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Authors: Art Linson

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BOOK: What Just Happened?
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‘She's not a star; it's not going to work,' Rothman persisted.

Cuarón, dismayed, but trying hard to hold on, leaned forward and motioned to me for help. ‘Come on, you're the producer. Do something!' I'd been there before. I wasn't too worried. With English as a second language, and without knowing
Rothman personally, Alfonso must have been struggling to get a bead on this sort of wacky behavior. Since replacing Jacobson, Rothman had seemed to dive into his new role as someone who insisted on telling you (and at great length) what he
thought
. With his newfound power, he had thoughts on just about everything.

I didn't want to break Rothman's piñata, but as he would eventually learn, his particular job description was to be ‘keeper of the sequels.' This meant he was hired to make sure that filmmakers who had provided Fox with past hits would be persuaded to keep the flame going by making hit sequels. Fox had a vast pot to choose from. There was
Planet of the Apes, Independence Day, Speed, Star Wars, Alien, French Connection
, etc. If Tom wanted his back slapped by upper management, he should have been spending his time getting someone to remake those titles. It's a big bullet to bite, but he was not hired to cast movies, write movies, direct movies, or even produce movies. He was a businessman.

This sort of behavior was not new. It was like a viral infection. When executives are given their first blush of power, it's like an itch that has to be scratched. The need to throw their weight around and act ‘creative' is simply irresistible. Like most infections, either it clears up with time or else it kills you. These types of stories have been repeating themselves since the studio system began. Years ago, as the folklore goes, when Herb Ross wanted Kevin Bacon to star in
Footloose
, Dawn Steel, the newly appointed production head at Paramount, shrieked, ‘Don't want to fuck him. Can't cast him. I just don't want to fuck him!' Word has it, she learned this from Don Simpson, who, if he objected to a casting choice male or female, would always say, ‘I wouldn't fuck him with your dick.' Rothman, not in this legendary company, was unready to talk about intercourse.

‘Tom, we really,
really
like her,' I said with a strong enough tone that indicated we could talk about this, but that Cuarón and I might not be prepared to make the movie without her. Anyway, her already beautiful chin was going to look a lot better to Rothman once she acquired fame.

‘I theeenk she ess fantastic.'

‘Well, let me think about it.'

‘Good,' I added. ‘She has several job offers and we have to move quickly.'

Once a movie script starts to get a foothold at a studio, the momentum must be maintained. A producer must always remember that nobody ‘needs' to make a movie. If the studio heads give it too much thought, they could easily change their minds. If you think about it, these executives are about to provide a group of people, whom they barely like, with
thirty million dollars
to make a movie. This could turn out to be a truly funky mistake. At this stage, as much as I wanted to dive over Tom's desk, grab him, place my knee firmly on his chest, and scream, ‘YOU'RE AN INSANE CHUCKLEHEAD! THIS GIRL IS GOING TO BE ON THE COVER OF
VOGUE
AND WIN AN OSCAR. GO TAKE A FUCKING SHOWER,' I knew violent acts would not be rewarded. There was a delicate balance here, and it had to be prolonged until a green light was firmly in place. For me, resolutely pushing forward was the only mantra.

‘
I
can't make this movie without a star,' Rothman said. Little white flecks of foam were forming on the corners of his mouth.

Another odd tic that occurs when an executive is given the sweatshirt of authority is the use of the word
I
instead of
you
or even
we
when referring to the making of movies. To be fair, this astonishing exhibition of self-confusion was not limited to Rothman. In fact, it's rare to find an executive these days who will not say things like ‘Two years ago when
I made
[fill in the famous title of your choice] blah blah blah.' Directors and writers, who actually do the prodigious work for these guys, have to patiently listen to this drivel with their eyes glazed over waiting to pick up the money. Executives simply confuse making a committee business decision with making a movie. I think it makes them feel artsy.

‘Maybe we can find a star to play a cameo?' I asked.

‘Like who?'

‘What about Robert De Niro to play the convict.'

Alfonso grinned. I thought he was about to jump up and say, ‘Olé.'

