Richard Donner had quite a few memorable flicks under his directorial belt – including Superman, Goonies, Scrooged, and the Lethal Weapon series, to name just a few.
I had the pleasure of chatting with director Richard Donner numerous times over the years – Sometimes on the record, and sometimes just a conversation.
With his passing at the age of 91 and a massive career behind him that lasted for decades and produced numerous hits and cultural touchstones, I decided to pull our interviews from the archives in hopes that some may find our conversations of interest. Here are those interviews, the first of which was conducted in 2001, with the second and third in 2003.
-Ken Plume
Conducted ~2001
KEN PLUME: Tell me a little bit about yourself – before you entered the industry…
RICHARD DONNER: I was an actor… Or, at least, I was trying to be an actor.
PLUME: You’re a native New Yorker, right?
DONNER: A native New Yorker, born and bred. I was an out-of-work actor in New York, taking anything you can to make a living…
PLUME: This would be, what, during the 1950s?
DONNER: Yup. I was a lab technician once – called a lab boy – but that was for a short spell. I was trying to act at night – I was going to Cherry Lane and the Provencetown Players, and studying with a director named David Alexander –who was just a genius. Then I got a job at Harvey Productions – a non-union film company – it paid $18 a week, take home. I was painting sets, working in editorial as an assistant, driving their trucks… lying that I knew how to drive a truck… and doing commercials and documentaries for them. Then I got an acting gig for a live TV show. The part was so small – it was called “five lines – or less.” Martin Ritt was the director. I gave him a hard time… well, not a hard time… I did a stupid thing and questioned something he was doing at the last minute, and he said, “Why didn’t you do that earlier?” And I said, “It just came to me.” And he said, “Your problem is that you can’t take direction. You ought to be a director.” I was just a kid then with five lines, and he said, “Well, you can be my assistant.” I said, “What?” He said, “You can be my assistant.” I became his assistant on that show. And then he got reamed by the House un-American Activities committee, and his whole career crashed. It was just a horrible, horrible thing.
PLUME: So this would be around the mid-1950s…
DONNER: After that, I worked for a lot of other great directors, and then the show got shut down for the summer. And I went to work for a really wonderful man named George Blake, who was a director/producer/writer of documentaries and commercials. He had a heart-attack when he was 34. I went to work for him as sort-of his driver/assistant. He brought me up through the company, and in a few years I was directing documentaries and commercials for him. The poor guy died of a heart-attack at 38. It was a major loss in my life.
PLUME: What was the hierarchy like in the industry then… How could someone entering the industry during that time period work his/her way up?
DONNER: It seemed impossible. The same as it’s always been. In New York, though, it was another story. I was working for a commercial/documentary company in New York – if you were good and carried your own weight, you progressed. If you didn’t, well – it’s the same now. If you had the opportunity and you took advantage of it and you had – hopefully – some talent, then there was no way you couldn’t progress, because it was an open market. It was a young field that was just happening. There was Madison Avenue – the advertising world – and there was the documentary world… And there was the beginning of film for television. So we had all of these great opportunities. Northwestern was probably the only major film school of its kind at the time that was graduating anybody important – there was theatre arts and there was drama, but there was very little cinema and certainly very few communications schools. It wasn’t the flooded market of today, that twice a year graduates and floods the industry. I was very lucky… It was a great stage in the industry, and I was part of it and rode with it. I started my own commercial company after George’s death, and we did very well. Martin Ransahofff and John Calley – who is now president of Sony – bought my company, and they asked me to go to California to do commercials for them.
PLUME: Was there any hesitation on your part to make the move?
DONNER: None whatsoever. California here I come! I had every postcard ever printed. I jumped at the chance. When I went to live television with Marty Ritt, it was great – I loved it. But there was a thing I realized was happening and I was learning, which was that television was so new and undeveloped that actors had to concede to the equipment. There was nothing sophisticated about the equipment, and it was live, and so the equipment was all-important and the actor was secondary. You had to work through the cameras and the technical abilities that were out there. When I went to work for George Blake, and I became an assistant in film, I realized that in motion pictures, it was just the opposite – the actor rules and the camera served the actor. I learned what a reverse was – the camera worked for the actor… you could swing it around, reverse it, and you didn’t photograph it. Whereas live TV, if you’ve got over-the-shoulders, you saw the other camera. I fell in love with film. The opportunity of going to California and the world of film was just so exciting to me that it was extraordinary. I came out and did their commercials – sort-of ran their little commercial company – and then I moved on. Desilu asked me to come over and be exclusive for them, doing commercials. One day, I was shooting Lucy and Desi and Bill Frawley and Vivian Vance and Betty Furness – we were doing a Westinghouse commercial for the Desilu show… I had still not done a show – it was all commercials. A man was visiting our sales manager, and he came over to me and said, “Boy, if you could work with that crowd, would you work with Steve McQueen?” “Hell, yeah.” I knew Steve – we were actors together in New York. That Desilu crowd was a tremendous handful to try and work with in the morning… the bottles of vodka were consumed by eleven o’clock. I got the opportunity to direct Steve McQueen in Wanted: Dead or Alive. That became a story because, although the producer wanted me, Steve didn’t. He didn’t tell me, but he told the producer, “He’s an actor, not a director.” The producer insisted – because he was producing, not Steve – and Steve gave me a horrible time. In fact, Steve’s wife, Neile, wrote a book, and there’s a chapter in there about that. I finally sat down with Steve and said, “Look, I’m going to quit because obviously you’re not happy with me.” He got very upset and said, “Nobody quits my show!” So I said, “Well, Steve, you’ve got to give me a hand.” He turned around, and he was tremendous and we did the show, and I ended up doing about seven of them. That was my start. From there on in, it’s been a whirlwind. It never, never friggin’ stopped. I did every television show… I don’t know… I have a list somewhere, but a hundred, I think. People say, “You paid your dues…”, but I never paid any dues. It’s always been a great trip. When I was doing the commercials, I loved it and was preparing myself for a half-hour. When I was doing half-hour shows, I loved it and was preparing myself for the hour shows. Then when I did the hour shows, I was preparing myself for the specials and features. And then when my first feature opportunity came along, I wasn’t prepared. It was X-15, which came right at the time I was doing Wanted: Dead or Alive. I was offered the opportunity to direct second-unit, and I said, “Great!” Then, I guess the director must have finally read the script, and he quit. They came to me and said, “Well, you’re directing second-unit – would you like to direct the picture?” So I said, “Oh God, yeah!” I had only directed 6 or 8 TV shows. That movie was with Charlie Bronson and Mary Tyler Moore – a big cast – but we did it in about 17 days.
