INT: This is sort of production design related. When you're designing shots that will require some kind of special effects, how are you working with your designer and--

MA: Well, in this case, historically, just looking at, you know, pictures of the period, drawings, paintings of the period, you know, it's, but in that case we spend a lot of money on it. But it again, it's a value judgment, it's a priority, you know. And I would give up other things to pay for that, but I thought it was important. [INT: And will you, like in that, will work with sketches for them?] Yes. I mean, you know, that's sort of the bane of my life, actually storyboards, but with things like that I know I have to be very precise. I have to discipline myself because I've done enough of it to know that if you start improvising, changing your mind, that's when the money starts going out the window. You know, and I'm fiscally responsible. I always have been. So I, it's from my parents I think, you know, they never had that much money, so they had to be careful. But, you know, I like you, I'm sure, you know, I want the money on the screen; I don't want the money being pissed away because people are changing their minds. So you know, I'll be very elaborate in those preparations, I mean--and that's true in NARNIA [THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER] or in Bond [THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH], we didn't have, we had a fair about, but not a huge amount of visual effects in Bond [THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH]. A lot of that was cleaning up stuff. But I don't like storyboarding dramatic scenes. I hate that. You know, because people get their hands on it and they say, “Why aren't you shooting a close-up here? Where's the close-up there?” You know, because again, I never, I've never shot a scene, I don't think, when I've had the idea going in and it's turned out I thought it would be, it always changes, you know, and it's, and I like the Actors to feel that too, that's it's real. I hate idea of standing around saying, “Well, here's this frame here, boom, boom, boom.” Unless there's real money involved, you know, and it's that real visual effects. You know, I won't do it, but I will do it, I will be responsible when it comes to spending a lot of money and knowing what I want. [INT: So when do the storyboards come in?] Well, straight away, I mean, you know, as soon as we knew we were going to do that, and you know, we had to find a location. But you know, I had them start, I just sort of broke the scene down and gave them, you know, very rough appraisal of how I would like it to be and they would then do thumbnails sketches, very quickly and then it would be begin to grow from that and then at some point we would find the location, so then we would redo them and then we would budget it and find how much it costs and then we would redo it. It's a constant state of refining and whatever and I'm not looking for works of art, I suppose that what was so throwing to me on NARNIA when these guys were doing these beautiful, beautiful pieces of work. You know, for me, I've always seen storyboards and, you know, models and stuff as a piece of the process, you know, they're not pieces of art, really. So I think with storyboards, and stuff like that, it's just a constant refining of it.

INT: And would you, taking apart an action sequence, like some of the action sequences in Bond [THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH], the sequence with the boat, the boat chase. What percentage of that gets storyboarded?

MA: All of it. [INT: All of it.] Every bit of it, because you know, you have a second unit, you have a third unit, you have a fourth unit. And you know, that's a whole different, you know, can of fish, can of worms, can of whatever it is. That's a whole different deal. And that wasn't so true in NARNIA [THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER] because I pretty much did most of it. You know, we done beautiful landscapes and some other stuff that were done, but with Bond that was a whole different thing. When it's a really big action sequence, you have to draw it up. And the thing is I learned is you have to pay attention, you know, I have to watch what they're shooting. Because they'll never stick to the storyboards, I mean they're all great men, they're all brilliant at their job and the, so they'll make it up, you know, as they go along, which is fine. You know, I mean I remember a moment--a chilling moment--I was, I was doing nights and the second unit was doing days or something, I don't know. And so I, you know, it was part of that opening sequence, you know, and I went after we'd done the night shoot, I went to Technicolor to look at their dailies, and they had shot something that I thought I was supposed to shoot. And I thought, Michael, wake up. Pay attention. You know, and from that moment--it happened quite early on, and I mean I didn't give the game away, I didn't say, “Oh my god…” But I mean I really learned you do have, you have to sit through a ton of stuff, but you have to do it, you have to know what they're doing because at the end of the day, you have to meld it all together, and again there's no formula. I mean that great sequence I shot very little of that, I only did the stuff with Pierce [Pierce Brosnan]. I think Armstrong did all the big stuff, he did six weeks of it. So he did six weeks, I'd be surprised if I did six days. [INT: But in those six weeks versus six days, you'd seen, I assume, the “storyboard” for the six weeks.] Yeah, but I mean I knew he wasn't going to stick to it, you know, I mean I don't say to Vic Armstrong, or Simon Crane--I mean they were part of the storyboarding, but you knew that they would have good ideas out there. You know, they, you knew, I mean, you have good ideas out there, you want to change it, you don't want some dickhead storyboard, so… And you know, then they weren't the sort of men, I mean they were far more experienced than I was, I mean, I was completely inexperienced and it, I did one very smart thing, I made sure with that crew, they'd all done it before. The First AD [First Assistant Director], they'd all done it before. But anyway, I mean, I wasn't gonna lecture them on how to do this, how to do that, I mean we’d agree the broad principles of it and all that, and we'd have it all dutifully drawn up and there would be all over the wall, hundreds of sketches, but I knew they wouldn't stick to it. So I therefore had to make sure that I knew what they were doing. So I could then go back to them and say, “Look, this isn't gonna work. Well, you have to do this again. This doesn't fit what we're gonna do.” I would then in some ways relate to the storyboards again, but then, you know if they’d a brilliant idea, then I might say, “My god, this is great, we'll change this.” But it was that crushing moment when I made that horrible mistake that I realized how important it was and, you know, sometimes I had three or four units on the same sequence and again you would just have to, you had to pay attention. I mean that was my big lesson on Bond, pay attention. [INT: That's a good lesson on life.] 'Cause there's so much going on, you know?

INT: ADs [Assistant Director], how do you choose your Assistant [Assistant Director]?

