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Compiled by: Jack Foley
Q. Why was there such a long gap between your projects
as director? A. I was editing Albino Alligator in 1995,
and I always knew I wanted to try to make the Bobby Darin film
but I didn't have the rights.
I was fortunate as I was starting to build my film career to do
a number of films with Warner Bros, who own the rights.
I began a long, about a five year negotiation to get the rights
out. I finally got them in 2000, so although I knew I wanted to
do this film, I couldn't do anything about it until I had the
rights.
The year before that I started working on the music, with Roger
Kellaway, who was one of Bobby's musical conductors and arrangers
on the road.
They also did the, I think much undervalued, Dr Dolittle album
in 1967. So we just began to work on the music, because we concluded
that if the music wasn't right, then it wouldn't matter what else
was about the film.
And the last three or four years it was a process of figuring
out how to tell the story, to get a script and to raise the money.
It was tough.
In America, I think the movie studios tend to have a slight prejudice
against films they perceive as being biographical, and also films
that are driven by music.
They don't quite know what to do with them.
So we just had to come to England and make it a UK-German co-production.
So while it looks like it's beautiful sunny days in Italy, it's
actually December in Berlin.
Q. Are you a big Bobby Darin fan?
A. In a way, the way that Bobby learned about music was
similar to the way I learned about it. It's the way we probably
all learn it, if our parents have a cool record collection - and
my parents did - so I grew up listening to the great big bands
and Bing Crosby and Sinatra and Duke Ellington.
For me, Bobby was the coolest guy ever. So while little Bobby
in the movie is singing along to Sinatra, I was singing into a
hairbrush along to Bobby.
And so I'm quite grateful to my parents for introducing me to
his music.
Q. Did you grow in admiration for Darin over time?
A. I really started to learn about Bobby when I was in
my 20s; there were a couple of books that came out about his life,
but up until that point I just thought of him as a great entertainer.
I didn't know much about his life, or what he'd overcome. As I
went along and met people that knew Bobby, I heard a lot of great
tales and interesting stories, and I think my admiration for him
just grew as I went through this project.
On one level, it was because musically he continued to challenge
himself and stretch himself.
I suppose with respect to anything that I see in my own life that
I identify with, it's probably the conflict that Bobby had which
many artists face, between professional expectations and personal
freedom.
Bobby chose personal freedom, and it cost him something in terms
of his career. And I think he chose right. It's a shame for all
of us that he died so young, because at the time of his death
I think he was at the cusp of a whole new plateau in his career.
He'd signed the biggest contract in the history of Las Vegas to
play the MGM Grand, and he seemed well on his way to coming to
terms with who he was, but he didn't survive the second operation.
Q. Who would play you in a film of your life?
A. I certainly don't think my life would be worthy of
a biopic, but if someone did, at some point, I hope it would go
to a newcomer.
Q. Much has been written about your involvement in theatre
at the moment. Which do you prerfer - stage or screen?
A. I saw this headline the other day, that I'm quitting
movies. I think someone has given a bit more weight to a comment
like that than it deserved. It's quite obvious that I'm going
to be spending more time doing theatre than film because I'm at
the Old Vic
now.
Obviously, my emphasis now will be more on the theatre over the
next number of years. But I intend to continue to find films that
are worth doing, and if they fit around the schedule and the responsibilities
I have in the theatre, then I'll go ahead and do them.
Q. What do you think of the critical response to your
theatrical venture?
A. The reality is you can't walk into a job of directing
or being the artistic director of a theatre without coming to
terms with a couple of realities.
One of those realities is that occasionally the critics will enjoy
and praise what you do and sometimes they won't.
In the case of our play, Cloaca, despite the drubbing that we
took, the box office is booming, audiences are crowding into the
theatre and greeting the play with laughter and applause.
The intention and objective that we set out with, which is to
get that theatre buzzing again and get audiences back in, is working
rather well.
Q. Was there a temptation to cast a younger actor in
role of Bobby Darin?
A. A lot was made of this in the press, that I was older
than Bobby was when he died. But I wasn't setting out to tell
a linear story, there were devices in the movie that I felt opened
it up in such a way that I thought if it was a problem for somebody
maybe it would go away if we dealt with it right up front. If
it goes away, it goes away. Or it doesn't. I just felt it wasn't
that big an issue.
Q. How difficult was getting the singing voice right?
A. There were a bunch of stages to it, we started in
about 1999, with myself and Roger Kellaway.
Then two years on, Phil Ramone came on board as the music producer.
We would do sessions in recording studios throughout the last
four years just so that I could learn about that world, which
was completely new for me.
Ultimately, when I was doing other movies, I would be working
on a soundstage at Universal that we'd set up as a nightclub.
And I had a big screen where I could look at any of Bobby's performances.
So we worked for a long time on it, and it finally ended up with
12 days at Abbey Road with a 73-piece orchestra at times. That's
a bit like strapping yourself to the front of a locomotive and
screaming.
But it was great fun, and I think John Wilson and the orchestra
did a remarkable job capturing the sound of that era.
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Q. Did you have to compromise
in telling this story?
A. Not at all. There was never any kind of stipulation
that we could do this or couldn't do that. I wanted to put into
the film the things that I thought we embracing about celebrating
an entertainer and make an entertaining film. I wasn't interested
in doing a really dark biopic, that didn't interest me.