PLUME: That would be around 1961, right?
DONNER: Somewhere in there. That movie put me right back in TV, but I didn’t mind. I was still loving it. Then I redid the pilot for Wild, Wild West, with Sammy Davis and Peter Lawford. They had such a good time that they said, “How’d you like to do a feature with us?” And I said, “Great!” It was written by Michael Pertwee, who had written Kind Hearts and Coronets. The film was Salt and Pepper. Peter and Sammy fired me from the cut because I was trying to take out all of their ethnic gags which, at the time, I didn’t think were apropos. That put me right back in television, although it was sequeled with Jerry Lewis directing. I went back to TV still having a good time.
PLUME: Was there ever any thought in your head that there was this glass ceiling you just weren’t ever going to break?
DONNER: I thought I had done a good film – Sammy and Peter cut it, I was not happy with the cut, but the picture was more than successful, even to the point where United Artists felt is deserved a sequel… So I felt used by them – by Hollywood. No one ever said, “Thank you.”
PLUME: Did you feel like the industry was actively pushing you back down into TV?
DONNER: No. Never.
PLUME: Was there any prejudice towards TV directors trying to make the transition into film?
DONNER: Yes there was… There was the Old Guard then. I read it and I heard it, but I was fortunate in that I never felt it. I eventually found a script I wanted to do with Charlie Bronson, by the same writer who wrote Sweet November – which they remade and ruined. The original was just a beautiful little film. The script I had was Smiling, the Boy Fell Dead. It’s a charming title, right? I was trying to get it made with Bronson, and he was offered a film. He came to me and said, “I’ve been offered this film called Twinkie… Would you like to direct it?” I read it and I loved it and I said, “Great.” We’ve got a 38 year-old guy who falls in love and has an affair with a 15 year-old girl and marries her. That was Twinkie. I went to England and made Twinkie – which I thought was pretty damned good – that put me right back in television. I kept thinking I was prepared, but it kept putting me back all the time. I was doing a lot of pilots and everything was really going well…
PLUME: Which is not to say that you weren’t directing during this period what have come to be pretty iconic television shows…
DONNER: Everything was going great, and I was happy. Then I read a script called The Antichrist. The Antichrist had been at every studio in town and was about to be dropped at Warner Bros, and I was given it to read on a Friday night. I read it, fell madly in love with it – and I realized why it was going to be dropped and why no one wanted to make it. I was having dinner with Alan Ladd – who is a dear friend of mine – and he read it that weekend, called me, and said, “I love it. What are you going to do with it?” I said I wanted to eliminate the obvious – because there were cloven hoofs and devil-gods and covens…
PLUME: Which would have sent it into schlock territory…
DONNER: It would have sent it into the arena of a cheap horror film, rather than a mystery/suspense/thriller. Alan agreed and had some really good additional comments, and said, “Let’s make it.” That was for 20th Century Fox. I called the producers and introduced myself – I knew one of them, Harvey Bernhard, “Your picture is being dropped this morning at Warner Bros…” And he said, “Yeah, so what?” I said, “Well, I sold it to Fox.” He said, “Oh my god! Great!” He called Ladd, Ladd said to come on over for a meeting, and they went over for the meeting. One of the producers was a man named Mace Neufeld – he wasn’t a producer, he was the manager of the producer, but he took a credit as Executive Producer. Anyway, he went to the meeting and said, “Let’s not use Donner. I have another director.” And Alan Ladd, Jr. turned to him and he said, “He brought it to me. He’ll direct it, or I won’t make it.” And that was the start of my career again! There are very few Alan Ladd’s in this business – it’s too bad.
PLUME: But this time, you didn’t bounce back to TV…
DONNER: No, I just kept going. I never went back to TV.
PLUME: What were the difficulties in mounting The Omen? What was the greatest hurdle you faced?
DONNER: It was convincing Gregory Peck and Lee Remick that what they were doing was a horrible moment/circumstance in their lives – nothing more or nothing less – that drives them both to the point of insanity. He’s driven to the point where he could have killed a child. Once I had them convinced of that – I had to come back every time they questioned it – but from there on in, I had to accomplish the feat of fear and – I don’t want to say horror – but to do that and make it look like it could be the devil, or it could be nothing more than a frightening moment of circumstance that took somebody’s life. Everything from the priest getting killed by a bolt of lightening that hits the church, to a plate a glass coming off and decapitating somebody, to the nanny coming into the room at night – you never see Lee get pushed out… she could have stumbled in a moment of panic. I did everything so it could have been circumstantial. That was the most difficult part.