MA: Well, it is a bit horses for courses, you know, on the Bond [THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH] one, I chose a guy who'd done a few, you know, because I knew we'd never have a script going in that was path of the course. I mean I--and one of my unforgettable moments is, when I got the job, when I was given the job by Frank Mancuso [Frank Mancuso, Sr.], he said, he said two things to me. He said, first thing is, “This movie will open on November the 19th in 5,000 screens.” And it was like a year before. And he said, “I do not want to see a single word of this script in the film.” [laughs] Pretty clearly telling me that he thought the script was a load of rubbish and we had to rewrite it, which we did. But anyways, so you know, I forgotten how I got on to that, but… [INT: It's ADs [Assistant Director].] Oh ADs, yes. So, yeah, ADs and again, you know, I've worked with a few, and I think I know I got a sort of sense of a variety of them who would be better in emotional pieces, you know, who work quietly, those that, you know, need to kick back sides because we're going to have to need a lot of that. And I think I have, I've worked with enough of them to know the kind of prototype that I want and I think it is a bit horses for courses, I mean I think people have, you sometimes get surprised. I think people have some strengths, I wanted an AD who's going to move me along. Because I like to move along. And I don't want an AD who isn't around, who is slow and all that 'cause he has to be quicker than I am, and I'm quick. So that's essential, whatever mood I'm looking for. But you know, I may have a thing with, which has a lot of background and I know ADs that are very good with backgrounds, because you know, you can't do that yourself. You can't be saying, you know, you're number one, you're 51, blah, blah and all that stuff. You know, as well as I do, how they move crowds around, so it is horses for courses. But I, again, it's someone--I like people, I don't like loud people, I don't like very noisy people. You know, and I like people who are on my emotional wavelength and I want someone I like, because it's a very close relationship you know, and they do get you through the day and you know, someone who'll, and you know, I'll say to them, things like, you know, “Where do you think we have to be at one o'clock?” You know, “Where on the schedule,” and he'd say, “Halfway through,” and I'll say, “No, no, no. That' s not right because you know, this afternoon I've got a much more difficult scene that I'm gonna have to spend a lot more time on so, you know, get me through this scene much quicker.” So that sort of conversation you know, because again I think everything is checks and balances. You gotta decide, I say this to young Directors, you gotta decide what's important and what isn't important. Some things you can throw away, some things you have to pay a great deal of attention to. Not every scene you shot has the same value, has the same worth to you, you've got to do it, but you don't have to spend the time on it. I mean it's always that, those kind of decisions that you have to be making. And an AD is very central to that. [INT: Will rehearsal have helped you make some of those decisions meaning, I know this scene is going to take me some time?] Yes indeed it would. And also I mean, you'll know it in the sense from the script, as well, but yes, I mean the, one thing rehearsal does give you is that kind of information. You know, this I could say, “This is gonna be a difficult scene because the Actors are nervous about it,” you know, it, and this is, “we need more time.” So I think, you know, I need an AD who's very sympathetic to that, who doesn't just go by the rulebook. I mean I'm as anxious to make the day as anybody, but none the less, within that day there’re gonna be all sorts of finessing to do and I like an AD who's good at that.

INT: In working out your schedule of shooting with your AD [Assistant Director], is there a, what's your process? I mean, will you step back and say, “Okay, you give me a board [storyboard] and then I'll…”

MA: I think so, yeah. I think you know, we start boarding pretty early on, and I think I like to start from something, you know, they've thought it through, they've thought the way the sets are gonna be sort of constructed or roughly where the locations are gonna be, so there's got to be some geographical theme to it as well. And then I like to have him put--once they do that, and say it's a 40-50-60 day shoot, they'll show me their rough, which will probably be based on one major concern of theirs, whatever is theirs and then I'll bring mine into it. I'll say, “Well look, I don't want to start with these scenes. These scenes might take a long time; I don't want to get behind schedule. I want to make my first week a very successful week, so the studio will shut up.” Or, “This scene is too difficult to do at the beginning, I don't want to, you know, I don't want to put the Actor through this at this point.” And or, all those decisions come into it. And then again, if it's a skillful AD, then they can help me with that, but there are a lot of ingredients that go into the shoot as well as what's gonna take a long time, what's gonna take a short time. And again, it's, you know, “You don't want to do this near the end, 'cause they'll be tired. You know, you don't want to do the end of the film at the very end because they'll be worn out.” All those things. [INT: That last one by the way, has caught me twice. Where I shot the, where we were shooting the end of the movie at the end of the movie and I, it was a mistake in both cases.] And again, as you say, you know, the rehearsal process does give you more information about that. And whatever I do in rehearsal, I'll have a more sense of that, I'll know what's going to be difficult even if we haven't done much formal rehearsing, I'll know all, you know, the other thing is, and you never know this, some Actor's gonna take more film. I mean, and it's a surprise. I mean with Sigourney [Sigourney Weaver], for example, she needed a lot of film. I don't much like shooting a lot of film, I have to say, but some Actors need it. Some Actors don't really, you know, they need a lot of go's at it and you need to cherry pick what comes out of it. You know, again that can be very difficult. I mean working with someone like Gene Hackman who I love, I mean, brother he has it done in two takes. And then you get super grumpy if he has to go on. But sometimes he has to go on because the other Actors. But you get--and that's, in a sense, all that information is built into the schedule in some form or another, in some sense of priority. [INT: In the ADs who are working with crowds, like the crowds in GORILLAS IN THE MIST, what are you, how are you handling that?] Well, you know, I've, you know, now and again, I've come unstuck when I've had an AD who didn't do it very well. And it's one of those things that I don't think I have the patience to do it. I mean I want it done well. And again, I'll talk, one of the questions I'll ask an AD if, when I see, meet him for the first time, is I'll talk about moving background and how they do it. And you know, what their MO [modus operandi] is, and how many people do they want to do it. I'll try and figure out, because you know, that can drive me mad when that's being done badly, when background is being moved badly and it's a very difficult thing to have to fix, you know, you have to shut the film down, you know, you have to shut the foreground down while you reevaluate the background. So that's quite a big issue with me, with ADs. And so it's really how interested they are in it. If they're not very interested in it, and that's a big warning bell to me. You know, I mean they gotta do it, but they don't really--some of them take great pride in it, and that's thrilling for me. You know, some of them--and then you know, and then they'll respond to notes, 'cause you know, often I look at it, I'll look at a run of it, I try and see their action fairly early on, so I see how it's going. And then you know, I can give them, you know, quite tough notes, you know, things I do like and don't like about it and I give them plenty of warning of that. [INT: The chaos in the Commons [House of Commons] in AMAZING GRACE, there were times where everybody’s speaking at the same time.] Yeah, that was terrific fun to do, actually, and I had a, I can't even remember. I had a very good AD [may be referring to Danny McGrath]. And I mean, and I loved all the stuff of people walking around and walking in front of things, 'cause that was going on all the time, you know, and I felt you know, that had to be messy. I like the messiness of all that. And that, you know, that was, you know, that was a real AD coup, all that stuff, 'cause we didn't have that many extras, you know, I mean, we probably filled the chamber over one day. The rest of the stuff was done piece by piece by piece and I had a lot of cameras, you know, and it was a question of dividing it all into sections, ‘cause people kept changing places during the course of it, and really getting the logistics round and then just whamming it off. You know, that was a really big AD deal, those. I think we were in there for 10 days doing it and that--[INT: That's a sequence, did you storyboard that sequence?] No. [INT: You did not? Oh wow.] But I figured it out. I figured out what I wanted, I knew where people were gonna sit, but I didn't bother to storyboard it. I thought we could do better than that by just creating the action, 'cause most people, most of them are sitting down, you know, again it was more of a rehearsal thing, when would they standup, when they would, they sit down and all this sort of thing, so I didn't storyboard that, no.

