I was really nervous when interviewing Ridley Scott. I don't think I've been that nervous since the first time I met David Cronenberg. Sometimes when I meet those people that have had such on impact on my life I get a little jumpy. Scott has created many films which were staples of my childhood like Blade Runner, Alien, Someone to Watch Over me and later he did films I enjoyed very much like White Squall and Thelma & Louise. I haven't been as much as of fan of the his latest renaissance like Gladiator, Hannibal and Black Hawk Down so I didn't expect too much from Matchstick Men especially since it had Nicolas Cage playing another weirdo.
But Matchstick Men is fantastic. Lots of fun and it moved like a jazz riff, jumpy, quick and always surprising. It's the story of a professional "con man" [Nicolas Cage] struggling with an obsessive-compulsive disorder who meets the daughter [Alison Lohman] he never knew he had, inadvertently putting his very-organized and artificially controlled life in jeopardy. Sam Rockwell plays Frank, his partner and protege in the "con man" business.
Scott is one of more interesting filmmakers to come out of the music video/commercial field. Since breaking into the mainstream with the movie Alien, which is basically a B-horror movie, he has become one of the most enigmatic directors in the world. Many people try to pigeonhole him as merely a visualist but he proves them wrong when he creates compelling characters like Maximus in Gladiator and now Roy in Matchstick Men. In the visual field of films Scott has no peers but he realizes that one must rise above those or be critically dashed. That's why he has worked with such brilliant screenwriters such as David Webb Peoples, Callie Khouri and David Mamet.
I've heard for years that Scott could actually be quite grumpy in interviews but I found him to be affable, charming and willing to talk about anything. We talked con men, gladiators, and replicants.
Check out the website for Matchstick Men.
Daniel Robert Epstein: What makes Nicolas Cage so good at playing weirdoes?
Ridley Scott: He's definitely got a chameleon quality that not many have. They try but Nic really attempts at extremities. From shooting guns to rolling cars to playing alcoholics in Las Vegas to comedy in Adaptation. He really is brave. Nic is very smart, very film savvy and he directed a pretty good movie last year. He just tackles everything.
DRE: How did you and Nic develop his character's obsessive compulsiveness?
RS: Nic has some personal experience with it, through friends and I'm a neatnik. I find neatness comes out of being lazy. It's actually much easier to be neat than a slob. With a slob eventually a slob you're going to be walking all over everything. I'm obsessive because it's easier. I just do it at the moment and get it done.
DRE: If there is a spot of dust on your desk, do you go nuts?
RS: There is nothing on my desk because I deal with it. It's a table I sit at. Nic and I connected on that. We had a big laugh comparing notes on obsessive compulsive behavior.
DRE: Matchstick Men was definitely a smaller movie for you harkening back to Someone to Watch Over Me [released in 1987]. What was it like working with a relatively smaller budget again?
RS: Refreshing and easy. No one likes to go away for a year. When I'm doing a big movie I'm away for 10 months to a year. So I'm always trying to find something to keep me at home. This to me was more like doing Thelma & Louise [released in 1991]. During Thelma & Louise I only left LA for three weeks when we went to Moab Utah the rest of the time we were in Bakersfield. I loved the script for Matchstick Men and talked to [co- screenwriter/producer] Ted Griffin and asked him if he had any objections to moving the locations from Philadelphia to The Valley in California.
Doing what you haven't done is the key. Shifting gears. Some people like to always do the same thing. The study of the same thing. [The Searchers director] John Ford tended to do a career of westerns. My career seems to be a career of non-specific subjects which are all over the place.
DRE: What was the main reason for doing Matchstick Men?
RS: I was engaged by the writers. I get so used to working with writers because my prime occupation is development. I know exactly what I'm doing in 2006. I'm doing The Crusades in January then maybe Gladiator 2 in 2005. I'm not going to mention what I'm doing in 2006 because I don't want everyone else doing it. But when you hear what it is it will be obvious. It's historical. I find that history tends to be more exotic than fiction.
DRE: How important was it getting the right cast for the other main roles?
RS: Cast is everything. Some journalist once asked me if I had anything to do with the casting. I asked, what does that mean and asked him how long he had been doing this. He said a long time and I responded with, you usually ask questions like that?
