INT: You mentioned Tom Rickman [Thomas Rickman], that of all of, I guess many of the Writers you worked with, but that he was influential in getting you to see something about story and directing and film.

MA: Well, I think it was honestly his openness, you know, that he would respond to stuff and, you know, I never forget when we were working on the script, you know, he would say, and I never heard these words before, even in my experience before, “I’m gonna have another pass at this,” you know? I mean, in England, there was this sense, even with the television Writers, you know, that this was it. You know, you work on it and it would be fun and all that, but this was it. But for him, it was always a growing thing, always a living thing. You know? And he’d set out--I mean, when had terrible trouble with the last scene of COAL MINER’S DAUGHTER and he said, you know, “I’ll do two or three more versions of this.” And I mean this was mind-blowing to me. I mean, I can’t tell you. I mean I’d been doing it, you know, for 15 years, so I wasn’t a novice. I’d done a lot of work and all that, but to hear these words come from a Writer was, you know, was, you know, another epiphany in a sense and that’s what he taught me. [INT: Do you think it was because Tom, I mean, Tom had wanted to be a Director and, you know, done a couple things. That’s how I knew Tom.] Yeah, yeah. [INT: Do you think it’s because he understood the process and that, in fact, it is an evolutionary process?] Yeah. No, I think he did instinctively. I mean, I think instinctively, and you’d probably know more about it than I do, but I think instinctively he’s a film Writer. And you know, he was probably, I mean, I worked with a lot of television Writers, famous television Writers. Television is television and, you know, we all know that it’s dialogue driven and all this, but he was the first movie Writer that I’d ever worked with, I think, although I’d done some movies in the U.K. He was the first genuine one. And he was the first one to guide me into the fact, you know, and I’ve done subsequent films when it hasn’t worked nearly as well because I haven’t had people of Tom’s vision, but it was just that idea that it was a living thing. [INT: Also there’s something you just mentioned that, also too, that it was, it’s not dialogue driven.] No. [INT: Which is just sort of the fascinating thing because obviously we get great Writers like Aaron Sorkin who is, you know, a brilliant dialogue Writer.] Yeah. [INT: And not that he doesn’t, I guess, think in terms of what a scene is, but the division between television being listened to media, and film still being a visual media.] Yeah. And I mean, he had that innate understanding. I had to learn that painfully, you know? A lot of my stuff still inclined to be too much dialogue and whatever, you know? I come from a literary background, from the age of five reading books, you know, through television, which is a literary medium in a way, and then, and then to discover and to try and crack the movie medium is... And sometimes with people, Writers who know no more than I do about it, but sometimes you come across people like Tom, who I think it’s an instinct for them. They can visualize stuff. [INT: What was, just ‘cause you just said it, do you remember the books you were reading when you were five?] Oh, no. No, I can’t know. No, I was showing off then. [INT: No, no, no, but I was thinking those first books...] Crime and Punishment, ‘cause, you know... [INT: Yeah! Right! What a boring book.] No, but I was, whatever it was, I would read all the time. You know... [INT: Got it.]

INT: Do you remember when you read COAL MINER’S DAUGHTER, the first read, what your experience was?

MA: No, I liked it. I mean it was, you know, I--Joe Sargent [Joseph Sargent] was supposed to direct it, but he couldn’t agree with him about Sissy [Sissy Spacek]. I mean he and I have talked about this a lot. He didn’t think Sissy was capable of playing it, because she didn’t look like Loretta [Loretta Lynn], and the studio said well, we’re sorry, you know, either you use Sissy or you don’t do the movie. So he said, “I’m not gonna do the movie.” So they were suddenly stuck. They hadn’t started yet. They hadn’t even contracted her, but they wanted her to do it. And then the issue became that Tom [Thomas Rickman] wanted to direct it. Now, Tom and I had the same Agent and the studio didn’t want Tom to direct it because he hadn’t done a film before. So I got a look in, you know, and I went to Universal [Universal Pictures] and there I met Sean Daniel who became a great supporter of mine, and he’d just seen AGATHA that I’d done, you know, that was playing in the cinemas here and he’d seen STARDUST, a rock and roll movie I’d done in England, so he knew a bit about my work. And that’s how I got the film. It was because Joe didn’t believe in Sissy and Tom hadn’t done enough to get the job.

INT: In working with Tom [Thomas Rickman] in terms of what you, ‘cause this would be, I mean obviously he’s one of the best Writers we have, but the dialogue between Director and Writer, what have you discovered about that dialogue? What do you feel works in your dialogue of, with the Writer? What do you feel has not worked over the, your experience?

MA: That’s hard. That’s a hard question. I--and again, I don’t know whether it ever works until you hear it, you know, with an Actor, but then, you know, you have to be careful. That’s why I like to have Writers around when I’m rehearsing. I, it’s one of the reasons I like to rehearse and I like a Writer’s input into it, ‘cause sometimes I can be tone deaf about, about dialogue, but I think I can recognize really good dialogue. I’ll never forget reading Edwin, Edward Bond’s play, which is, which is the first three pages are just dialogue of one word that I read and I thought, “Holy shit,” you know? And it was fantastically powerful. So I think I’ve got a good eye for dialogue. I don’t know how to do it, but I think I, and also I think I can identify when it is a little lumpy and whatever, but I think that’s the only armor I’ve got or the only arrow I’ve got, ‘cause I can sense good dialogue when I see it. [INT: What about structure?] Well I’m very keen on that. I mean, I’m very, I am good at that. I mean, well, that’s ridiculous. I am more confident about that. I mean, that really does engage me and it engaged me in documentaries; it engages me in movies, so now I pay a lot of attention to that. And I think, I remember another Cambridge [Cambridge University] colleague, Jonathan Lynn saying to me, saying, you know, “Anybody can write dialogue, but you gotta figure out what scene follows what scene.” So I’ve always been very engaged in that and I think I have things I can offer about that to Writers, but we’ve sort of been talking about dialogue, you and I, but I think the structure of the thing I do have some instincts about of what works and what doesn’t.

INT: And have you had experiences within, and this is, again, working with script and Writer as Director, where you’ve said or felt, “Oh, this should be moved here,” or, “we need something that we don’t have.” And how have you gone about inspiring your, the collaboration?