PLUME: At any time during the production, was there ever any doubt that you could pull it off? Or were you pretty confident in yourself by that point?
DONNER: Oh, there was doubt. I think, probably, not more than once a day.
PLUME: You kept it down to that?
DONNER: Aww, geez, there was panic. It was a picture with Gregory Peck and Lee Remick, a dear friend of mine had taken a chance on me at the studio, we were making the picture for nothing – it was all these things… Gregory Peck, Lee Remick, shooting in England, shooting in Italy, shooting in Israel, having Jerry Goldsmith do the score – and deliver the picture for $2 million, including salaries. It was constantly on my head. I was scared, and I didn’t want to disappoint Alan Ladd, who had trusted me.
PLUME: Was there a fear of going back to TV?
DONNER: I didn’t even think about it. You know, at times, I thought the opposite – “I can’t wait to get back to television.” At least in TV, I had some control. With The Omen, I really felt I wasn’t in control. It was panic.
PLUME: Was there any point when you thought, “This isn’t going to work” ?
DONNER: Yes. When I saw the first cut. First cuts are a terrible experience. First cuts are a bitch for a director, because it’s been so many, many months and you put your trust in your editor and you’re going to see your film assembled for the first time – and you look at it and go, “This is terrible. I hate it. I hate this. This is going to go.” Gradually, you keep looking and you keep looking and settle down and settle down. It’s a terrible feeling to see a first cut. It always is and always will be, because you haven’t had a chance to hone what your intentions were.
PLUME: But, of course, that’s the whole purpose of the first cut, right?
DONNER: Exactly.
PLUME: Do you feel worse seeing it for yourself, or knowing that others are seeing it at the same time?
DONNER: Just when I see it. Nobody else sees it. Once I show it to somebody else, my pride has come back and I am showing something that I am happy showing.
PLUME: So any edits after you show it to people are merely tweaking?
DONNER: Well, no, because I’m open to comments. I’m open to objective points of view. From there on in, I’m open to anything and anybody, because I’ve been very narrow and very subjective.
PLUME: But at the point of showing it to others, you’re satisfied with what you’re showing… Exclusive of any additional comments…
DONNER: Yes.
PLUME: How soon did you see a bounce in your career after The Omen?
DONNER: The day The Omen screened for the industry. Even before that, the word was out from a couple of screenings in London, but when we brought it back and had a screening for the industry in Westwood, my phone rang off the hook. Everyone wanted me – suddenly I was the flavor of the month.
PLUME: Were you the type of flavor of the month where they were trying to plug you in to a similar film?
DONNER: Yes… Both similar and anything. The industry is so insecure that somebody’s got a successful film, that they think that person’s going to make their life. So it was a lot of similar things that were quite tasteless, but there were lots of others.
PLUME: What steered you into Superman, which is practically a 180 from The Omen?
DONNER: Well, maybe in a strange way, I was defending it. I was tweaked by the idea of Superman immediately, but then when I realized it was going to be produced by some Hungarians whose office was in Costa Rica and they had never been there in their life, and it was going to be directed by and Englishman in Italy –I thought, “What the fuck are they doing to Superman?” It’s apple pie and ice cream and Americana. It’s Norman Rockwell. It’s “Don’t Tread On Me.” In a strange way, I felt that I’ve got to do this. The moment I got into it – read it – I felt, “Oh man, what a challenge this is going to be.” I knew I was up to the challenge, having done The Omen and realized what you could do in motion pictures by surrounding yourself with geniuses. I readily accepted the challenge.
PLUME: What are the challenges you were presented with? How drastically different was the script you were initially presented with?
DONNER: Phenomenal. I mean, it was ridiculous. The script I read was like 400 pages that were ridiculous. They had Superman flying down looking for Lex Luthor, but he stops Telly Savalas on the street, who says, “Who loves ya baby.” It was just sickening. It had no approach, no sense of reality, no sense of it’s own verisimilitude – it’s own life in the reality of what Krypton was, and what Smallville was, and what the transition to Metropolis was going to be. They prepared it for a year, and they had the guy flying on a flat board with 4 wires. What were the challenges? Endless. I was going to beat the script, I was going to cast it, I was going to do all that, but the biggest challenge was – how was I going to make a man fly? How was I going to convince the public that an actor could fly? Everything else, in those days, was done either with miniatures, or green/blue screen, or rotoscope – it was the state of the art, but it was totally naïve in comparison to what you can do today. When I look at the things we did, I’m in awe of some of it, because it’s damn near as good as you could do today.
PLUME: I think some of it’s even better than what can be created today, now that people are over-relying on digital effects that oft-times still look cartoony…
DONNER: I think you’re probably right. I think what some people are doing with digital effects is starting to get silly. It’s overused, but we always do that. I remember when the zoom lens came in, and every director couldn’t zoom enough – zoom in, zoom out, zoom up, zoom down. Then when the diaprars came in, and you could hold something in focus and do a macro on that and drop back, everybody did it. It was experimentation. But I think what CGI will boil down to is that it will be just validating something and not getting carried away with “what can I do that nobody’s done before”. So, those were basically the Superman problems.
PLUME: You mentioned that the Salkinds already had a director attached to the project…
DONNER: It was Guy Hamilton. He was on it for over a year. They had experimented for over a year, and when they showed me their tests of everything they had done, I just said, “Fellas, it’s a throwout. We’ve got to start from scratch.”