Alison Lohman and Sam Rockwell were the best for the roles. It's a visceral choice. I know if an actor is right for the role from the second they walk through the door. You can expect blond and tall but what walks through the door is dark and short. Then dark and short suddenly fits the part. It's all about how good they are. It's very competitive. When I read the script I was thinking of Nicolas Cage mainly because of the peculiar aspects of the character. Then I was thinking who was the guy to play opposite Nic. I knew Sam's work from Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. Neither character is a straight because who was the straight man between Oscar and Felix in The Odd Couple. Sam seems to be cool but he's as neurotic as they come. 24 years ago I would have agonized over the casting but now I just pick it. It's better that way. The hard one after that is the girl and my casting director came up with Alison. I met with her and she's so charming.
DRE: I remember back in film school our teacher froze a frame of Blade Runner and made us recreate the scene where Harrison Ford gets hit with light through horizontal blinds. What is your obsession with putting light through horizontal blinds as you've done with many of your movies?
RS: Did that happen in this one?
DRE: Sure did.
RS: Oh Christ [laughs]. For this movie I was looking for kind of a 50's style. As John Doe, non-specific and unnoticeable which if you are good con man you don't want to be noticed. I remembered talking to a guy who works in customs. He told me that he looks for someone's button undone and he'll just pick them out. When you get good FBI officers they are not noticeable. I figured that Roy must never draw your attention and he wants that. Then I wanted to figure out what kind of things he likes. Probably Bobby Darin, a bit retro of a house and it starts to build from there.
DRE: You're producing Alexander the Great. How did that happen?
RS: I started that off with Dino De Laurentiis who produced Hannibal. Then I dropped out of it because Gladiator 2 would be coming and I didn't want to do two projects that might have similarities.
DRE: This year is the 25th anniversary of Alien and they're releasing it back into the theatres with more footage. What did you add into it?
RS: There was a scene which runs about five minutes and is the nest scene. It explains what happened to Dallas [played by Tom Skerritt] and the others.
DRE: Was that something that you wanted to get in originally?
RS: No I never have a problem with getting cuts. It seemed to slow down the dynamic and looking at it now, it doesn't. I think we didn't give it a fair shot then.
DRE: How will Gladiator 2 work?
RS: We won't be bringing Maximus [played by Russell Crowe] back from the dead. It will be the next generation. You've got such a colorful dramatic Roman history. When you look at that period in detail and what they did, that's far more exotic about what's coming next in the future. The only fiction in [the first] Gladiator was Maximus everything else was on target. There was something about the Roman Empire that was fascistic and Teutonic in its elegance and majesty.
DRE: Do you find that historical epics have to more authentic because the audience is more sophisticated?
RS: I think we kicked off a genre again in Hollywood with Gladiator while everyone was snickering about it. There hadn't been an epic like that for 40 years or more. For 1929 Ben Hur was fantastic.
DRE: You've done something that many directors have not. You were really popular at one point then had a long period of commercial failures and now you're back bigger than ever. It's very unusual.
RS: The key is not caring. You can only do what you do. A hit for me is if I enjoy the movie. I watched Someone to Watch Over Me the other night and I thought it was a really good movie. The problem is that at that time I ran the film for [Columbia Pictures studio head at the time] David Putnam then told me he was leaving the studio. So all the marketing for the film got removed immediately.
DRE: Will you be involved if they do a fifth Alien?
RS: No I don't think so. If I'm going to do a science fiction movie I want to go down a new path. It will probably involve social disorder and be 15 years in the future.
DRE: What is your favorite Tony Scott movie?
RS: True Romance. I think it's his most private film. I know what he should do next but he won't pay any attention to me because he never does.
DRE: You have a major Goth following because of movies like Alien and Blade Runner. Have you ever met any of those fans?
RS: No fortunately not.
DRE: How do you look back on Blade Runner now?
RS: Pretty good. I like both versions of the film as well. At the time neither Harrison nor I liked the voiceover very much. At that moment there was a very successful voiceover done with Apocalypse Now. I think that gave the full depth to his character and made him nihilistic. When you watch Apocalypse Now Redux, they shouldn't have done that extended version.