INT: Let's talk about the shoot itself. What's, the night before the first day of shooting, the night before the first day of shooting or first night of shooting, what's happening to you?

MA: Well, I'm pretty alarmed, I mean I'm lucky if I sleep. I get very nervous about it, however and I don't get less nervous the more I've done it, I mean, because I've learned, you know, we all have, you know, you never know where the minefields are, and I'm, if I'm feeling pleased or happy about something or think this is gonna be a good day, I always pull myself up and say something terrible could happen today, you know? I know that sounds negative, but it stops me being complacent about it, it keeps me on my toes you know. But I'm very nervous, you know. I'm always nervous to, as we start a new scene, you know, the blocking of a new scene. I mean we might've done it in the rehearsal room, but it's a bit different. If I can, it's great to rehearse on location. You know, if there are, if I can get to the locations or if it's, if the set is built, it's wonderful to be able to rehearse on that. But generally, you know, when I have the Actors on there, even if we’ve rehearsed, you know, just to, those first moments walking through it and plotting it and all that, and then showing it to people and, “Is it alright?” you know, “This is embarrassing,” or, “What the fuck is going on here,” or whatever. You know, I'm naturally I think a bit nervous Nellie about it all. [INT: When you arrive on the set, what's the first thing you’ll be doing?] Well, the first thing is I'll get the Actors on, if they're in their curlers or not, I'll get the Actors on and we'll walk it through and I'll have the DP [Director of Photography] there and the script girl and the AD [Assistant Director] there and nobody else. Just the little group of us, we’ll figure it out. And then, you know, we'll feed people in, we'll bring people in and then I'll let them go off to make up and finish off and do it with stand-ins and all that sort of stuff. [INT: And in terms of that time, let's say you have a fairly dramatic scene, what's the time that you might spend preparing before you’re sending them all back to get ready for the actual shoot?] I like to make sure that we know what we're doing. I don't want to grind it into the ground, and maybe it's sometimes difficult if you're dong a very long sequences, you know, you may sort of vaguely get to the end, but then say let's just break it down and concentrate on this part. But I don't leave it if there's a major question still hanging in the air, ‘cause I don't think it's gonna get any better. I don't, I mean you'll make adjustments, you'll make changes, you'll have ideas, but if you've got a problem, that problem won't go away by ignoring it. You know, you've got to address it someway, even if you have to do drastic scene, things like decide not to shoot that scene, do something else that you've, you know, absolutely stuck. And you've got to figure it out. I mean things like that have happened, but I won't leave it. [INT: It's interesting, the scene is on my mind, I guess it just is, but when you divided the walk and talk with the husband, the husband and wife to be anyway, you've got that in four or five sections. Will you have rehearsed the whole of it? [referring to scene in COAL MINER’S DAUGHTER] Yeah, absolutely. And the takeovers and the order in which to shoot it with the lights and all that, but I really worked at that. You know, I took them out there; we rehearsed that on the location. You know we found time to go out and do that 'cause I thought that was very tricky and it was quite a difficult piece of choreography and you know, and again, with the sun and the weather and whatever, if you know, if we had to make adjustments and it, how could we make those adjustments, so I really did belabor that somewhat.

INT: And in...now that you've got your whole crew back now and everybody's here, many takes, few takes? Where are you?

MA: Depends. I'm a few take kind of guy on the whole, but you know, if you have to do it, you have to do it. And you know again, I have this constant thing I had this fucking voice in my head saying, “Michael [Michael Apted],” I always call myself Michael, “it's not quite right Michael. If you leave it like this, you will regret it.” This is my dialogue with self. Note to self. And you know, and I, sometimes I move on and I think, and I'll go back and do another take of it, but I always say that, you know, I mean, you never know whether it's exactly what you want or blah, blah, blah. But you do know if you haven't got it. [INT: Where are you positioning yourself?] Well I mean, I'm a mixture of being--physically position, well I'm a mixture of being at the monitor and a mixture of being at the camera. I mean I think if it's a serious acting job, I'm more at the camera side. If it's a movement thing or you know, an effect thing or anything like that, I tend to want to know whether we've got it and all that sort of stuff, so it's… Although I find myself now, maybe as I’m getting older, you know, I spend more, a bit more time at the monitor than I do at the camera. But if it's really delicate stuff, and if I feel they want me there, you know, I mean the feel, if it's a very emotional scene and I sense the Actors want my immediate response to it or want my support by being there, I'll be there for them, you know. 'Cause you do get very just kind of disconnected from it sometimes, being by the monitors and all this.