PLUME: And what was their response to that?
DONNER: Well, their responses were always very negative. What actually happened is that we convinced ourselves that we could make the movie without them. Warner Bros got involved, and I really became responsible to Warner Bros and not to the Salkinds. And Warner Bros wanted to make the picture, so they supported me and backed me, and we went ahead and did everything we wanted to do right.
PLUME: What were the notes you brought to re-envisioning the script?
DONNER: Oh, that’s endless. As I said earlier, I wanted a sense of reality in each of the three phases of the movie. Krypton had to have its reality. Smallville had to have its own. And then Metropolis. We threw out anything that was supercilious or in any way sends up the characters, because the characters are all bigger than life to start with. Lex Luthor is bigger than life. If you compounded that bigger-than-life, there’d be no threat. He wouldn’t be a worthy villain. So that is what (Creative Consultant Tom Mankiewicz) had to deal with. We spent many a day and many a night – I brought him over to England with me, and I kept him there as long as I could. Half the time we were improvising and trying to keep it alive – and if I had Tom there, it made everything easier.
PLUME: There’s a concept that somebody brought up to me the other day in regards to the script, and I wanted to ask you if this was a conscious effort in your mind during the development process – in that Superman plays very much like an immigrant story.
DONNER: Well, I don’t call it an immigrant story. I call it “fish out of water”. I had life threats, because people accused me of approaching Brando as God and his son was Jesus. I got life-threats.
PLUME: I can’t imagine you getting threats…
DONNER: I couldn’t either, but we had Scotland Yard, the FBI, and the LAPD looking in to them. I literally had people saying that my blood would run in the streets for doing that. But it’s just a good “fish out of water”
plot.
PLUME: Where was most of the pre-production process done? Was it done in the States or in England?
DONNER: Everything was done in England. The minute we went over there, it was just flat-out. What we had to do was design a film, have a concept, and then forget the concept and then just do everything that had to do with Brando, because he had been given a start date. The Salkinds, believe it or not, gave commitments to actors – both Brando and Hackman, for the money they paid them – without having a director on board or a screenplay or anything else. It was a nightmare. It was totally a nightmare.
PLUME: So Brando and Hackman were pre-signed before you even came on board…
DONNER: Exactly.
PLUME: What was the difficulty in finding your Superman?
DONNER: Again, the producers wanted to have Redford or Newman – they were going after stars…
PLUME: So, a complete lack of understanding of the character…
DONNER: Exactly. Plus the fact that I had a feeling, as I said earlier, I had to physically convince the audience that he could fly but, just as important, I had to convince the audience that that man who was playing that role could fly. And I could not believe that Redford or Newman or any of those well-known actors in that role, in blue leotards and a red cape, flying.
PLUME: I’m sure, at that time, that Newman and Redford would have agreed with you…
DONNER: I’m sure they did. Before I got there, it had gone to everybody. I wanted an unknown. We put a search out, and one day in New York, a skinny, kind of blondish/light brown haired kid came in, who I just thought had something about him that stood out. I was wearing horn-rimmed glasses, and I gave them to him to put on. I was totally intrigued with the fact that he could play Superman. That was Christopher Reeve. I always say that he flew into my hotel room. I was convinced that it was him. They wanted a screen test, and I was going to screen test him, so I brought to London and screentested him with Jack Palance’s daughter Holly, who I had used in The Omen. He was as skinny as the day was long, and I had to put black shoe-polish in his hair to make it look dark, and the costume was baggy and he was sweating like a kid in a sauna with black circles under his arms. In regards to the physicality –he told me that he had been a jock and that he could build up again – because I was convinced that he could do it as an actor, and he convinced me that he could build up again… And he did, in a miraculously short time. We had an Olympic trainer with him who fed him all kinds of special protein diets and had him working out pretty hard and – lo and behold – one day I walked in and there was Superman. I knew he could do it.
PLUME: How easily did the casting of Margot Kidder come along?
DONNER: Well, that was a problem. We saw every available actress who was right for the role – did a lot of screen tests – and I always say that Margot Kidder tripped into my room one day. She’s a calamity… If there’s anything to knock into, fall over, spill on – Margot will find it. That was her when she walked in. She was cute as a bubble. I had seen her in a series called Nichols, and I thought she was a wonderful actress, and she was this wonderful wide-eyed doe in a spotlight of a car. She convinced me instantly. I took her to England – Chris was already onboard – and I did a screen test with them, and it was a classic. She was just magical, so everybody else went bye-bye.
PLUME: Were there any concerns with the pre-cast Brando and Hackman?
DONNER: It was just the thrill of a lifetime. The fact that I had Marlon Brando and was going to be able to work with him was extraordinary, and with Hackman – they were two of my heroes.
PLUME: I have to admit, you were able to get one of the most coherent Brando performances onscreen that I’ve ever seen.
DONNER: Well, thank you. Thank you. The only challenge that he presented was that if he could talk you out of working for the day, he would. He’s a delight.
PLUME: And Hackman as the perfect Lex Luthor…
DONNER: Gene’s great. There’s some great stories about how I got Brando and Hackman to work for me.
PLUME: Coaxing a performance?