MA: No. Well, my, I think by identifying it and making a case. But you know, I’m very, you know, I’m relatively acute about, and I think I learned a lot of that doing documentaries, because you do write documentaries, which is one of the reasons I love doing them. I mean I sometimes feel I’m more creative doing documentaries, personally, than I am doing a movie because, you know, you go out and you harbor the, harvest the material and you got this whole ton of stuff and you’ve got to create a story out of it, whatever it is, whether it’s a character in the films, and so you know, that’s been a big training ground for me and structure, because I have to start from scratch on a documentary with a structure. I mean, not the big picture. You know the big picture, but actually the details of it. And I found that that has really informed me when it comes to doing movies. So you know, it has been, you know, forced upon me in a sense, ‘cause you really can’t make a documentary unless you have a sense of structure and how many documentaries have we both seen which don’t have it and you just want to kill yourself. So I think structure has always been very high on my priorities and it’s something I have a certain confidence about. So if I have a feeling about the structure, I’m not alarmed or frightened to express it and sort of to be insistent about it. [INT: Are there examples from movies that, from your movies that you could say you, here was an, here was a structural issue that I knew we had to deal with that come to your mind?] Yeah, well I suppose you talked about AMAZING GRACE. I mean that was my big flash about it. They couldn’t, they could not figure the thing out. They’d been trying for ages to do it, the studio. They wanted to do it ‘cause it was a big anniversary, 150th or something like that, and I turned it down, other people had turned down. They were desperate. And then I saw suddenly how to do it. I saw you have to take--it comes back to the central relationship. You can take the marriage, which was a remarkable marriage, and you can tell the whole story through that structure. And that worked because, you know, the story as it laid on in a linear way went on forever, went on for years. And I saw that. I just had that flash of inspiration and I found the Writer to do it, another great English Writer, Steven Knight, and he went along with it and he did it and it was absolutely clear. You know, they had draft after draft after draft and they could never get off their linear backs. And I saw this way through it. So that’s an example of something quite recently. [INT: And when in that process working with Steven in and his writing, since you knew that that was going to be the core, since you now are going back in time, were you in this dialogue of, “Well, let’s save this moment of the memory of the ships til earlier or the moment of the slavery?”] Yeah. Yeah, I know, it’s... [INT: And again, I’m wondering, it’s the process that I’m looking at.] Yeah, it was, it was still loosey-goosey, but the major idea was on the table. And also, it served the big issue of how I could time jump my way through it because it was so long-winded, the real story. But I think this refinements of it. But it was that one idea, and the marriage wasn’t that much screen time. It wasn’t even, that was important, but it was organic that when this young woman met this heroic figure of a man, she wanted to know about his life. So you could have the double thing. You could have the growing of the attraction and the telling of the story. And that was the central idea. But it was refined endlessly. Endlessly.

INT: In that process [script development; writing process], do you sit in a room? Do you have pages sent to you, privately work and then sit in room? Again, now I’m being very specific. Maybe you...

MA: No, no. It depends on the Writer. With Steven [Steven Knight], I mean, I, with Steven, I laid it out, you know? [SAVING GRACE] I gave him a map, if you want. You know, I figured out how to do this very precisely. I made a change, but very precisely. But he was the sort of Writer--he said to, he said, “I like this. This is the way I wanna do it. I wanna do 50 pages and then I’m going to show it to you.” And that’s what he did. Another Writer will want to do the whole thing, which I’m sort of resistant to. Another Writer will say, “Let me do, let me do a couple of scenes and give it to you.” And I think then it’s just your instinct about the personality of the Writer. You know, what’s going to be, how you could be the most encouraging, how you can be the most helpful. Sometimes they want to be left alone; sometimes they don’t and they’ll sometimes you’ll get a sense if you do leave them alone, you’re in trouble. But that was the case with him and I’ll never forget when he came around to my apartment in London with up to page 53 and he had executed exactly that vision I had given him and I knew we were off and running.

INT: And in the next stage of the off and running now, when you feel a change could or should happen within the script process, how are you, how do you communicate that? Now I realize it's different from Writer to Writer, but let's look at this...

MA: No, and also, you know, we both know, you know, that doing a movie, whether it's a big or little one, you're in collaboration hell. You, you know, you have to start taking input whether you want to or not. And again, I’m not that good at it, I have to say, but I keep reminding myself of what I told you an hour or so ago that you always have to listen. You always should listen. But I think you know, other eyes keep coming in and I do get, I find when I’m working with a Writer, I do get to a point when I really can’t see how to do it anymore. I know it’s not quite right but I can’t see it. And then, you know, and then I do become dependent on other eyes, other voices. So I don’t think I’m endlessly good at fixing things. You know? I think I need outside input. I can see a way, you know, through maybe a couple of drafts, but then I can’t take it that last step, even at an idea, let alone execute it. But I mean I can’t take it. And so then I begin in a kind of love-hate way, you know, to take in other people’s points of view, and you know, other issues. Again, it’s a very, you know, it’s a very mechanical meeting we’re in with all sorts of money issues and scouting issues and you know, the patient issues and all these have to come to bear. You know, one isn’t dealing with pure, pure things; so all those issues come to bear. But I think I, if I can control myself and if I can behave myself, which I don’t always do, you know, it’s good to take another eyes, other eye, fresh eyes on it.

INT: When, when you’ve had a problem with a Writer, you may not have. I mean, obviously you mentioned that they’re different styles of, you know, “Let me alone,” “don’t let me alone,” you know, “be here for”... How have you solved a problem with a Writer? I mean have you even replaced a Writer?

MA: Well, as you were asking the question, I think, it’s odd. I mean, I didn’t do the Bond film [THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH] until I don’t know, 1999 and then I’d been doing it for over 30 years and that was the first time I’d ever come up with a situation where a Writer was hired then fired to do--and then another Writer was brought in to do another job and then fired and then a third writer was brought in to be fired. I’m sure I’ve had issues, yes, when, when we’re stuck and it’s not going anywhere and we’ve changed Writers. Nothing particularly comes to mind and all the... Well, that’s not true. I mean, when I did GORILLAS IN THE MIST-- that was a strange experience because that existed in two iterations. It was two studios had the same project and they decided Warner’s [Warner Bros] and Universal [Universal Pictures] to make it one film. So we had two scripts, two of everything, and I was hired, you know, to make the film and so I had to decide, you know, everything from how do you do the gorillas to everything, what scene should we have in? And one studio had certain rights to certain materials; other studio had a, and all this and there had been two Writers and we weren’t getting anywhere at all and it was very confusing anyway, but it was very confusing for me, ‘cause I didn’t have that kind of, the Writers kind of, you know, laser look at it. So we brought someone in; Bob Benton [Robert Benton] came in and did it and he cleaned it up. So that was an example when I simply had to, I said, “I can’t work with either of these two Writers because they’re both bringing so much baggage in, you know, that it’s hard enough anyway trying to rationalize the whole project.” So that was when we brought Bob in. But I, you know, the big films I’ve done, I think invariably, I think they’ve, I’ve stuck with the same Writer, and if, you know, if we couldn’t quite figure it, then we kind of left it and left it to the moment and left it to the Actor and left it to the cutting room and whatever, you know? We sort of said, "Well, you know, we’re stuck here but let’s see what comes out in the wash."

