What’s the attraction of directing a project for New Line?
“Well I was interested in New Line because of their reputation amongst directors, which is very good. And it’s one of the few studios that you can say that about because you’re working with people. I mean, I didn’t have final cut on this movie. On an independent movie I do have final cut. That’s one of the things they can offer you instead of money is that you have that. But I must say that I still haven’t made a movie that’s anybody else’s cut but me. And that has a lot to do with choosing the right people to work with.
[New Line’s] Bob Shaye and I go back a long way and many, many years ago [we worked together], so it was kind of coming full circle to work there again. And as I say, their reputation with a lot of directors was, you know, once you’ve agreed on the cast and the budget and the script they leave you alone. They let you make the movie that you want to make. And that, knowing who not to work with, is part of being a good director.”
Was this a less stressful experience than directing an indie film?
"It was, it was. I didn’t make any money on ‘Spider’ and I spent two years doing it, so, you know, for me as for probably most people, except for maybe Bill Gates, if you go for two years without making any money you’re in trouble. And I was. So I had to make a movie that was solid in terms of its financing. Independent movie financing is agony and I have to get very involved in the financing.
For example with ‘Spider,’ every lunch I’m on the phone to the French distributor trying to sell the movie to him so that he’ll invest in the movie, so the movie won’t fall apart. And that’s very hard when you’re just trying to make the movie, which is hard enough. So I really had to be involved as a producer, basically, in those independent movies. This one, it’s a studio, it’s financed. I don’t have to worry about the money, where it comes from. I mean, you have to worry about the budget; you have to agree on that – but that’s quite a different thing. And yeah, I had to be paid – I had to know that I was actually gonna not have to defer my salary to get the movie made, which is what happened to all of us in ‘Spider,’ including the actors – everybody. We had to defer – it was either that or don’t make the movie.”
Did the studio ever express any concerns over the film’s sex and violence?
“No, no. I mean, it was always a discussion but not concern. You know, just discussions about normal kinds of things that are very legitimate. It was a nice collaboration with the studio people that I was working with. Never hostile, never suspicious…none of those things that we all have read about. It was really very good.
Their questions are the kind of questions that an actor would ask. You know, ‘Will the scene on the stairs be perceived as a rape?’ because it’s not supposed to be a rape, it’s supposed to be a very complex act on both their parts. And how can we make sure that people won’t think it’s that and still have it be violent on both their parts? And so on. I’m just picking that out of the hat because it’s a specific thing. But that is just a discussion and really, I didn’t feel that I was any more constrained on this movie than I was on ‘Spider’ that I had total control over.”