The conflicts in his life were interesting enough to me. He wasn't
someone who did drugs, he didn't drink, he was just a driving
force. So no, there was nothing.
Q. Who are your musical influences? Deep Purple?
A. What a lot of people couldn't possibly know is that
from the time I was 13 to 22 I did mostly musicals. I was in summer
stock, I was in high school and college doing West Side Story,
Damn Yankees, The Boyfriend, Sound of Music, Gypsy. I was hoofing
and singing for a long time before I went to New York and started
my career as a stage actor.
That doesn't mean I didn't audition for a couple of musicals in
that time, but I didn't get hired. For me, my musical influences
are very wide. I have a lot of different tastes. It depends upon
your mood, but I can listen to Pearl Jam or Tony Bennett, it just
depends on the day.
I think that's probably one of the things I admired so much about
Bobby. He could probably have stayed in rock and roll, had hit
after hit, but he just wanted to keep moving. To keep challenging
and reinventing himself.
So if you walk into a record shop today, Bobby's not in one section,
he's in about 12 sections. And I don't think that anyone other
than Ray Charles and Elvis have ever had more hits in more genres
than Bobby.
And yet because he died at 37, he's kind of been the forgotten
one. I hope that all the work we've put into this film will in
some way put the spotlight back on Bobby.
Q. What are your directorial influences?
A. You steal from a lot of people. A lot of it has to
do with how you prepare the film, the clarity with which you walk
onto the set every day. How you work with actors, how you try
to be a part - and certainly in terms of the leadership role of
being a director - help create an environment where people want
to do their best work.
I think Mike Nichols and Sam Mendes come to mind in terms of being
able to observe how they just were so clear with what their ideas
were to every single department.
I tried to have that kind of clarity through the film with all
the departments.
The look of the film was so important to us - the costumes, the
way in which I wanted it to be shot, and to move. And how we wanted,
in a way, for it to have a slightly different feel during certain
sections.
Certain sections were, for me, homages to the great MGM musicals.
We actually wanted it to have that kind of Technicolor look to
it.
That has to do with communication as much as trusting the people
that you hire to do the job that they've done. We were quite blessed
to a man on this experience.
Q. Could Bobby Darin have been bigger than Sinatra? For
you?
A. I think there was a period of time when Bobby was
certainly about the most famous singer, from about 1960 to 1965
was the peak of his nightclub years. You had Mack and
Beyond The Sea, all of these numbers that had done incredibly
well and a lot of songs that great artists went on to cover.
But he got to a place where he began to question, after all that
success, what he had achieved and was he doing anything that was
worthwhile at the end of the day. And the fact that he changed
his image, taking off the toupee and growing a moustache and sideburns
and calling himself Bob Darin probably had an effect on the way
that people viewed him.
There is a tendency sometimes that people want you the way they
discovered you. If you just compare him to a Sinatra, Sinatra
did what Sinatra did better than anybody ever did for about 40
years. It was much easier to identify what Sinatra did than what
Bobby did.
I'm always reminded of the fact that Bobby was so diverse, where
you'll play one of his songs and people will know it but have
no idea that Bobby did it. I think that has to do with the range
of his work but also the shortness of his life. He really only
had a career that was about 15 years long.
It takes some people that long to get a career going.
Q. What is your favourite Darin song?
A. At the moment it's Simple Song of Freedom.
When I hear it now I'm just amazed at how relevant it is today.
I think you could release that song as a single and it would mean
as much to this generation as it did to Bobby's, or as it did
in 1968.
Q. Who do you think are Bobby Darin's equivalents today?
A. I don't know. When I think about what Bobby did, he
sang, he danced, he wrote his own songs. He played the vibes,
the guitar, the harmonica, the drums, the piano. He did impressions.
Sammy Davis? I don't know.
What's been interesting to watch over the past six or seven years
is all these artists who make it on the Pop Idol shows, or even
artists like Robbie Williams, who want to tackle this kind of
music. They want to do these kind of songs.
I think the more people that do it the better it is. I think it's
great music, and it opens it up to a generation for whom this
music would otherwise be lost.
There are those people who are definitely trying to straddle those
worlds, and do as much music as they can. I think it's a great
and encouraging thing.
Q. How would you sum up your love of Britain?
A. They're making my dreams come true, so why not come
here. I've been coming here since I was a kid, so it's an easy
transition for me to make. After living my whole life in America,
I like coming to a new culture, because even though we do speak
the same language I'm not fooled by that.
It is a different culture, and obviously running the Old Vic means
a great deal to me, it's something I've dreamed about doing my
whole life. The fact that both of these things are happening is
something I could never have predicted. But I really enjoy being
here, I have a very good time.
Q. Is anything baffling here?
A. The thrilling thing is just being here and being able
to have the kind of challenges that I'm experiencing. Nothing
particularly baffles me, I find it all rather amusing actually.
Q. Will it be another eight years before you direct another
movie?
A. I hope not. The first film I directed I wasn't in,
and I did that very consciously. This time around, as hard and
exhausting as it was, I don't know that I could go back. it was
such a great experience to be in the role of being the storyteller.
I hope I'm going to be able to find things that challenge me as
much as this did.
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