INT: If you want to readjust a performance now, let's say and probably now is gonna be a good example, since there was such a struggle for both of you, what's the kind of, and I'm sure this depends on each Actor that you're working with, but what's the kind of language that you'll use to get someone to do something different? Or if you remember any case where, “Boy I remember this was a problem, and by saying this, by doing this, by that got me where I needed to go.”

MA: Yeah, I mean I think in general terms, you know, the Olivier [Laurence Olivier] story was, is a telling story because you know, we, by having that confrontational, the discussion, you know, we set the table for what my worries about the performance would be. You know, and I think during the rehearsal, the discussions if you get a sense of what's going to be tricky for the Actor to do, is to bring it up you know, and say, “This is a, but I think this is, this area of the performance is going to be quite difficult to do because,” you know, probably I'll blame myself for, I'm not quite sure about it, but at least set the table for it, you know, without making them neurotic or nervous and not with any harshness at all. So if you do give them a note, which is sort of maybe slightly radical, I mean, you know, I know, for example, I've been told that Michael Sheen can go over the top, especially in anger, he can absolutely go fucking berserk, you know. And so that's a language I've got to figure out with him. You know, because then apparently he can be quite sensitive about it, so I've got to find a way in the--‘cause we won't rehearse, we just go straight in and do it, and I know that's going to come up. And so I got to be prepared for that, and so I've got to figure out how am I going to approach it with him, and I know what I would say in this situation. I would say, “You're a very powerful Actor, you're a very vivid Actor,” and I would mean it, I'm not bullshitting you. “And you don't have to do so much.” You know, so I'm flattering them. I'm telling the the truth, but I'm flattering them as well as correcting them. And it's true of a lot of a lot--some Actors have such a very strong physical presence they don't have to do very much. And once they start doing a lot, then they go, it goes berserk, it goes overboard. And I may have to deal with that, you know, over the next couple of weeks with Michael [Michael Sheen], but you know, that's really the delicate way of saying, or you know with Sissy [Sissy Spacek] we had a language, I would just go, zip it up, shut up, you know, or I'd find, when I get to know them, you know, if it's too much I just go like that, and I wouldn't have to say anything to them. And then you know, when you have a relationship with an Actor, and I couldn't do that to Gene, I mean, Gene Hackman, for example, but you know, you get a language but there's a certain--

INT: Were you able, 'cause I've dealt with, well not with Gene [Gene Hackman], but I've dealt with other people like George C. Scott who is also one of these he wants it in the first two takes and he's brilliant anyway. Now the question is, what are you, if you want something different, what are you going to say to the man?

MA: I know. Well, it is difficult, you know, and I'm not sure that I was that brave with him. He once threw something at me, God bless him, but I mean… No it's difficult, you know. I remember talking to Frears [Stephen Frears] about this, and he said, “There's a style of directing which is to get out of the way.” And I do that a lot. If someone really understands it better than I understand it, if they've got it, I keep out of the way. I trust that instinct, unless it, unless I see it falling over the cliff. But sometimes a person is so into it and on it that it's best not to say anything just to approve.

INT: With someone like either Lee or Bill Hurt [William Hurt] or I mean… And again, but maybe we should talk a little bit more about working on NELL because of the--here's a performance you guys had to create, and one of the things that I'm always fascinated by and I don't think we're often always aware, the actual things that we say, you know, to or and sometimes are not said, like this and that, those not said, but they're communicating and the Actor's getting it, but sometimes they are said. And you know, as I try to, not try, as I do teach students, one of the things that I'm, I like them to gain, interesting enough, a language that I don't, I wasn't taught, but I actually feel is effective, 'cause sometimes I will say to them, if you can give your redirection in terms of saying it like a verb, as an action that someone's going to do, like you want to do this, or you know, overwhelm her, impress her, whatever these, just, and I try to get them to find a new way of communicating. Now you and I grew up without this, and it may not even be necessary, maybe we do it instinctively, but I try to watch, okay, if we're readjusting something now, are there things that we say that makes a difference in readjusting? And obviously every Actor's different but still.

MA: Yeah, I don't know. I mean sometimes it's the simple things, you know, I mean, I remember the issue with Jodie [Jodie Foster] in NELL was, it came down to sort of things do less, do more. You know, be more contained, be more out of control, I think that was the stuff. It wasn't so much well 'cause she was really not, no one understood what she was saying, so it wasn't the readings of lines. I just think it was the pitch of the performance that was so difficult. And therefore the notes were very simple, you know, do much less, do nothing, just be completely passive and this sort of thing, or be, you know, and what was so hard about it was you know, that would be a moment by moment thing and then you'd just worried about the continuity of the whole performance, whether it would be up and down, you know, like a yo-yo the whole thing. Because we had nothing to rely on, you know, we had no comprehensible language, so it was all not exactly miming, but it was all you know, speaking and whatever. It was just constantly experimenting with the pitch of it. Because we just didn't know how someone like that, someone, you know, who had never had any experience, who never seen any other person, would react, it was inconceivable.

INT: When you want an emotional shift, if let's say you're now seeing something and you want an emotional shift. The villainous in Bond [THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH], for example, I mean, we believe--[MA: Sophie, yeah, Marceau, yeah.] If you need to redirect, will you go for, will you use words that are result oriented?