DRE: Do you think you will ever do a film as personal as Blade Runner again?
RS: Yes I think The Crusades will be. It's not the sword waving thing you think.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
But Matchstick Men is fantastic. Lots of fun and it moved like a jazz riff, jumpy, quick and always surprising. It's the story of a professional "con man" [Nicolas Cage] struggling with an obsessive-compulsive disorder who meets the daughter [Alison Lohman] he never knew he had, inadvertently putting his very-organized and artificially controlled life in jeopardy. Sam Rockwell plays Frank, his partner and protege in the "con man" business.
Scott is one of more interesting filmmakers to come out of the music video/commercial field. Since breaking into the mainstream with the movie Alien, which is basically a B-horror movie, he has become one of the most enigmatic directors in the world. Many people try to pigeonhole him as merely a visualist but he proves them wrong when he creates compelling characters like Maximus in Gladiator and now Roy in Matchstick Men. In the visual field of films Scott has no peers but he realizes that one must rise above those or be critically dashed. That's why he has worked with such brilliant screenwriters such as David Webb Peoples, Callie Khouri and David Mamet.
I've heard for years that Scott could actually be quite grumpy in interviews but I found him to be affable, charming and willing to talk about anything. We talked con men, gladiators, and replicants.
Check out the website for Matchstick Men.
Daniel Robert Epstein: What makes Nicolas Cage so good at playing weirdoes?
Ridley Scott: He's definitely got a chameleon quality that not many have. They try but Nic really attempts at extremities. From shooting guns to rolling cars to playing alcoholics in Las Vegas to comedy in Adaptation. He really is brave. Nic is very smart, very film savvy and he directed a pretty good movie last year. He just tackles everything.
DRE: How did you and Nic develop his character's obsessive compulsiveness?
RS: Nic has some personal experience with it, through friends and I'm a neatnik. I find neatness comes out of being lazy. It's actually much easier to be neat than a slob. With a slob eventually a slob you're going to be walking all over everything. I'm obsessive because it's easier. I just do it at the moment and get it done.
DRE: If there is a spot of dust on your desk, do you go nuts?
RS: There is nothing on my desk because I deal with it. It's a table I sit at. Nic and I connected on that. We had a big laugh comparing notes on obsessive compulsive behavior.
DRE: Matchstick Men was definitely a smaller movie for you harkening back to Someone to Watch Over Me [released in 1987]. What was it like working with a relatively smaller budget again?
RS: Refreshing and easy. No one likes to go away for a year. When I'm doing a big movie I'm away for 10 months to a year. So I'm always trying to find something to keep me at home. This to me was more like doing Thelma & Louise [released in 1991]. During Thelma & Louise I only left LA for three weeks when we went to Moab Utah the rest of the time we were in Bakersfield. I loved the script for Matchstick Men and talked to [co- screenwriter/producer] Ted Griffin and asked him if he had any objections to moving the locations from Philadelphia to The Valley in California.
Doing what you haven't done is the key. Shifting gears. Some people like to always do the same thing. The study of the same thing. [The Searchers director] John Ford tended to do a career of westerns. My career seems to be a career of non-specific subjects which are all over the place.
DRE: What was the main reason for doing Matchstick Men?
RS: I was engaged by the writers. I get so used to working with writers because my prime occupation is development. I know exactly what I'm doing in 2006. I'm doing The Crusades in January then maybe Gladiator 2 in 2005. I'm not going to mention what I'm doing in 2006 because I don't want everyone else doing it. But when you hear what it is it will be obvious. It's historical. I find that history tends to be more exotic than fiction.
DRE: How important was it getting the right cast for the other main roles?
RS: Cast is everything. Some journalist once asked me if I had anything to do with the casting. I asked, what does that mean and asked him how long he had been doing this. He said a long time and I responded with, you usually ask questions like that?
