know anybody there, and I haven’t gone there.” And he said, “Well, I can’t guarantee you anything, but I know people there.” Oh, he’s so modest, you know. And he said, “Let me send it.” So Amy said to me, “It’ll get made.” And I said, “Amy, you know, let’s see what happens.” And he said to me--[INT: Was there a budget attached, did you say, we’re just looking for 6 million dollars? Was it that specific, or he just knew it was a low budget film?] Yes, it was a low budget film. I’m sure we had a budget, I’m sure it would’ve been budgeted. But Amy was very sure that… He said to me that he’s taken, he’d sent other things to them that they didn’t always agree, and he couldn’t guarantee that it would be made, but at least it would be read at the top. And I said, “Well that, that alone, you know, is an important…” Well it took about two months. And Amy kept saying, “It’s gonna be made, it’s gonna be made, let’s talk about this,” you know, she wanted to… This is all long distance. She lived in California. And sure enough… [INT: Who was at the studio at that time? Do you remember who you dealt with, or you never dealt with the studio?] Well, that was when Daly [Robert A. Daly] was there--[INT: Robert Shapiro.] And Terry Semel. Yeah, that was, those were the people there at the time. But, it basically they just left me alone to make the movie, and I just had a fabulous time. My own experience with my films has been that the more I’m left alone, the better I do. It isn’t that I think I’m smarter than anyone, or anything like that. It’s just that whatever my instincts are, it’s better for me to be able to put those into play in my own work.