DONNER: It wasn’t coaxing a performance… It’s developing a relationship with actors that makes it work. It started with Gene Hackman. I met him at a publicist’s office when I first got hired to do the job. I was talking to his publicist, and he said Gene was there and I should meet him, so I did. He was nice. Not overly anxious to do the movie, the money looked good, but maybe he had a second thought… I don’t know. So we were talking, and he had a mustache. I was just growing a mustache. So I said, “You know, Gene, one thing that’s really essential in this is that Lex Luthor is bald. I think it would be a pain in the ass to have to wear a skullcap – do you want to just shave your head?” And he said, “No skullcaps, and I’m not shaving my head.” I said, “Oh. Well, Lex Luthor’s bald – everyone knows he’s bald.” And he said, “Nope. I’m not doing it. Next.” “At least you’ll take the mustache off, won’t you?” He said, “The mustache stays.” I said, “Oh. Okay.” And then he said, “So long. I’ll see you in England.” I said, “Oh, fuck.” I figured out what to do with the hair, in that we would do it different each time, so it would look like Lex Luthor was wearing wigs – and I knew he would buy that. So I had that all worked out, and I was moving forward preparing the film. The day he arrived, he went into make-up. I called the head of make-up, and I said, “You got Hackman in there?” And he said, “Yes.” “Does he have his mustache?” He said, “Oh yes.” I said, “ I want you to come down to my office right away.” I’d shaved my mustache off – I got bored with it. I said, “I want you to come to my office right away and give me the best mustache you’ve ever made.” He came down to my office, and I said, “I don’t want to see any lace or anything – just do me a really good mustache.” He asked why, and I said, “Just do it.” So, he does my mustache, and I wait about a half-hour and then I go up to the make-up room where they were doing different styles of Gene’s hair to show what it would look like. I went in with my mustache. I said, “Hello.” He was really nice to me. I said, “Hey, we worked this all out. There’s only once you have to wear the bald-cap – at the very end, and it will only be one shot.” He said, “I can handle that.” I said, “Great, but, man, you know – the mustache… It’s just gotta go.” He said, “No no, the mustache is not going.” I said, “I’ll tell you what – I’ll take mine off if you take yours off.” He looked at me and he said, “Oh yeah?” I said, “Yeah” He said, “Okay. Okay. Alright.” He was in the make-up chair. I said, “Stuart, take Mr. Hackman’s mustache off.” And he started to shake. I said, “Stuart, take his mustache off, now!” So Stuart used an electric razor to cut it off. He shaved it clean. Gene was sitting there, and then he looked over and said, “Okay, it’s your turn, pal.” I looked at him and just took the edge of my mustache and I peeled it off. He looked at me – and his neck from his head to his shoulders started to throb – and I knew he was going to beat the shit out of me. He looked, and then a smile came on his face and he started to laugh, and he said, “You got me. I owe you one.” From there on in he became, to me, one of the lights of my life – as both a friend and a great actor. That’s how you get things out of people. I could have locked horns with him and said, “It comes off” and he would have said “no” and we would have hated each other. So that’s how you get a performance – They put trust in you.
PLUME: Was there anything similar with Brando?
DONNER: We were either shooting already or preparing, and I had to come back to the States to meet with Brando. I came back with the writer and the producer. Before I came back, I called Coppola and said, “Francis, tell me about Brando.” He said, “Are you going to work with him?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “Okay, listen. The guy’s a genius, and he likes to talk. He never stops talking. If you’ve got a problem with him, let him talk, because he’ll always talk himself out of it.” I said, “Oh, great.” Then I called his agent, Jay Cantor, who’s been his agent for years. “Look, I’m gonna work with him. Can you give me any hints?” He said, “Well, I’ll tell you – Marlon’s notorious in that, if he can talk you out of photographing him – let’s say, you can photograph a green suitcase – he can talk you into the fact that he should be a green suitcase. It means that he’ll never have to go to work – you’ll photograph the green suitcase, you’ll record his voice, and he’ll get paid X millions of dollars for not going to work.” So I’m armed with all of this, and we go up to his house. I’m thunderstruck – it’s Marlon friggin’ Brando. He’s charming and we talk for about an hour. He was telling me a story about his kid. He told his kid the story about the fox that jumped over the wall and went around the log – and the kid says, “Oh no, daddy, he went around the wall and jumped over the log.” And he said, “You know, kids know everything today.” And then it went on, and after about an hour or two, he said, “Listen – that’s not why you guys are here… You want to talk about my character, my costumes…” And we said, “Yes.” “So listen, “ he says, “I was thinking…” And I’m prepared for a green suitcase, right? So he says, “Listen, I was thinking – what if I look like a bagel?” I said, “What?” The two guys – Mankiewicz and Salkind – said, “What do you mean?” He said, “Well, this is Krypton. Nobody knows what the people on Krypton look like. What if we look like bagels, but I’m going to make my son look like a human because that’s where I’m sending him – to Earth – but everybody else on Krypton looks like bagels. That would really be original.” It was really an intelligent observation – it doesn’t have to be a bagel, it could be a nondescript thing. The producer said, “Ah… That’s interesting.” I think he was sucked in. Tom looked at me like, “what the hell are we gonna do?” I said, “You know, Marlon, you were telling me the story about your kid and how the fox jumped over the wall and went around the log, but he really should have gone around the wall and jumped over the log …” He said, “Yes…” And I said, “You said kids know everything…” And he said, “Yes…” I said, “There isn’t a kid since 1939 that doesn’t know what Jor-El looks like.” He said, “I talk to much, don’t I?” I said, “Maybe…” And he said, “Okay, show me my costume.” And that was it! From there on in, it was that kind of a relationship. Both Gene and Brando – there wasn’t a person on that picture that wasn’t a delight. Of course, the most delightful were Chris and Margot.
PLUME: If you were to sum up one difficulty, and one thing that you thought was going to be difficult but wasn’t, what would those be?