MA: I think so. Yeah I think you know, what you just said, I mean I think I can express that in simple language, you know, to ask for more or less emotion, I think I can do that. You know, and I think its just clarity, I mean I find, I try and not speak very much, because I don't want to confuse people. I mean I'm, we all live with people who talk too much and you know, you get tired and annoyed by it and all that and I try not to bring that to, I'm not like that in my private life, I'm sure, but into working thing with an Actor, I try and be concise and not say too much. Or if I'm in a terrible muddle myself, confess that I'm in a muddle and I really don't know, it doesn't feel right to me. And I don't quite know how to fix it and that that may draw their attention to something that I truly don't know how to fix. If something's going wrong here and I don't know what it is, maybe come clean with that, but I try to be concise and precise with them, even if I change it. You know I think what they don't want is babble. You know, they've got their own thing, I mean there are some people I mean, Bill Hurt [William Hurt] would never stop talking. [INT: I was gonna say, some Actors are too much.] Yeah, and you know, I mean that's the kind of nervous disease, I mean, you know, I've always, one of the big lessons I've learned is when Actors behave badly, it's 'cause they're frightened to death. I mean that's what I choose to think. I mean I'm very sympathetic to Actors who are playing badly, who pay--who behave badly. I mean I try and put them right, and I try and give them a safe place because I sense that it's fright, you know and Bill was like that. Bill wouldn't stop babbling because he was scared to death. And I don't know whether that's true but that's what I said to myself and I've always lived by that. If Actors start showing up late, and I'm a pretty impatient with that sort of stuff, but if it's becoming kind of you know, serial, then I'll have to deal with it in a way that it's much more important than the fact that they won't get up on time, it expresses some deep anxiety and fear about it, and then I know I have to address that in some way. [INT: And how will you help them?] Well it depends who they are and how. I mean sometimes you can be bold about it but other times it's, you know, it's just like, I hate to say this, it's like parenting, you know, it's like dealing with a child in some ways, you know. A child has to be reassured and they need reassurance. You know, they need… And you know, I think a lot of them have that, I'm sure we have it to, we get frightened and then we behave badly, but I've always chosen not to think someone's just a prick, or just malicious. I've always looked for something underneath that and that helps me deal with it even if I don't succeed.

INT: Dealing with, let's jump into sex scenes, because Bill Hurt [William Hurt], there you've got one. You've done a number in the movies you've done.

MA: I’ve got--this is all about sex, this thing I'm about to do now. I've got to, what's called the masturbation montage. [INT: Okay, good for you.] [laughs] Thank you. [INT: Have you figured out your shots?] No, no I haven't. This could be--[INT: Is this male and female or is it?] Yeah, 'cause that's what they did, you know, before they actually had people start screwing together, they would, you know, set a time, or how long it took them to, you know, the four stages of orgasm, and all this, oh my god. [INT: Great set. This is gonna be a gas.] Sex scenes are hell--hell. [INT: And how do you deal with them?] Well I mean you just do them. [INT: Well wait, come on, you don't just do them, what, like, the Bill Hurt one, I mean that's quite a… [referring to GORKY PARK.]] Well, he was a total dickhead about it. You know, he said, “I'm not doing this until you've done full storyboards of everything,” and I said, “All right. Well, I'll shut the movie down and we'll go back to London,” we were in Scandinavia, “and we'll draw it up.” And he said, “No, no, no, no. I didn't mean that.” And you know, so we talked it through. I mean, on ROME I had to do a ton of sex scenes, you know that, I mean I spent days with people fucking 'cause I did the first three hours of it, you know. And it's awkward, you know, but really you just have to say, what do you want or they'll ask you, “What do you want? How long before I cum?” or “Where do you want my legs,” and all this sort of stuff. And you just have to be adult about it. And I'm not very adult about that kind of stuff and I'm a snickering Englishman and all that kind of stuff, repressed Englishman. But no, I mean, you just have to be grown up about it and say what you want and what you…

INT: Do you do things like clear the set? Do you do things like… [referring to sex scenes.]

MA: Oh yeah. No, I’ll do that, whatever makes them comfortable, absolutely. No question about that. I mean I don't like having to bugger off myself, but if that's important, than I will, you know, but I think make them as comfortable as possible. [INT: And like in the ROME situation, these Actors knew they were going to be almost if not full nudity right on the edge.] Yeah, but I mean you know, I don't think they'd really thought about it that much, I mean, people doing this thing, you know, the MASTERS OF SEX thing, they know all about it, you know, they have to sign contracts and it's specified what nudity is requested and all this sort of thing. Thank god you know, that, it's when there's you know, people kind of try and put it out of their mind, I mean I do that too, you know, you know we're not doing it today, we'll worry about that tomorrow, but you know, I mean, no they are very difficult and I just think you have to be straight forward and get over it. And I mean I'm some, you know, some people are so fucking good at doing that stuff you know, Adrian Lion and people like that, you know, they’re wonderful stuff. But no I mean, you just have to stop it and I think I'll be grown up on this because again, you know, they know what they're in for and you know, they know what they have to do, they can't, you know, they got to show their boobs and there's no frontal nudity, there's reverse nudity and all that sort of stuff, and it's clear, it's in writing and that's, you know, that's, but sometimes it's hard to get to that place when it's only a part of the performance or it's only a part you know, having to deal with that might seem inappropriate, you know, like on ROME and all this sort of stuff, 'cause there was so much violence and all that going on and we tended again to leave the sex scenes 'til the end you know, 'cause we were all so nervous of them.

INT: And choreographing the physical violence scenes, what's your experience there?