INT: In the GORILLAS IN THE MIST experience, ‘cause it’s quite unique that you just described, you met with each of those Writers? [MA: Yeah.] And talked about...

MA: Read their scripts, yeah, and all that and sort of had to make a decision and it was sort of put in my court. You know, the studios tossed a coin as to who was gonna distribute it domestically, internationally. But you know, that wasn’t the biggest of my problems, but, and it was sold, but yes. I mean, there were two different visions of the story. [INT: Now with those two visions, since going back to your mentor saying, “Make this your own...”] Yeah. [INT: As you read those two stories--] Yeah. [INT: Did you feel this is good from here, that’s good from there or did you feel neither of them had it?] No, it wasn’t quite as hard as, as I made it think because they owned different materials, so you know, one material, one Writer owned the material of her love affair, you know, and all of that sort of stuff, so there was an element of compartmentalization about it. But no, it was that kind of thing of saying, “This feels right. This feels wrong.” I mean, you know, and so it was that process of making it my own of what would the story be, ‘cause again, they were slightly contorted, both versions ‘cause they didn’t contain all the rights to all the material, you know? So it wasn’t quite brain surgery to read them both and to think well this is the story and they’ve got a bit of it and they’ve got the other bit of it. [INT: Why did you think, and did you hope, at first, that one of these two Writers that you were meeting would be able to, in fact, take on let’s say the others...?] Well, that was the idea, but it really wasn’t possible. Anna Hamilton Phelan was the one who’d done, the one that really lasted the longest before Bob [Robert Benton] moved, moved in to do it. I mean, the other, the script really, probably had sort of rather bizarre source material and really wasn’t the real story, if you know what I mean. But no, I felt we’d got to a point, Anna and I had got to a point, and I think she was very open to it, you know, and you know, the studios were sort of demanding that, “This isn’t feeling right. We’ve gotta do something,” and so… And Bob didn’t do a lot, but he did clean it up. You know, it was a, it was a clutter, ‘cause it was, “We must have a bit of this; We must have a bit of that,” and all that kind of thing and trying to be fair and trying to be honest about it. But Bob was able to come in and in fact he just simplified it, frankly. He just cleared up the clutter.

INT: Looking at the GORILLAS IN THE MIST itself, particularly ‘cause there’s just, you know, being on location, making that kind of picture, I suspect scenes would change within the very process of making them. How do you, as a Director, I mean, deal with this issue of, “I’m now shooting, but I’m still dealing with the script?”

MA: Well, I should answer that question, ‘cause it’s very specific with this and kind of balmy. It’s a, it’s another question... Ask me again when I’ve answered this, because this was, the whole idea of the film was ludicrous and the script was ludicrous. I mean, it was, the relationship between this woman, between Dian Fossey and these animals. And it was all written out and the animal did this and she did that, and you know, it was never gonna happen, I mean, you know, the first time I went up to see them, the animals, we never found them. We took, we trekked for seven hours. I could hear them farting and eating, but we never found them. And then you know, the next time we did find them, I mean, there was nothing we could do. We weren’t allowed to do anything with them. You know, we weren’t allowed to do anything. When it came to it, we were only allowed to have four people up there. So it occurred to me, and this is, I think everybody already knew this and I was one of the last people to figure it out. The reason I got the job was because I was a documentarian. How--the only way to make the film was to spend eight weeks with three units shooting gorillas. One unit had Sigourney [Sigourney Weaver] and me with them and the other two units went off doing gorilla stuff. Then we would look at the stuff and really, we would find out were there some key moments in the documentary material and around these key moments we would then create the relationship. We knew what the relationship was that she met these gorillas, she fell in love with them, the poachers started killing them, one had their head cut off and all that was the story. But within it, you know, it had to be what had happened, the interplay in real life at 12,000 feet between Sigourney Weaver and these 500-pound animals. And that’s how we did it. It took us a year to cut it. So all this talk about the script of gorillas is sort of a joke, because when I look back on it, I mean had I realized that at time I maybe wouldn’t have, wouldn’t have done it. So the whole thing had to be created in the cutting room, and you know, I don’t know who did the kind of writing, polishing lines or whatever, but it tended to be very visual because gorillas and Sigourney didn’t speak to each other. So you know, it’s really how their relationship developed physically. And so that became the heart of the movie. That was what the movie was about. So anything that we did and all this painful thing I’ve been telling you about, the writing, was sort of for nothing. You know, there was certain other relationships that, of course, survived, which had nothing to do with gorillas, but the heart of the movie was really the interplay of a Hollywood Actress and documentary footage with these gorillas.

INT: Knowing this, again, evolutionary nature of filmmaking, when you do something like a Bond film [THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH] or a, you know, a highly visually effects film like NARNIA [THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER], then the writing aspect has another aspect to it.

MA: Well it does. You know, that was, you know, that was a shock to me because, you know, with the Bond and they still do it. Well, they didn’t do it with the last one. What did they... They had these two guys that write the story. Boom-boom, write the story and lay it out. Then on mine, mine, the reason I got the Bond film, what they wanted out of that was they wanted to make it more woman-centric. They were trying to get women into the audience, ‘cause they couldn’t figure that out. So they wanted Judy Dench to do a lot more. They wanted a woman villain, etcetera. And so then they brought a Writer in who happened, I happen to be married to, which was a coincidence, that happened to write the women. So she did that and then she was fired amidst flits of tears and then they brought the third guy in who was adept at writing one-liners and all the kind of frothy stuff. And that was completely bizarre experience, you know, because everybody was writing really to instructions, you know? We want two jokes here. We want a good scene with a woman here. It was so counterintuitive, ‘cause, to the way I did it. You know, all the things we’ve been talking about. And it really was sort of by numbers, and I think that’s not an unusual experience in these big movies, you know, these big visual effects movies when, you know, other things are more important than the dialogue and the story sometimes, at your peril, but that sort of happens.