DONNER: The most difficult thing was the relationship of working with the producers – by far. I found them to be very counterproductive. The thing I had the biggest fear of, I guess, was could I convince somebody that a man could fly. It took me a year before I approved the first flying shot – it was the most incredibly difficult process. This was front projection units that weighed over a ton, and I had to fly them – but we developed one that weighed 35 pounds. To answer your question, I thought it was going to be difficult working with all of those actors, but it turned out to be – as it has been for 99% of my career – a total delight.
PLUME: What defines a difficult actor for you?
DONNER: I was an actor to start with, so I’m kind of empathetic. A motion picture is made up of more than one character, and each set of those characters has to live their own life – and each one of them sees the situation they’re living differently, so it becomes extremely subjective. The director comes in, and he’s supposed to take all of this subjectivity and hone it down into some sense of objectivity. If you’re not in control of the direction you want those actors to go in, you’re going to have anywhere from two to ten different points of views of a movie, and nobody focusing in on the same. Some actors just won’t bend, and then it’s a bitch. You either fight and argue or – if you’re really smart – you find ways of putting your words in their mouth and letting them say it back at you and say, “That’s brilliant.” It’s only been a couple of times in my life that I’ve really locked horns with actors. It did not hurt the films, it just hurt the moment of the filmmaking.
PLUME: What led to the decision to revisit and restore Superman?
DONNER: It was 1978 when Superman came out, and I kept thinking, “Why don’t they do something about it. It’s been laying around. They’ve done all these crappy attempts at comic book film adaptations – some worked, most didn’t. What can we do different? Why don’t we just re-release this thing?” My first thought was to re-release it as a feature, and then they came and said, “No, let’s do it as a DVD.” So, if we couldn’t do it as a feature, let’s do it as a DVD and expose it to a lot more people that have never seen it before. When that started to move, they started to get excited, and now they re-released it as a feature also.
PLUME: What decision-making process did you go through in deciding which scenes to put back into the film?
DONNER: I had not seen the film in a long, long time, so what we decided to do was look at everything that I had – look at the rolls of outtakes – and decide why we took them out. The interesting thing is that that picture never really had an honest break – it was never previewed because the producers decided that they were not going to preview it because they didn’t trust Warners with the film. When that picture opened in Washington, DC at the Kennedy Center, that’s the first audience that ever saw the picture. When you make a film, you like to run it with an audience. You can be pretty self-centered and narrow-minded and totally subjective and not have any idea what is really happening audience-wise – therefore you run it with an audience, they tell you exactly that… you’re narrow-minded or subjective, or that seems to long, or that doesn’t work. I never had that chance. We just took out scenes arbitrarily, and those scenes were never seen in a motion picture theater. When this opportunity arose, the editor – Stuart Baird, my favorite editor – and myself went back with Michael Thau and said, “Hey, let’s put back everything that we took out!” With a rare exception.
PLUME: Was there one scene in particular that you’ve regretted taking out that is now back in the film?
DONNER: I love Ned Beatty so much. Well, there’s two. There’s a scene with Brando and Chris, where he addresses his son. The other thing I looked for was Ned Beatty feeding those things underground.
PLUME: I’ve seen the scenes that are being put back in, and there is a question I have to ask you. During the Krypton sequence, you’ve reinstated the footage which introduces the Kryptonian police office that the council sends after Jor-El shortly before the planet’s destruction. Unfortunately, it plays like a dangling plot line, since we never see anymore of the officer – despite the fact that footage exists showing his demise en route to Jor-El’s residence…
DONNER: It’s not there. It doesn’t exist. I couldn’t find it, and Michael Thau couldn’t find it. I just don’t think it exists.
PLUME: The footage does exist in the TV version.
DONNER: Of his death?
PLUME: Of his death…. It’s a reflection in the officer’s visor as he’s crushed by falling debris…
DONNER: Boy oh boy…. Boy oh boy… You’ve hit me with something. I don’t think we found the footage. I think that’s what it was. You’ve brought up something that’s a big hole for me right now. I’ve got to find out. I’ve got to ask Michael what happened.
PLUME: I was just wondering from a plot point of view, since a character is introduced within some of the footage you reinstated, and then there’s no follow-up.
DONNER: Right. It had to exist at one time though… I just don’t know where the hell it is.
PLUME: Well, I wanted to make sure I asked.
DONNER: Well, you opened up a hole – because we rushed this damn thing – now I’m worried.
PLUME: Well, we’ll move on, so we don’t dwell on it…
DONNER: Yes, please… So I can sleep tonight…
PLUME: I wanted to ask you about the new sound mix, and what the difficulties were in creating it…
DONNER: There was no difficulty at all. The digital processing for sound is extraordinary, and it gave us no problem whatsoever.
PLUME: Were there any difficulties in finding original sound elements?
DONNER: No, they just had to be cleaned and brought up to a contemporary standard – but we found everything.
PLUME: There have been reports that the sound effects were recreated – that they are not the original sound effects.
DONNER: Let me just tell you something – if somebody did that and I don’t know about it, I’m going to kill somebody. Michael would not have done that.
PLUME: There have been numerous reports of sounds that people remember well being completely different in this new mix, from the rings rotating around the Kryptonian criminals to the searing sounds of the title sequence…
DONNER: Do you mean different sounds, or they were enhanced?
PLUME: Different sounds…
DONNER: That doesn’t make sense. I know we enhanced the sound, but I don’t think we added any. I, quite honestly, did not hear the final mix. I heard the three run-throughs, and all we did was enhance sound.