‘I
like
Bobby,' Rothman declared.

Bobby. Bobby! A minute before getting this job, Rothman would have been saying, ‘Mr. De Niro, can I please freshen your drink?' Now, even though they had never met, he was already calling him ‘Bobby.'

He couldn't help himself. This kind of congenital weirdness gets distributed with the parking space on the Fox lot. As time went on for Rothman, and the attendant pressures of the job expanded, things would start to even out. Insecurities and disappointments would erode the confidence of the most successful of these executives. After some of my movies came out, particularly the ones that were not successful, Rothman's behavior took a strange bent. He began to remind me of a guy standing uncomfortably at his desk with the barrel of a .357 Magnum pressed tightly to his temple, threatening everyone in the room, ‘If you come any closer,
I
am going to pull the trigger.'

You remember six months earlier, when I was talking to Robert De Niro at the Peninsula Hotel about doing
The Edge
and he had some major concerns about acting with a mechanical bear? Well, undaunted and in the best tradition of Sammy Glick, I rolled up my other sleeve and revealed a different kind of timepiece that might catch his eye.

‘You remember
Great Expectations
?'

‘Why?'

‘I'm just asking, do you remember
Great Expectations
?'

‘I think so.'

‘The Dickens thing.'

‘Of course, I know.'

‘Do you remember the convict who ends up being the benefactor?'

‘Vaguely, I think so.'

‘Well …'

‘Well what?'

‘Oh. We're developing it into a modern-day movie.'

‘Good.'

‘The convict's gonna be a great part.'

‘It doesn't have a bear in it, does it?'

‘No bear.'

‘I might get interested.'

‘How interested?'

‘How many days?'

‘I don't know, the script isn't done yet.'

‘How many days do you think?'

‘Well, it's a substantial cameo, goes throughout the movie.'

‘How many days?'

Bob was trying to find out if the studio would be willing to compress the convict's schedule. This means shooting all of the scenes with the convict consecutively, then interspersing those scenes throughout the film during the editing. The advantage to Bob would be that he could get all of his work done in a short time and still make the same amount of money. Maybe, he would have time to fit in another movie while this one was still shooting. This can put great strain on the production. By shooting out of sequence, the ability to change things that might not work is always compromised. Sets and locations often have to be duplicated. It often adds considerable costs to the overall budget. Nonetheless, if you want or need an actor badly enough, you learn to dance on a pinhead. Based on my preliminary meetings with Fox, I knew that we were going to need De Niro or somebody else just as significant.

‘Who knows, if we compress the convict's schedule, maybe seven to nine days.'

‘Seven days. I could get very interested.'

‘Really?'

‘Yeah.'

From Bob this was almost a commitment. I was tempted to do something foolish like say ‘We're not going to need a read-through on this one, are we?' But, I sensed that for whatever made him tick,
Great Expectations
was something that would fit into his master plan. I knew I was one big step closer to getting a movie made.

I'd like to say that Ethan Hawke was my first choice for Pip, that I saw all his movies and loved them, that I fought the studio
like a producer with great integrity, and that finally, against all odds, I got them to commit to the underdog. Not the case. John and I would spend endless hours going over wish lists, but the pickings were slim. We were hoping for Brad Pitt or even Keanu Reeves, but they turned us down flat. Many of the young actors out there who were excellent and who had sufficient standing to help us get the movie financed were not responding. When I got the call from Bryan Lourd at CAA that Ethan was willing, I was relieved. I knew that Ethan was enough of an actor on the rise to stimulate Fox, especially with the spice that De Niro's flirtation provided. John and I had some concerns, but after so many turndowns, it was no longer time to focus on artistic chemistry. I had shifted into full producer mode: Let's get this movie made no matter what. Ethan was a good actor. Trying to marshal all of my optimism, I thought maybe he could carry the movie.

I kept De Niro current with the progress of the script, and meanwhile, he did his homework. Bob always did his homework. He saw the David Lean movie. He read through the Dickens book. When the script was ready, he read it and reconfirmed his enthusiasm. One last hurdle. I waited anxiously for Bob to come out of the screening of
A Little Princess
, knowing he had to approve of Alfonso.