MA: Well, that's always a worry. And I mean, you know, and, it's very, violence is very alarming to me, you know, because you really lose control of yourself, I mean you get so involved in the process of it, that you forget what you're doing. And you, you know, I've done some of those violent scenes I've seen, and I think what? You know, and it's really because you just, you want to make it work, you, once you know, you know the thing, you do it, and then it becomes the process, it becomes breaking it down to this and Jesus Christ I did this scene in ROME where there was a brain operation, and they cut the blokes head off, top of the blokes head off, you know, pulled his brain out, and all this sort of stuff going on; it was horrible. But again, you got so involved in the doing of it, and making it look good, or believable--that's a ridiculous thing to say--but you get so caught up in it, that you forget what you're doing and then you look at what you've done, and you think, do I want my kids to see this and all this sort of stuff. You know, so and again with action sequences, you know, I think wouldn't it be exciting to do this, and that, and then it becomes the process of it, you forget the ethics of it, you can, you forget the impact of it, you forget even what you're doing because you know an action sequence can take days or weeks to do. And then you look at it and you think Jesus. I mean that worries me, you know? [INT: I do actually. I mean I know it well enough to know that we are strangely facing it in a gigantic way in our time right now in terms of entertainment. Because you know, think about the fact that when you and I watch TV and somebody, I just was thinking about this yesterday, and somebody got shot, well they fell down. There was no blood, there was no nothing; they fell down. And when if we played cowboys and Indians or whatever the English version of that is, you fell down. I remember the thing that would shock me was somebody getting shot by an arrow, because in those movies, or a lance, for example, but an English one, I remember that somebody got stabbed by a, you know, that you physically saw that. And it was terrifying to a little kid.] God, It's so interesting the thing I read about Tarantino [Quentin Tarantino], all right. He said, “The only thing I can't watch is an animal being killed,” did you read that? [INT: Yeah I saw that.] Which again shows the kind of disassociation we have, the kind of crassness of it. We don't make, it's so an entertaining enjoyable thing to do that we don't really think what we're doing. But if you kill an animal, that's a real thing. You know, and the impact may be even less than the other stuff we do, but it's interesting that all he can relate to is that, you know. [INT: Right. Again, as I said, we have to ask ourselves the question, 'cause we get, you get into the detail, okay, how am I going to do it? My responsibility to do this as interesting way as I can.] You're sort of obliged to do it, I mean, if you do a Bond [James Bond] film, you know, you're, you have to, especially these days, you know, really since Craig [Daniel Craig] has come in, you know, it's much more you know, it's much tougher, much more brutal now than it was in the Pierce [Pierce Brosnan] days and all that, so, you know, you do, you have to almost contractually obliged to do it, you know, to make the violent stuff as violent as any other franchise.

INT: You've actually talked of this...what do you do when an Actor resists? I don't know if you've had a resisting Actor where you've given them the direction and he or she has said, “No.” Have you ever had that?

MA: Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah, that's not unknown in any sense. I mean, “No I don't want to do that,” or, “No I don't like that move there, I won't do that.” I mean, and you know, I try not to get defensive about it, I mean, unless it's something we've agreed beforehand and then suddenly you know, I feel they're taking the piss or something like that. But I mean I think I'm okay with that. I mean it sort of puts the ball in their court in a sense, you know, to come up with an alternative or something. So again, I see that as difficult or as easy as your relationship is with that particular Actor. I mean if it's a tense, hostile relationship, then, you know, you begin to wonder the motive behind it, but if it's a good relationship and someone says, “I think this, the way we're staging this is just terrible,” you know I can live with that. [INT: When you're ready to move on, what do you say?] I say, “Let's move on.” [INT: If the Actor says, “Can I do one more?”] I'll let them do it. I mean that's tough too, you know. Again, I remember when I did BLINK with Madeleine Stowe and Aidan Quinn; she knew when she'd done it. He had no idea. None whatsoever. And again, you know, I like them both enormously and I didn't want to make Aidan feel uncomfortable, and I would have to go along with it to a certain point, but it became sort of ridiculous and I would just have to say, “No, we've got it.” And you know, he would complain but I'd say, “Move on.” So that can be somewhat trying sometimes when you have Actors who have different you know, self-awareness. But generally I would, I'll do it, yeah. I mean, I will do it unless I think it's getting silly.

INT: Since I know you have this sense of budgetary responsibility, 'cause you mentioned that already, all right we're running over. Where do, what happens to you?

MA: Well, I mean, you know, a bit of me starts to panic. But again it's that same feeling, if we're running over I mean, and I'll push people and I'll be unpleasant about it, probably. You know, about let's get on with it, with this is too slow, blah, blah, all that sort of stuff. But at the end of the day, there's still that, when I do my “Michael, this isn't quite right, do it again,” it's Michael take the heat for doing two hours of overtime, then doing a shitty scene. You know, the other line I say to myself, “No one's going to thank you for being on schedule and on budget if the movie's a heap of shit or this scene is a heap of shit.” And I find that very reassuring 'cause it's true. You know, I'll burst blood vessels trying to get you know, the stuff done on time and then someone will look at the film and say, “This scene you know, is, you know, it doesn't have enough courage in it,” and I'd sort of groan inwardly, thinking, “Well, that was just me being mister budget,” you know, as if I'd, and I knew I had undercovered it and I should have taken more time. So I always have that mechanism going on in my brain that down the road, when everybody's forgotten that you went over on this day or this location you had to go back to that location, everybody long forgotten that. What they don't forget is what's up there. [INT: Reshoots, have you had any?] Yeah, I mean I've done reshoots, and I've embraced them, sometimes I don't, I may be wrong, I don't recall having to reshoot stuff that I didn't want to reshoot or… But I don't mind them. I mean, sometimes it's annoying and sometimes, you know, I get defensive about it and things like that. I get, I'm very, I behave very poorly with notes. [INT: From?] Studios. Studio notes, especially you know, I mean particularly on Narnia [THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER], they were just endless. And you know, they would keep coming and coming and coming, cutting notes, shooting notes, and all this. And I found the best way was to completely ignore it, because and then they'd forget it. And then it would never appear again, and I've always wondered in the climate that you and I, all of us make films, you know, this massive bureaucracy that is development, R and D [research and development], and post production, the bureaucracy of the studios, when people's jobs are there to make smart comments or make appropriate comments to their lords and masters, to say you know, what I or you are doing wrong, that a lot of this stuff is completely unnecessary and it's people justifying their existence and people you know trying to draw attention to themselves and you know I find that very irritating because you know, and then if you question them on the notes, they can't really answer it or they haven't actually seen it properly. You know, I'm at my worst with some things like that. I get really impatient and, or mister diplomacy kind of flies out the window. And I always regret it, and whenever I yell at someone, I always regret it. I wish I hadn't done it. But that's my Achilles' heel really is the constant notes that keep coming and coming and coming.