PLUME: People claim the new sounds sound completely dissimilar from the originals…
DONNER: God almighty.
PLUME: Of course, in cleaning up the sound, it could be that people are confusing clean sound with new sound…
DONNER: That they could have been brought through…Or they were re-emphasized.
PLUME: That’s the only concerns I’ve heard – everyone enjoys the picture quality, but are disappointed by the remix. Sorry for bringing the points up.
DONNER: I’m glad you did this, so I’m not being blind-sided after this.
PLUME: I know people have been looking forward to this, especially with the recent spate of horrible comic book films…
DONNER: Is that not a disgrace?
PLUME: It’s interesting that more people don’t take the lead that you established when it comes to being faithful with an adaptation…
DONNER: You know, there was talk we were going to go back and redo every optical, every effect for this new edition, but then I said, “Wait wait wait…If you’re going to do it, do it in a new picture.”
PLUME: Lucas has already shown the pitfalls of going back and redoing things…
DONNER: No comment.
PLUME: The overdigitalization of those special editions took away from the reality of those original films…I still think digital hasn’t gained the reality that good optical effects have…
DONNER: You’re right. By my standards, you can really screw it up.
PLUME: How strong was the temptation – when you were looking at certain shots during the restoration process – to say, “You know, if we just went into the computer…”
DONNER: It was unbelievably exciting. If I hadn’t of come home that night and really sat down and talked to myself, I probably would have done it. When I really started to think about it, I said, “Wait a minute – I’m changing a movie. It’s not the movie I made.”
PLUME: And it’s not the movie that people have grown fond of over the course of 23 years…
DONNER: 23 years… It’s amazing that it holds up. When you tell me that people are saying nice things about it, it’s terribly exciting. One of the exciting things about being a director is that you make a movie – nobody knows who you are – and you go sit in the front row, and right now you know that you’re going to scare the shit out of them, or you’re going to make them cry, or make them laugh, or make them fall in love – and you can look back and watch the audience, and it’s one of the most exhilarating, self-satisfying moments. I love to be in the theater and look back.
PLUME: Is it a bigger kick for you to know that you have a film that’s stood up for over two-decades, or is it a bigger kick to sit down with an audience at a brand new film you’ve done?
DONNER: For something that has been around as long as Superman in my life, it’s totally new. Totally new and very exciting. What would be more exciting? I think probably – if it worked with the older one and you could still hold them – it would be very satisfying.
PLUME: Let’s say the studio gods looked down and decided to offer the next Superman film to a certain well-respected director… What would his response be?
DONNER: I’ll tell you something… I was really disappointed that Warner Bros didn’t think highly enough of my film or my filmmaking to ask me to make the new Superman. I would have loved to have done it, because I don’t think I would have screwed with it. I think I would have found a handle to keep the tradition pure. Somebody else asked me that, and asked what I would think of Mel Gibson playing Superman… I said, “Not right now. Maybe 10 years ago he would have been terrific, since he’s such an incredible actor – if he had made up his mind to play him, he would have.” But then I said, “Wait a minute. I have a wild idea – what if it’s Superman at this age? Maybe he’s called upon to come back to life – to come back into the world that he’s forgotten for so many years.” Then Mel could have done it. I mean, they’re talking about messing with his costume! That’s like messing with apple pie and white bread.
PLUME: That’s why a good deal of people go back to your Superman, because it was so faithful to the comic… Now, when people adapt, all they talk about is “reinventing” and “modernizing” the character…
DONNER: Right… Why? Maybe some characters don’t live like he does. I made three separate movies. I felt that Krypton had a life and a look of its own. I really, really researched the comic books and the old movies and a lot of things that had been written about it – and I had this wonderful production designer, who died, named John Barry. As soon as the crystals came in, Krypton took on a life of its own. Then, in going to Smallville and Glenn Ford, it took on another look and another feeling for me. It had a different emotion – it was a little purer… a little less comic-booky. And then, on the cut to Metropolis and the blast of horns and Clark getting out of a cab, it became a city that was going to have a life that was bigger-than-life, yet was going to be forced to believe in a guy that could fly in tights and a red cape. So each one of them for me, was a separate movie, with ties that bind.
PLUME: You also set up nicely how faithful it was going to be with the prologue of the little kid opening up the comic book…
DONNER: Thanks.
PLUME: Which no comic book to film adaptation would ever do nowadays, due to some fear of alienating the audience – without even knowing who they’re playing to.
DONNER: That’s the problem. When they do these, I don’t think they know who their audience is.
PLUME: Is it true that you were offered to direct Superman IV?
DONNER: No. After Superman 1 and 2/3, I never spoke to them again until recently.
PLUME: What is this rumor that’s been going around lately of talks regarding you going back and recutting Superman II?
DONNER: There was talk from Warner Bros. At the time, the studio wanted me to go back in and recut the film and add anything I wanted to add or do anything I wanted to do. Quite honestly, I was done with it. I was finished with it. I had such a bad experience with the Salkind family that I just didn’t need it anymore, and I had found a wonderful little film that I wanted to make very badly, called Inside Moves, and I was dedicating my life to that… Which, by the way, is one of my favorites. It’s really a great story about what friendship can really be … what life can really be about. So, at that point, there was no going back to those people.
PLUME: Does the footage you shot still exist, to where you could do it now?