INT: And when the sort of the mechanical aspect of like looking at the Bond [THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH], for example, you know, you’ve got the submarine, the thing and all that stuff. How are you, who’s going to have to figure out every one of these shots with the storyboard assist or previs [computer generated animatics] or however, dealing with the Writer in those complex, which is non-dialogue going, but very complicated sequences. How is, what’s that experience?

MA: Well, the third guy who came on came on for a bit and he stayed with me for some of the shooting. You know, it was incredibly intimidating experience at first. The people were lovely and that was a happy experience, but the, the fact that, you know, I had six months prep and I would be asked to consider scenes that I wasn’t gonna shoot til the following June, that I wasn’t gonna shoot for eight months. But luckily, a little voice inside me said, “If I’m confronted with a group of art directors who want to build a submarine that I’m not gonna shoot til next June and we’re now in October, I think you better pay attention,” this voice said to me, which I did. I could have easily have imagined me saying with my temperament, “Look, I’m not doing this til next June. Let’s come back to it later on.” But I didn’t do that. I did actually pay attention and sure enough, those guys went off and spent the next eight months just designing that stuff, you know, that, with the scene as I wanted it with whatever input I might have into the staging of it and the set of it. They went off and did that. But it was a terrifying experience because you know, you thought you had, we, during the six months preparation, we had, obviously we weren’t shooting anything. You were just building up this massive stuff in your brain; your room is covered with drawings and you had people trying to write the script and it looked as though nothing would ever get done. You know, how would we ever get anything done? And then of course once you started doing it, once you started shooting it, then it becomes a little more understandable. Then you do get things put to one side and then if you had been smart like I had happened to be, luckily, I could imagine circumstances where I could have been very impatient with it all. You know, then things do fall into spa-, place, but the whole creative process behind these things is kind of... You know, and that’s why, at the end of the day, they’re not that good. I mean, they’re not famed, are they, for any of them, really, for the quality of their writing, for the quality of the scenes. They’re more famed for the quality of their visual effects, for the quality of the action, you know? All you’re talking about over this last time with me about writing is really, you know, goes into action sequence. You do graphs of the film. We say, “Here’s an action scene here, and then we’ve gotta have another one there,” and this and all the kind of ingredients you would put into developing a relationship in the course of the film. You put that energy into, you know, doing the arc of the action sequences. You’ve gotta have six. You know, you’re at boom-boom-boom and all this. So, and it kind of shows, but I suppose that’s what it is. That’s what it’s all about and that’s why I, for me, it’s a somewhat limited fun. [INT: Got it.]

INT: Let me ask you again, very specific, like in the, in the, there’s a tunnel thing in it. Now, did the Writer just say, “There’s a tunnel chase,” and that’s it? Or do they actually, do you work, I mean, are you working as you might in relationships, are you now working technically with saying, “Well, we’re gonna need that shot and it’s gonna,” you know, I mean...

MA: No, I think, I think it’s, it grows, you know, I’d forgotten where it fits in the story, but I know we had to get from A to B at some point and that was going to be an action scene. And then that was, in a sense, was handed over to the special effects guys, the visual effects guys to see what they came up with and they would come up with ideas how to do it, the machinery to do it and then the scene got written around that. So, you know, that’s why things were being prepared so far in advance. You know, that’s why I was dealing with stuff eight months before I shot it, because the writing of the scene would depend on sometimes the mechanics or you know, the workings of the machinery during the course of those scenes. So it was, for someone who had never done anything like this, it’s very, very difficult because the priorities don’t feel intuitive.

INT: The, you know, the professional relationship and the personal relationship, which is obviously reflected in looking at the 56 UP, you did mention that the second Writer was a personal relationship and that Writer is suddenly in a professional situation got fired. How did you deal with it?

MA: Well, I mean, we sort of knew. I mean, we sort of knew why the studio wanted her, ‘cause she’d done a lot of, you know, good women in screen plays and, you know, they wanted her, but I think we both knew... But it was very difficult; I mean, because she, you know, had to go back to America and all this sort of stuff and we’d only just got married. But I don’t think it was a big surprise to us, you know, when they kept saying, “We need some more jokes. We need some more one liners.” You know, and she, you know, she was struggling to, you know, make one of the women make sense and all this kind of stuff. It was difficult, but it wasn’t totally unexpected. It wasn’t like you’ve done a bad job, because she did a good job, but the job was very much a limited, this was your assignment. Do this. Do these scenes. Give, and do the scenes between M [fictional James Bond character] and you know, Robert Carlyle. Write those scenes. That’s what we want, you know? [INT: And were you able then to I mean, ‘cause when you work, obviously one of the things that, I mean, this, one of the aspects of this profession is it is relationships and interpersonal and it doesn’t quite get defined as here’s the machine. Make it work. It is human beings that you’re dealing with all the time. And you know, when you’re close to somebody and that somebody gets disappointed, how we handle it. I mean, that can be working with an Actor who you, who cares about you and you care about and it’s not working and, you know, it’s, I think it’s one of our--] It’s hard and I, there is no alternative than to, than being honest and straightforward about it. I think if you try and tap dance around it, whether, you know, I’ve had difficulties with Actors. I’ve had difficulties with Crew and things like that and I just think you have to confront it. Otherwise, it becomes haunting and more and more difficult. And you know, you just have to eat the shit and do what you have to do, and you know what you have to do. I mean, sometimes it’s iffy and sometimes you don’t do it and it works out fine, but sometimes you do get in a real mess and it’s not working. Then you have to deal with it. [INT: It’s good advice.]

INT: Let’s talk about casting. What did you learn when you started about casting and what have you learned as you’ve continued?