INT: The experience you have as a documentarian when you're shooting and in many senses, you know, you're going to get it once, ‘cause the person’s just gonna do it or you keep shooting, you know, that somewhere it will exist, versus what you sort of implied here, not implied, stated is, I want them to get it right first, second, third time. I don't want to be going a lot. Are these two different brains that working here?

MA: Yeah, I mean it is, it's a whole different world and you, I just think you have to be very much niftier in documentaries. I mean, I'm sure there's thousands of lessons, but one thing I never prepare, rehearse anything on a documentary. If you're doing an interview, never touch it. It has to be the first time it's ever been said and thought. And the other thing is you've got to know when to quit. I mean you've got to know when something is never going to work for you. Either it's tired out or it isn't any good anyway, you've got to be able to move on, really move on because you know, I like to, the metaphor I use is you're harvesting material. You don't know what's going to work and if an interview isn't going to work, move on. [INT: Have you ever in any of those interviews which I know I've seen other documentarians do, which is they'll ask the person to repeat what they just said, and sometimes even phrase it for them. Which I don't like, but I notice it happens every now.] No I don't do that. No I don't think I do that. I mean, it never works, you know, especially, and also I'm not frightened to use my own voice in it, so if, you know, sometimes I don't know whether I have ever done it, but sometimes I would say to them, a question I ask a lot is what do you mean? I mean my big questions are why and what do you mean? So if someone says something in one of these interviews, in the UP films [7 UP, 14 UP, 21 UP, 28 UP, 35 UP, 42 UP, 49, 56 UP], where my voice is in it, I will say, “What do you mean?” And they'll have to do it again and the audience will see them do it again. [INT: Would that apply to, that concept of why and what do you mean, either in rehearsal or with an Actor when an Actor’s doing something, will that concept also arise, say “Why are you saying this?”] Yeah I think so, yeah. Why, you know, “What is that?” and they say, “Well I do,” and I would say, “Why?” I probably don't use it as much 'cause it's slightly aggressive. But I, it's, you know, short questions are great, you know, in interviews, in documentaries and things like that. And silence is a great one, I'll use silence just don't say anything. If you really try to get something out of someone, you know, some admission, don't say anything. Just look at them. And there's a good chance they'll cough it up, you know, it's weird, I mean it's cruel and I love, I usually, I love these people, but you know, I am there to do a job and all that but silence can be a great one.

INT: Well they also know you now, so not that know you’re going to be silent, but know you in the sense of they're not going to be able to get out of this as easy as they might be from somebody else being silent. You know, 'cause you have a history now, which is fascinating.

MA: True. True. But it is in the documentary, you know, you just got to know when you're beaten and not flog it to death. I mean you can't do that in a movie if the scene doesn't work, you're going to have to do it again, or you're going to have to have it rewritten or stuff like that. But I think with a documentary, you've just got to keep it moving, again, 'cause you're dealing with un, nonprofessional people and people tire and get bored and all this sort of thing, you know, you've got to, but it is kind of shocking. I mean, I remember when I did the Tiananmen Square documentary [MOVING THE MOUNTAIN], I got all the five students together in a restaurant in New York, a Chinese restaurant in New York and this was the first time they'd really seen each other. And I sat them in a circle and I had about three cameras and I said, “Go,” sort of, and they just sat there. And I said, “Well, you start, you da da da da da,” and they, “da da, da, da, da,” silence. And I went berserk, I mean I went crazy, I started yelling at them, and saying, “Look, I brought you from all over the world to be here, you've been through this incredible experience, we want, I want you to talk about it, to ask each other about it,” and all this sort of. I've never ever done that before. I was so angry with them, ‘cause I, they knew what they were supposed to be doing, I mean they were ordinary people who had an incredibly traumatized life and all this, so I felt bad about that. But that was the only time I think I've ever really lost my cool with it and really--[INT: And?] Well they did it. I mean it was never great, maybe it wasn't a great idea, but they did it, they gave me enough stuff that you know, it's a perfectly presentable sequence, but… [INT: Actually now that you've said it, this is something I haven't looked at in a long time, but I happen to remember that sequence and I remember them being there and I remember the sense of these human beings, they were all together. Now this is an interesting issue because it's a, it could've been a cultural thing, meaning that they don't talk. It's not their part, you know it's like, I don't know if you remember this but I remember seeing a documentary about Chinese kids in school, this is maybe during the cultural revolution, a kid would be chosen always to speak for the entire class. No one would always, no one would volunteer at all, you know, Ju would speak and that would be it for the class. So you may have run into that. Mixing the two styles together, in a way, some of the scenes I think in.] What do you mean? Within. [INT: With documentary style and drama. Here you've got you know, in maybe in GORILLAS IN THE MIST, you've got both happening. I mean 'cause some of the scenes with her and the gorilla are the gorilla right?] They all are. I mean the only time we used a fake one was for head and shoulder shot, you know, when, you know--[INT: So the one that jumps over her?] Yeah, that was a real thing. [INT: Jumps over her?] Yeah. It was unbelievable, I mean, we had no insurance and there was only, there was only four of us there and we had to, we were behind the camera, it was just her. But I mean it changed her life. I mean, it changed all of it; she never got over it. I mean it's most, one of the most joyful things of her life was her relationship with these animals. You know, she's still deeply involved in it. [INT: So how long did it take the silverback [gorilla] to sort of get next to her?] Well, I mean, the, there is, you can see a cut in it, but this thing, you know, he started walking down the things and we speeded it up, because we just cut to something, perhaps the fake shot of her. But no we sat there and watched this unfold. And you know we had a tracker with a gun, but they wouldn't have shot the gorilla. I mean, it doesn't bear thinking about, but you know there were two or three moments like that, you know, when she was so brave it was unbelievable--incredible. [INT: Totally.]