‘What do you think?'

‘Uh … seven days is good.'

NINE
I'm Driving a Pinto

Sarasota, Florida, is particularly hot in July. When you have less money to spend on a movie than your director wants to spend, it feels even hotter. I made several proclamations before we started filming. I told Alfonso that I would get him lots of money to make this movie. I told Bill Mechanic that we could do this movie in sixty-two days and we would stay on budget. I told Alfonso, who wanted more work on the script as the start date neared, that Mitch would be available and willing to accommodate him and that we could get this work done
while
we were shooting. Disagreements or artistic differences would be no problem; I would be there to referee. When Ethan Hawke said that he also had script concerns, I smiled and told him we welcomed his input. When the cinematographer, Emmanuel Lubezki (
A Little Princess, Birdcage, Sleepy Hollow
), nicknamed Chivo, registered much concern about the size of his lighting package and the pace of the schedule, I told him not to worry. We would find a way to make it all work. Also born and raised in Mexico, Chivo, who looked like an undernourished Kenny G, was, like his childhood amigo, a ‘perfectionist.' No matter how good things were going, he always had that hapless expression ‘You're killing me, can't you see, you're killing me.' You know where this is going. Somebody was going to get pissed off. Maybe everybody.

Perfectionist
is a nasty word. I remember when Michael Mann was in the middle of shooting
Heat
. He had just completed the bank robbery sequence in downtown Los Angeles, which had taken longer
to film than any other bank robbery in the history of cinema. We were desperately over schedule. Arnon Milchan, one of the investors with Warner Bros., came to the set with his entourage to try to convince Michael to pick up the pace. While we were waiting in Mann's trailer for him to break for lunch, Arnon asked me if there was anything in the schedule that Michael could shorten to get back on time. ‘Gosh, I don't know, Arnon; you know Michael, he's a
perfectionist
.' The mere use of the word made the entire group physically ill. Even I felt a little shaky. While to some it might have conjured up unyielding artistic integrity, to the bank it screamed, ‘I don't understand the word
compromise
. Secure your knee pads.' Michael entered the trailer. Arnon repeated his plea while Michael quietly listened. He even occasionally nodded with concern for Arnon's predicament. Finally Michael stood up, looked at his watch, and said, ‘I'm afraid lunch is only thirty minutes. If I don't get back now, we're going to fall
another
day behind.'

The temperature in southwest Florida was in the nineties and the air was thick with humidity. Alfonso and I were standing in front of the large Venetian Gothic mansion, Ca d'Zan, on Sarasota Bay, which was going to serve as our primary location. This imposing structure had lavish gardens and a slightly nutty touch, probably because it was built by one of the circus Ringling brothers. Over the last ten years it has remained a minor tourist attraction for the dispossessed. For our purposes, the location was to serve as the crumbling estate of Ms. Dinsmoor, the eccentric rich aunt of Estella (Gwyneth). The descriptive line in the script read, ‘
Paradiso Perduto
[the name of the crumbling estate] is the land that time forgot.' Alfonso took this line seriously. He spent tens of thousands of dollars transforming the well-kept structure and the meticulous gardens into twenty years of dilapidated rot. Following the script, remnants of a wedding that had never taken place were now decaying in a vast garden covered with dead palm fronds and overgrown brush. All that was missing were live rats, but they were on order.

‘Come here, I want to show you the wedding cake,' Alfonso said excitedly as we walked through the maze of the garden. He was content. He had finally snagged De Niro for the convict, cast
Anne Bancroft for the eccentric aunt, and added two wonderful actors, Hank Azaria and Chris Cooper, to join Hawke and Paltrow. Glazer was turning out different variations on the script. And we were spending money at a furious pace, trying to keep up with his imagination. It was getting tight.

As we sidestepped a grand piano encrusted in mud, leaning awkwardly against a busted bandstand, I said, ‘I think you've just about done it, don't you?'

BOOK: What Just Happened?
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