MA: Well, you never… No, I mean lots of--obviously, I learned--my first experience doing the CORONATION STREET, you know, the cast was there, so I didn’t have to worry about that. But some--there were--and I learned a lot. I mean I learned a lot. One of the great influences on me was the British television of the middle to late ‘60s [1960s] was the Ken Loach [Kenneth Loach], Jack Gold era, particularly Ken who revolutionized casting. You know, he went off the book and he used real people in real situations. I mean he could graft Actors into it. But basically, he went out in the street and found people who could do it and he still does it. And that was a revelation to me, ‘cause that again appealed to my documentary strand. You have to get in some ways--bizarre thing to say--performances out of Act--people in documentaries, you know, so you’re dealing with dealing with real people. And that was a huge lesson for me. I learned that very early on. I mean, once I, you know, once Loach had and THE WEDNESDAY PLAY and all that sort of stuff that had launched itself in the mid-‘60s [1960s] and become again, in the way Granada [Granada Television] had revolutionized television in the early ‘60s [1960s], the BBC drama, you know, really revolutionized that, and that was the British film industry alive and well and living in television. And his casting became, I think to a lot of us, and I know Alan Parker has talked about this a lot. And it was enormously helpful to me when I did COAL MINER’S DAUGHTER, because only three people in the film had ever acted before. The rest of them had, were either from the music business like Devon Helm [Levon Helm] or were local people, because what I learned from Ken was if you’re gonna shoot a place, shoot--you have to, don’t just put the landscape on film. You put the people; you put the voice of it on the film. And that was enormously succ--I think that was the big success of COAL MINER’S DAUGHTER, that it had a voice; those real voices, those real accents. You know, Hollywood’s history with that kind of territory was very poor. And even a great film like NASHVILLE was in totally patronizing to the people in the film. But I think and I learned that directly from Loach, from those few films that he did from CARES and other films that he, Jack Gold and others did, Jimmy MacTaggart [James MacTaggart]. They all did that; they picked that up. That was in the zeitgeist and that’s what they did. And to me, I’ve always done that, you know. Now, your question is probably, if you’re doing, you know, straight piece of drama and you’re--how do you cast Actors and all that. But I’ve always, even in things that have been fairly conventional, I’ve also tried to spice it up if you want by sometimes going to the real thing. When I did THUNDERHEART, again, you know, that was shot on a Native American reservation and I used a lot of real people there, I mean real Native Americans. But I think on all the films, you know, I’ve done maybe say AMAZING GRACE is an exception or whatever, but I’ve tried to broaden my breath at first.

INT: Let’s talk about that process, though. Alright, here, I mean, whether it’s, let’s start with COAL MINER’S DAUGHTER as an example, because on one--I wanna talk about how you pick the kids, but let’s talk about the “non-Actor,” whether it’s a famous person like Levon Helm or whether is someone who isn’t and who’s playing one of the other worlds. What’s your process? What are you, I mean, if I were one of these people, how, where would I be coming and what would happen?

MA: Well, you have to have a Casting Director who’s tireless and you have to go and see people. You have to do lots and lots of casting calls. You have to go in the area, set yourself up in a school like casting the kids in it. Bring the kids in and talk to them. I mean it’s pure legwork. That’s, you just try and see as many people as is humanly possible because you don’t really know what you’re looking for until you see it in a way, you know, you have an idea, you have the character on the script, but when you’re dealing with real people, you know, you’ve got this idea of the character and that person has to walk in and be your vision of that character, ‘cause that’s all they’re gonna give you. So it’s real graft [British slang meaning hard work], there’s no question about it. And some people just don’t have the appetite for the graft.

INT: In the, in the, this encounter now, let’s deal with an adult first, whether I’m Uncle Allah or whether I’m out, you know, out of the, you know, the coal mining world, if you’re casting person has said, “You should meet these five people,” what’s happening with you now? Here I am one of those five people. What are you doing?

MA: I’d talk to you. I don’t ask you to read. I just talk to you and see if we’re on the, see if I can communicate with you on the level I’m gonna have to communicate with you. I do that with kids, with any of them. I mean I don’t get them to read. I mean, that’s, what’s that gonna tell me? They could, they’re good readers. No, I think it’s a question of communication and I’m not trying to be their best friend. I mean I could be quite tough on them. I could be quite tough on you. You know, if I thought maybe you wouldn’t focus, maybe you couldn’t pay attention. I mean, I’ve had Actors I had do this and then at the end of the first day they say, “We’re not coming back anymore.” You know, that happened on, you know, THUNDERHEART and things like that, but I think it’s purely a personal thing. I talk to you and I get a sense of who you are and I have a, I get a stronger sense of whether you are the character that I’m looking for, ‘cause that’s, I’m not asking you to act the character. I’m asking you to be it, and getting you to be it is my problem. How am I gonna do that? But you are it. When you come on that set, you are it and everybody else has got to know you are it. [INT: What kind of questions would you be asking?] I don’t know. I mean, I would ask, it would be anything. It might be personal questions. I don’t mean intimate questions. Just might be us talking, whether I can talk to you and you can talk to me and whether we can relate to each other. I think that’s the key with casting real people, we’ll call them for shorthand, is whether I can have a relationship with them. [INT: Now when you, it’s interesting about the kind of question. I mean will the question be about their life? Will the question be about the film that you’re making? Will the question be about...?] A lot of my questions are about sport. I love sport. Sometimes if I’m talking to you and you know, I’ll ask, you know, “Did you see the Super Bowl,” or stuff like that and, “What’d you think about that?” And you’ll say, “What the fuck’s the Super Bowl, Michael?” And I know we’d be in trouble. I mean that sounds crass, but if I’ve got five of Kagans [Jeremy Kagan] in here and I’m looking for one, if I can talk to you about football, that may get us through all sorts of issues. Do you know what I mean? So that’s a... [INT: Now dealing, dealing with, okay, but these are two interesting in both cases, being these are two, and both cases, you have amazing people in both cases...] Right. [INT: ...and it’s sort of fascinating because you’ve got the documentary about that as well as the fiction film. These are worlds that you’re not part of.] No. [INT: You didn’t grow up in coal mining territory.] No. No. [INT: So for you to be able to sort of even relate, what are, do you, are you finding yourself doing work or it’s irrelevant?] It’s irrelevant. I mean, it’s, it’s, I’ve discovered it’s very useful. I mean, I don’t think an American could’ve made COAL MINER’S DAUGHTER. I think an American would’ve gone in with so much prejudice about white trash and that sort of stuff. I had no prejudice ‘cause I didn’t know anything. I never heard of Loretta Lynn when I went in to do it and hence I knew nothing about Native Americans until I, you know, I read Matthiesen’s [Peter Matthiesen] book, THE SPIRIT OF CRAZY HORSE [IN THE SPIRIT OF CRAZY HORSE] and learned. I knew nothing about it. So I would, and I know nothing about you, Mr. Kagan, but I just want to talk to you. I don’t know anything about you. You may be a house painter or something, but you came and you wanted to be in the film and I think you’ve got the personality that I’m looking for. So it’s my one to one human response. I don’t have to know anything about anything. I mean, of course I do to make the film and I learn that, but I went, in both those films, I had no information about it at all and I picked it up as I went along. And it was just my natural instinct of how I have relationship with people. You know? [INT: The woman who plays the, her mother in the, in COAL MINER’S DAUGHTER--] Yeah, she was a singer. [INT: She was a singer.] Yeah. Yeah. [INT: She’s a wonderful, wonderful presence.]