INT: There is that moment when that other gorilla jumps over her. [MA: I know, I know.] What did, do you remember a scene going like I mean do you remember what you went like when you saw this?

MA: I mean, I don't know. I mean you're so much in it you probably completely dazed and confused by the whole thing, you're in so much fear, you know and also, you know, like you know, the same thing as doing violence, I mean you get into it, it becomes your job, every day for eight weeks, we tracked around following these gorillas, you know, the trackers would help, would find them for us. Sometimes it would take an hour, sometimes 10 minutes, sometimes all day. And so you just got into the routine of it and you sort of forgot these were 500-pound gorillas who could break a whole thing of bamboo like that, so what would they do with you? You kind of got into a pattern with it; I suppose that was the only way we do this job is, you know, you don't think about what you're doing in a sense, the wider implications or the danger of it, or the foolishness of it, you just do it, you know, and then you think about it afterwards, or not as the case may be. [INT: That’s fabulous.] And that was one of them, you know, that was the job for two months, was to follow these gorillas around with her. [INT: And were you surprised, was there a time before they started coming forward that you wondered, are these things going to even show up?] Well, no. There was, no I mean, the first time I went up there, I went up with some of the executives from the two studios. And we never found them. We could hear them farting and crackling on and all that sort of stuff, but we never found any. I know a lot of executives gave up and went home. But the second time we went up, I took her [Sigourney Weaver] with me and we came to them quite quickly and then there was this amazing moment when we all stopped, there was a family of them there and one of the woman gorillas started walking towards Sigourney, so that we had one of the research guys there with her, ‘cause we were up at Fossey's [Dian Fossey] place and he said to Sigourney, “Keep perfectly still. Now, kneel down.” And this gorilla came up to her and started touching her face like that. And we thought, the gorilla thought it was Dian, because she looked a bit like Dian. She was a big woman, both tall women, they dressed the same, but this was by accident. And we think the gorillas thought Dian had come back. And then I knew we could do the movie. We had a chance of doing the movie. To see that moment, to see the way that she interacted with those animals and the way these animals looked at her, I could see, and I took a picture of it, because there wasn't many of us out there, just me and sent it to the studio. And said, you know, “We may have a movie here.” But I was extremely dubious early on whether we’d going to get anything but that was, you know, that was just a wonderful moment in my life, let alone anything else, but it was weird and strange. [INT: The hand touch?] That's, I think that's fake, the hand touch was fake. But no--[INT: But those two shots of the them next to each other, those are real?] Yeah. Absolutely. [INT: Astounding.] Yeah and you know, we had to be very careful because there were three groups of gorillas. There were the wild gorillas, which we never saw, that I had two other units going into the deep jungle of Zaire and Uganda to get those. Then were the tourists gorillas, who were so blasé about everybody, they'd sit like this, they'd look, “I'm the gorilla, and I look at you and you weren't allowed to look at me, you'd have to look away and then eventually I'd piss off.” Well that was no good, so the only groups of gorillas we could use were the research gorillas, who didn't have much contact with human beings. So they were still curious and somewhat nervous about it, you know, to get that right kind of interaction. So that was tricky too. [INT: Now did you have multiple cameras when you were shooting them or just?] Well no because, you know, there's only four of us. [INT: That's what I thought, that's what you said.] I mean, Sigourney did her own hair, her own makeup, and recorded her own sound. I, god help me, I spent time as a focus puller, I, and then you know, we had John Seale who was with me, he was on, that unit, you know, he did the shooting and then we had, you know, an African guy who was carrying footage, you know, 'cause we shot obviously the whole thing on film. And that's all there was of all of us, so, you know, there was no room for a second camera or anything.

INT: Okay, this is an interesting thing you're just bringing up, which is the concept of magic itself. I mean sometimes I think our job is to set, to create an environment where unexpected magical things happen. [MA: Yeah, maybe, yeah.] And here clearly this was, this is what you wanted, but whether it's going to happen or not is up in the air. What degree do you feel there's a…

MA: I do believe that you get a break; I do believe that sometimes there is someone looking after you. I do believe in COAL MINER’S DAUGHTER, someone up there was created an atmosphere where unusual things would happen, you know--[INT: Like?] Well, just everything. I mean everything kind of sort of fell into place in a way. You know, it wasn't, it was very difficult shoot because we were in the middle of nowhere, you know, but you just felt I can't think of a decent word for it, you just felt, you know, that you were blessed is all I can say. And sometimes you feel not blessed and sometimes you think you get those moments and when you're doing a documentary, you're there at the right time and sometimes you just missed it and all this kind of thing. I think, you know, that's all you can hope for, that something happens at the right time and that you're blessed and I felt now and again, you know, in certain films that one has been a bit blessed, you know, that things, that the gods are with you if you want, and sometimes they're not and there's not much you can do about it. [INT: There's an Actor who plays I think one of the radio announcers or a radio guys, and he's the one who comes up and says, “Do you realize your guys are number 14 on the charts?” I loved this, and I don't know who he is, I love this man's face and his attitude. I assume he was one of those, you found this guy.] Yeah, he was a disk jockey. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. There's that sort of thing that sometimes it happens. And you know, sometimes you're deceived by it. You think my god this is going well, and then you make the film and it's rubbish and sometimes you think this was a nightmare and it's good. But sometimes you do feel you're blessed, that you've made the right choices, you know, it could've gone either way, but you made a casting decision, you made a DP [Director of Photography] decision, and it was exactly the right decision, you know? [INT: Yeah.]