Alison Lohman and Sam Rockwell were the best for the roles. It's a visceral choice. I know if an actor is right for the role from the second they walk through the door. You can expect blond and tall but what walks through the door is dark and short. Then dark and short suddenly fits the part. It's all about how good they are. It's very competitive. When I read the script I was thinking of Nicolas Cage mainly because of the peculiar aspects of the character. Then I was thinking who was the guy to play opposite Nic. I knew Sam's work from Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. Neither character is a straight because who was the straight man between Oscar and Felix in The Odd Couple. Sam seems to be cool but he's as neurotic as they come. 24 years ago I would have agonized over the casting but now I just pick it. It's better that way. The hard one after that is the girl and my casting director came up with Alison. I met with her and she's so charming.
DRE: I remember back in film school our teacher froze a frame of Blade Runner and made us recreate the scene where Harrison Ford gets hit with light through horizontal blinds. What is your obsession with putting light through horizontal blinds as you've done with many of your movies?
RS: Did that happen in this one?
DRE: Sure did.
RS: Oh Christ [laughs]. For this movie I was looking for kind of a 50's style. As John Doe, non-specific and unnoticeable which if you are good con man you don't want to be noticed. I remembered talking to a guy who works in customs. He told me that he looks for someone's button undone and he'll just pick them out. When you get good FBI officers they are not noticeable. I figured that Roy must never draw your attention and he wants that. Then I wanted to figure out what kind of things he likes. Probably Bobby Darin, a bit retro of a house and it starts to build from there.
DRE: You're producing Alexander the Great. How did that happen?
RS: I started that off with Dino De Laurentiis who produced Hannibal. Then I dropped out of it because Gladiator 2 would be coming and I didn't want to do two projects that might have similarities.
DRE: This year is the 25th anniversary of Alien and they're releasing it back into the theatres with more footage. What did you add into it?
RS: There was a scene which runs about five minutes and is the nest scene. It explains what happened to Dallas [played by Tom Skerritt] and the others.
DRE: Was that something that you wanted to get in originally?
RS: No I never have a problem with getting cuts. It seemed to slow down the dynamic and looking at it now, it doesn't. I think we didn't give it a fair shot then.
DRE: How will Gladiator 2 work?
RS: We won't be bringing Maximus [played by Russell Crowe] back from the dead. It will be the next generation. You've got such a colorful dramatic Roman history. When you look at that period in detail and what they did, that's far more exotic about what's coming next in the future. The only fiction in [the first] Gladiator was Maximus everything else was on target. There was something about the Roman Empire that was fascistic and Teutonic in its elegance and majesty.
DRE: Do you find that historical epics have to more authentic because the audience is more sophisticated?
RS: I think we kicked off a genre again in Hollywood with Gladiator while everyone was snickering about it. There hadn't been an epic like that for 40 years or more. For 1929 Ben Hur was fantastic.
DRE: You've done something that many directors have not. You were really popular at one point then had a long period of commercial failures and now you're back bigger than ever. It's very unusual.
RS: The key is not caring. You can only do what you do. A hit for me is if I enjoy the movie. I watched Someone to Watch Over Me the other night and I thought it was a really good movie. The problem is that at that time I ran the film for [Columbia Pictures studio head at the time] David Putnam then told me he was leaving the studio. So all the marketing for the film got removed immediately.
DRE: Will you be involved if they do a fifth Alien?
RS: No I don't think so. If I'm going to do a science fiction movie I want to go down a new path. It will probably involve social disorder and be 15 years in the future.
DRE: What is your favorite Tony Scott movie?
RS: True Romance. I think it's his most private film. I know what he should do next but he won't pay any attention to me because he never does.
DRE: You have a major Goth following because of movies like Alien and Blade Runner. Have you ever met any of those fans?
RS: No fortunately not.
DRE: How do you look back on Blade Runner now?
RS: Pretty good. I like both versions of the film as well. At the time neither Harrison nor I liked the voiceover very much. At that moment there was a very successful voiceover done with Apocalypse Now. I think that gave the full depth to his character and made him nihilistic. When you watch Apocalypse Now Redux, they shouldn't have done that extended version.
DRE: Do you think you will ever do a film as personal as Blade Runner again?
RS: Yes I think The Crusades will be. It's not the sword waving thing you think.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
VIEW 8 of 8 COMMENTS
but did the sentence " There was something about the Roman Empire that was fascistic and Teutonic in its elegance and majesty" make anyone else want to... uh... retch?
I really hate Aliens.