INT: Now with, interesting enough, with people like that who have already performance experience, the casting process for you with them also conversation?

MA: Well, it was, yes, definitely a conversation, but you know, it’s very, I had a lot of trouble with Levon [Levon Helm], ‘cause first of all, we had the whole issue of whether he should have a beard and all that, and then when he did take his beer off, beard off, I thought I made a terrible mistake. I thought he looked younger than Sissy [Sissy Spacek]. So, but anyway, so he was very helpful, very cooperative, very humble about doing it for about two days, then he realized he could do it and he became impossible, then he became a rock and roll star. He was a fucking nightmare. God bless him, but I mean, you know, there’s that issue, that again, this is why the person... Then of course once, I mean, I saw by chance THE LAST WALTZ and I thought, ‘cause I couldn’t cast the part. I couldn’t find anybody to do it. It was hopeless. None of us could. And then I saw this, and then I was talking, I had already cast Tommy Lee Jones and he said, “I know Levon [Levon Helm].” I said, “What do you think? Could he do it?” And he said, “I think he could.” So he introduced me to him. But that was a different thing, because once I, you know, it was a good idea and I was gonna have to make it work, but I never had that conversation with Levon [Levon Helm], really. You know, I never, here was Levon. We had a conversation about his beard, but that was it, so I never tapped into Levon, you know, because Levon was strange. He was gifted but strange. [INT: Right.] But that’s not really what I’m talking about. What you and I are talking about is getting someone who, you know, out of the panoply of real life to get them to do something for you.

INT: Talk about the kids. [MA: Well, again, I mean, it’s, you know...] Well, you’ve dealt with kids, obviously in documentary work, but still…

MA: And you know, I don’t actually enjoy it very much with children. I don’t know why. [INT: In the casting process?] Any of it, in fact, to be honest with you, because I find it, you know, I have three children, so I’ve done all that, but I find it difficult to talk to children in a way, you know, even having done the UP films [7 UP, 14 UP, 21 UP, 35 UP, 42 UP, 49 UP, 56 UP], and so that level of familiarity that you and I would have if I’d cast you in this thing because you hated the Baltimore Ravens or something like that, I don’t have that with children, you know? It has to be, I’m not very good at kind of cooing around them and saying, you know, getting into their dreams worlds and all this sort of stuff. I’m, but again, it just depends and sometimes I feel you have to be kind of tough with children, you know? Sometimes they, you can’t expect them to pay attention. Sometimes, then sometimes I’ll create a world for them when there’s a good guy and a bad guy, you know, when someone else, I’ll have to be quite tough on them, and then someone else will have to pick up the pieces, you know? Sometimes you have to discipline them, you know, to get them to concentrate and, and do what has to be done. So I find that kind of awkward. [INT: Those kids in COAL MINER'S DAUGHTER are very important in your story. I mean there’s that whole scene where, scene to the kids.] Yeah. But, you know, what was great about that, you know, was Sissy [Sissy Spacek]. I mean Sissy did the heavy lifting, you know? That’s crucial in some ways when, you know, when you’ve got a character who has, you know, playing their mother in some ways. They become their mother, you know? I think that’s the only way to do it and you know, she really had, although she wasn’t their mother, I mean, she was, but nonetheless, you know, she was a, you know, 28 year old woman and she did a lot of, she was very helpful with them.

INT: In casting an Actor who is not a non-Actor, because here, these are you’ve had conversation with these people to find out who they are in that dialogue that you have, what’s your process there? Do they read?

MA: Yes. Again, it’s a personality thing, but with this, I think it’s how do they respond to me and my opinions and whatever. So I get them to read, not necessarily to see how well they read, but to see whether they can make adjustments for me. So I’ll get ‘em to read it and I’ll make them do it differently, even if what they did is perfectly all right. I want to see what that relationship is like, whether there can be a give and take, and give or take and how adept they can be in making adjustments. I think that’s my process there. [INT: In the language that you use for an adjustment--] Yeah. [INT: Do you, do you know what that language is?] It sometimes can be a bit difficult. This is why, again, you know, it’s a double-barreled thing. It’s a relationship as well as an ability for an Actor to get what I’m talking about and to be able to do what I’m asking them to do. But it can be difficult. I mean sometimes, you just say, “Do it faster,” you know, and whatever, but that can be awkward and that can get tricky with Actors, you know, if, especially if you have to go to the heart of it and all this. I mean, I, my great acting story, which I have to tell you, which was when I did, I was 30 years old and I was quite a hotshot Director at Granada [Granada Television] and they were doing a season of plays produced by Laurence Olivier. He’d been quite ill. And so we were doing six plays with him. He was producing them. He was in some of them and he was going to direct a couple of them. And I did the first one, which was THE COLLECTION [GREAT PERFORMANCES: THE COLLECTION] by Harold Pinter. And we got this astonishing cast, then him [Laurence Olivier], Malcolm McDowell, Alan Bates and Helen Mirren. So I mean, I was total, I mean, not awe, just fear and loathing of the whole thing. I mean--[INT: By the way, did you cast any of them?] I don’t remember. [INT: Okay.] Probably not. Anyway, and the other tricky thing was is that he was gonna direct the next one and wanted to watch me direct, so he had to watch me directing him anyway. I don’t know how familiar you are with the play, but the play is about a gay man. So we all show up to the read-through and they’re all there, Harold Pinter’s there, Derek Granger is there, the cast is there. There’s me fighting to death. And so I do my introduction, you know, and out of the corner of my eye, I can see Olivier pulling faces, you know, like that [Apted makes faces.]. I thought shit, what’s going on? Is he gonna be ill? Is he gonna have a heart attack? Anyway, so we, we got to that and we started to read it and he had the first sight in the film and he started doing this amazingly camp way, and my heart sank and everybody was looking at everybody and everybody was looking at me and we got through the play and it was profoundly embarrassing. So I thought, “What am I gonna do?” This is me thinking while the play is going on. I’ve got a choice here. I can either let it go, in which case I’ll never work again. [laugh] Or I can tell him and get fired. So I thought I’ll take the latter one. So we got to the end. I said, “Thank you very much everybody. Let’s all go off now. We’ll start properly at you know, 10:00 tomorrow morning. But would you mind staying behind, Sir Laurence?” He was Sir Laurence, then. He said, you know, “Sure, dear boy.” So I sat him down and I said, “I don’t think we can do it like this.” He said, “What do you mean, dear, boy?” He called me, “Dear boy.” He was a very lovely man. And I said, “You know, gay people don’t talk like that. You know? It’s you know, just think of the people in your business, you know, Harry Andrews, people like that. They don’t speak like that.” “Did you think so?” I said, “I do.” He said, “Oh, okay.” And then the rest of it was in some ways getting a balance, you know, that he still wanted to hang onto a bit of that, but you know, that was, at the end of the day, if you’re in that position, you have to put your life in their hands, you know? Most times, it’s all right. Most times when you say, “I think this is terrible. You’ve got this is completely wrong. You don’t understand it. Blah, blah, blah,” you’ll get away with it, you know? But that was a crucial moment [laugh] in my life. [INT: You know what’s fascinating is that there are a number of Directors who have talked about, who have had those moments. Mark Rydell had his moment with John Wayne, a very similar moment. Ang Lee had his moment with, what’s her name in SENSE AND SENSIBILITY, a similar thing where either I tell her now that this is not gonna work or the movie’s not gonna work. And these, it’s like this moment of choice of am I willing to be, as you just said, both make my own and be straightforward with what’s going on here?] Yeah. [INT: Which I think is very, very powerful and obviously a great lesson when it comes out.] Yeah.

INT: Have you had roles that, besides her, I mean, I know Levon Helm, that have been really tough to cast that you, that you’re remembering?

MA: Well yes, the THUNDERHEART was tough to cast. I think when you’re looking to do a level of realism, they’re tough to, you know, a level of authenticity, I think that is--I don’t think you can get away with it. I mean a lot of those elderly people in that film, you know, were the real thing. I don’t see how you can act that. I mean, when I’m doing AMAZING GRACE and casting, you know, William Pitt or William Wilberforce, that’s a different matter, but I think when you’re trying to be really authentic and people are so savvy to all that, audience is, I mean, I think, you know, sometimes you never really ever get it right. You never really ever find that person, but you just do the best you can, but I don’t think you can try and cover it up and have an Actor as it were try and do an impression of an old, of an old reservation man, particularly when he’s surrounded, shooting it on location and you’re surrounded by the real thing. You know, I think those can be the most difficult things. [INT: Did, in the studio casting process, there’ve been a number of films that you’ve taken where the Actor has already been part of the process.] Yes. [INT: Have you gone through the experience of I fooled myself or we need to shift or change? Where have you gone through that?] No, I think there’s another area of casting, I think you’re referring to. [INT: Yes.] You know, when they’re there and you’re there by the grace of god. I mean, I, with COAL MINER’S [COAL MINER’S DAUGHTER] I had to meet with Sissy [Sissy Spacek] and she had to approve me. With, with Bond [THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH], Pierce [Pierce Brosnan] was there and I could give you a litany of films, I suspect. And again then, I mean, you know, you just have to make it work. That’s the--[INT: Was Richard Pryor there [CRITICAL CONDITION]?] Richard Pryor was there. Yeah. Belushi [John Belushi] was there [CONTINENTAL DIVIDE]. You know, they were difficult. But you just have to make it work. You have to use every atom of skill and experience that you have to make it work. I mean, otherwise, the choice is you meet with them and you say to whoever sent you, “I can’t make this work.” [INT: Have you been in that situation?] I can’t remember. I don’t think so.

INT: Have you been in the situation where the dialogue is being had, “We want these Actors.” And you were saying, “Well maybe,” and again, this is the studios and to where the money is and you’re suggesting, “Well that may not be a good idea for this part.”

MA: Yeah. Well, I think again, what we haven’t talked about in the movie business is the politics of it all, you know, and I think you have to be a politician and you have to know what you can give away and what you can’t give away in every area of the film and the cast in particularly. You know, I’m not sure about this person but maybe if it doesn’t work, this is me thinking, I mean, if it doesn’t work out, you know, I think I can cut around it a bit. It’s not that important. But with this role, if this doesn’t work, we don’t have a movie and I think, I mean, I’m prepared to be perfectly direct with people like that and say, “Look, for this role, you know, you’re here for you know, I don’t know,” I can’t even think of the film, but you know, “for this role, I don’t care who you want. They can’t do it. But in this other role, that would be fine. I don’t mind that.” I think you have to get into, it sounds crass, but I mean, I’ve never been in a final cut. I am a super, you know, super-duper, super power Director. I’ve always, you know, had to earn my living, you know, and be, I know I’m not in the position where I can say, “Fuck you all. You gotta do this and do that.” But I think you have to be political about it and you just have to know what can’t be touched and what can be touched. [INT: And in casting, ‘cause one of the things that often people say is, you know, that’s, you can’t compensate for it.] No. But it isn’t always black and white. I mean there are certain things in a cast you can’t compensate for. If you make a mistake, you’re fucked. But there’s a whole gray area of casting when you think this and I think that and you’re the head of the studio and I’m the Director and you’ve been, you’ve given me 10 extra days and all this sort of stuff. You know, I think there’s a gray area in filming, in every aspect of film, but there are certain things and you know that within each project that are untouchable, and you have to die for that. [INT: With pictures like NELL, I mean, was she [Jodie Foster], was she already there?] Yes. She was there. [INT: And how about the other two leads in that [Kagan referring to Liam Neeson and Natasha Richardson]?] No, that was a collaboration really between me and her. And that was an extraordinarily difficult film, you know, to do because there was no template for it. There was no material. What is a person who has had no human contact... What, how do they behave? How do they speak? And we were both at sea, but fortunately, we had a very good relationship and we had a really strong collaboration and really, we would just try different things. You know, sometimes she would be knowing, sometimes she would be unknowing and we shot lots of stuff and we did lots of takes and we had bad days and good days. But we got through it because we got on well. We had, you know, we were open with each other. I couldn’t tell her how to play the role. She didn’t know how to play the role. There was no, nothing to look at, you know, to how do you play this role? You had to make it up.

INT: In things like, in GORKY PARK casting... Here’s a tricky one, because you’re supposed to be all Russians and, did you go through a process of make--how was that casting process for you?

MA: Well, I mean that was, again, that was a big issue with the studio, you know, who do we have in? Do we want to, do we want to have American Actors in? And I said that would be tricky, so you know, we sort of came to a compromise that the Russians would speak with an English accent and the Americans would speak with an American accent. You know, but that was, that was tricky, but again it was a studio that I got on well with. You know, that was, I don’t know what they were called then when they were United Artists or Orion [Orion Pictures Corporation]. But that, you know, that was Medavoy [Mike Medavoy] and Krim [Arthur B. Krim] and Bernstein [William Bernstein] and they were all film, they were film-friendly. They were good people.

INT: In casting, when you get some giants like Lee Marvin, do you meet them? I mean, you know, what the reputations are like Oliver Reed. Do you, are you wanting to meet these people before you get into the process or where are you? Or does it, or is it sometimes not possible?

MA: No, I think it’s sometimes not possible. The first, my second movie STARDUST, you know, um, you know, who, Larry Hagman, you know, Columbia [Columbia Pictures] said to us, “Larry Hagman is gonna play the manager,” and I said, “Who the fuck’s Larry Hagman?” And they said, “It doesn’t matter who he is. He’s playing it.” And you know, Puttnam [David Puttnam] was producing and he said, “We have to do this. I mean, Columbia--it’s all about image rock and roll.” I never met Larry until he showed up on the first day. And he was great, you know, terrific, but and again, I don’t think I met Lee [Lee Marvin] before it [GORKY PARK], but he was awesome although he was dying, you know, he was a wonderful man. But yes, I, there are occasions like that where you, you take a life into your hands with that. But I mean, the thought of having Lee Marvin in it, it was a bit different with Larry, ‘cause I never really knew about him. To have a Lee Marvin in it, you thought, I mean, he’s done, I mean, what aren’t I gonna learn from him, you know? He’s done this a thousand times more than me. I mean he, and he’s again, this sort of thing, ‘cause we did have a lot of trouble with it, you know, with Bill [William Hurt], ‘cause Bill was uncomfortable being a leading man and the English Actors were horrible to him, you know, difficult, and he was great with them, you know? And he helped me. I mean he [Lee Marvin] helped me ground Bill, ‘cause Bill was very unhappy the whole time.

INT: What do you do about, or do you have them, callbacks for Actors in casting? I mean do you go through that process?

MA: Yeah, if necessary, yeah. I mean, you know, not with a Lee Marvin, but yes. I’ll do that. [INT: No, no, of course not. I’m going back down to I guess smaller roles where, where you might...] Yeah, yeah. I would do that if I was really torn about it and if I had the time and if it was really important and one of those things that was--[INT: Is that rarer for you, then, callbacks?] No, it, no. I’ll do that. I mean, I don’t think it’s, I don’t think it’s rare. I mean I like to see a lot of people. I, the cast, when I work I try and work with the same casting directors as much as I can so they know how I like to do it. But I like to see a lot of people. [INT: Will you see how many for let’s say a smaller part?] Yeah, I mean probably not more than three or four, but for leading roles, I’d wanna see a lot and that can be difficult, you know, politically for the casting director saying, “Well, you’ve just seen him. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,” but maybe sometimes I go too far with that, but the more people I see, usually the better it is, even if I go back to you know, number one or number two. But it helps me to define what I want. [INT: Did that happen in AMAZING GRACE?] Yes. I mean, with Ioan [Ioan Gruffudd], yes. I mean with Benedict [Benedict Cumberbatch] who played Pitt [William Pitt], I knew as soon as I met him this is the guy, and the studio didn’t want him. They never heard of him. I said, “I have to have him.” With Ioan, I wasn’t so sure about Ioan. You know, he’d done certain things and his instincts weren’t very sound, you know, when he auditioned, he was way over the top and very sentimental, and I had to work quite hard with him, and you know, the one or two other people I saw, and so I would get him back in to do stuff, and again, be kind of straight with him about it that I wasn’t sure and you know, we would talk about it and I would video tape him and stuff like this, ‘cause the studio wanted to see what I was doing, but I wasn’t comfortable with it, you know, and then I became so. I became, I worked with him for a bit and then I became okay about it. But you know, with some of those parts, I knew it immediately. I mean I knew I had to have Michael Gambon. I knew that, you know, and so, and again, the studio was good about it, you know, and I had a big fight with Benedict who now, of course, is one of the big young stars in the planet. But you know, it’s always different and there’s been, always a bit of politics, always a bit of fear and always a bit of taste and stubbornness and--[INT: What about the, do you videotape now and will you look at them and what’s the distinction for you to look at a videotape of an Actor versus...] Well sometimes you have to do that. You know, sometimes things... I’ll do that, but I mean, I don’t think I’d cast a big part. I mean, the next thing I’m doing I’m going to do this cable show, you know, MASTERS OF SEX, and you know, I’ve inherited a whole cast, pretty much, then and all I do is just look at what they’ve done. I mean, I have to do the best I can with them, so...

INT: When you’re taking notes, or if you are, what do you write down? I mean, again, this is, you know...

MA: I do write down notes, ‘cause I need to remember it. I mean, you know, if I’m doing a movie, I’ll see a lot of people. I’ll spend a lot of days and I make notes and I know I have to make notes that are good enough to remind me who it is and I’ll, I may be even put stars or scores against them, so I know what impressed me, because it’s infuriating when you know you want to go back and you look at stuff, even if you’ve videotaped it, you know? You want to remember what happened at the meeting and all that, so I do take notes, because I need to be reminded sometimes. And when I haven’t done it, it’s been infuriating to myself. [INT: So now this is gonna be a technical question. If you have a piece of paper that has their names on it, will you have five on there in order to give you enough space to take notes or will it be 20?] Yeah. Well I would say, yeah, no there wouldn’t be 20. There’ll be enough so I’ve got a place to write little notes about what I thought of them, what they looked like, anything they said and maybe give them one or two stars or maybe give them one to five. So you know, and anything significant that happens so when I go back and you know, we say we, you know, that we saw about 10 people for this role and let’s just go back into the notes and just see, then, then I can recall it and it’ll give me half a chance to make the choice, so I do do that. It’s very annoying and it may when it’s, you know, you have to divide your attention between talking to them, you know, watching them and writing things down. But I, you know, I do do that for good reason, I think.