DONNER: I don’t know, and I wouldn’t do it anymore. I’ve done mine, and that’s it. There was a scene in Superman II where Chris becomes human and he gets punched by a trucker in a diner, and he tastes blood for the first time, and he feels pain for the first time. There was an interview, and the director who finished the picture talked about how important that scene was to him as a filmmaker, and – believe it or not – I’m in that scene, and I wanted to say, “You son of a bitch, you didn’t do that scene. Not only didn’t you make that scene, I’m in it!” It was in the parking lot, as the camera crosses up to the diner. I couldn’t believe it. So anyway, it’s gone… it’s done… it’s in the past.
PLUME: A lot of people would love to see if you could reconstruct your vision of the film…
DONNER: You know, there were scenes I shot that they didn’t even use.
PLUME: Didn’t they also reshoot stuff you had already shot?
DONNER: Yup. Like the way she finds out that he’s Superman. In the DVD, you’ll see the test that I used for one of the actresses. I actually shot that scene later with Margot and Christopher, and they decided that theirs would be better – that his hand goes into the fire or something at the hotel and he doesn’t feel the pain. Whereas, in mine, she fires a gun at him.
PLUME: I must say, I prefer your version…
DONNER: It was wonderful!
PLUME: Wasn’t there also an entirely different sequence at the Daily Planet, where Lois jumps out the window to prove Clark is Superman?
DONNER: Yeah.
PLUME: That was filmed, wasn’t it?
DONNER: Let’s see… She has a newspaper picture of Superman in front of her, and she starts to draw Clark’s hat and glasses on, and then she says, “Son of a b…” and she walks over to the window. Clark walks over and she says, “You know Clark, I think you’re Superman.” And he says, “Oh Lois, we’re not going to go through that again.” She says, “Last time I bet your life. This time, I’m going to bet mine.” And he says, “What are you doing Lois? Don’t be stupid!” And she climbs out the window and jumps. So, of course, in a fraction of a second he’s downstairs and on the street, and he looks up, she’s falling, and he blows up – making her like a leaf coming down in the wind – then he makes an awning over a store pop out, she hits the awning and rolls into a fruit cart and is covered in fruit. He runs back upstairs, sticks his head out the window, and says, “Lois, what did you do?” She looks up and she faints. It was cute, it was charming…
PLUME: And, instead, we get that embarrassing terrorist opening sequence…
DONNER: To tell you the truth, I saw it once, and I barely remember the movie.
PLUME: You’re one of the lucky ones. But all the stuff with Hackman that’s in the film is stuff that you shot, right?
DONNER: Yes. He never came back. Everything they had in II with Susannah York was originally Brando material, It was all shot, but they didn’t want to use it because they’d have to pay him again.
PLUME: They’re such wonderful people…
DONNER: I know. Anyway, life goes on…
PLUME: If there are any regrets you have about the Superman series, what are they?
DONNER: Just that I wasn’t allowed to finish II. Tom Mankiewicz and I had plans for about 3 more films. I really had hopes to stay on and just do these films. We had wonderful stories – I don’t even remember what they are anymore, but I remember that we’d sit up nights and come up with ideas, and we had great, great scripts. That’s my only regret, really.
PLUME: What do you think is your biggest triumph with Superman?
DONNER: I think, maybe, that he actually flew. I just couldn’t believe we could make him fly the way we did. And, I guess, working with Christopher. He convinced me he could fly, and he’s convinced me that he’s going to walk again.
PLUME: There’s one sequence I have to ask you about in the film, because it’s one sequence I can never get into – the “can you read my mind” sequence. I was wondering what your thoughts were behind that sequence…
DONNER: A lot of people could get into it and a lot of people couldn’t. I loved it. For me, it was kind of romantic and corny. I didn’t know how to do it, but I wanted to make it happen. I wanted to have them fly together and… I don’t know… I just wanted a little romantic moment. I thought it worked at the time, and haven’t reevaluated it since. I probably would cringe. I remember Margot reading it and our laying it over her as she was flying. I remember it was a hit single – not with her, but with someone else – but hey, “you does your thing and you take your chances.” Everybody warned me – kids are going to see this, and whenever kids see anything romantic or people kissing or people holding hands, you’re going to lose the audience. I said, “Well, everybody’s got to take a whiz sometime. Now’s their time.”
PLUME: You’re currently producing another comic adaptation, aren’t you? Hellblazer, isn’t it?
DONNER: Oh yes… Well, my wife is. We’re doing Hellblazer.
PLUME: People keep wondering if you’re going to keep the character British…
DONNER: No, she’s not. I don’t think. She’s in the process of getting a director signed and brought on, and then she will start casting. I think he’s going to be American.
PLUME: Just for accessibility?
DONNER: Yes, I think so. Hey, listen, if the most wonderful British actor comes along and he’s right for the part and can’t do an American accent, then all of a sudden – he’s British. Lauren’s also doing the sequel to the X-Men. Together, we’re both doing Michael Crichton’s new book Timeline.
PLUME: What next on your directorial plate?
DONNER: Timeline.
PLUME: What interests you the most in adapting that?
DONNER: I’ve always wanted to do a Crichton book. I really love his writing. When I was given the opportunity to read this in galley’s, I was so mesmerized by what it would be like for somebody who was a student of history and archeology, to have an opportunity to go back to a medieval period and really live it – but that period became so real and so frightening and so disturbing , and that you may be stuck there and have to live out your life – got so exciting that I jumped at the opportunity. I think we’ve got an exceptionally good screenplay out of an exceptional book, and I think it’s going to be edge-of-your-seat. Remember when I was telling you about sitting in the front row of a theater and looking back at the audience when you scare the shit out of them? I want to do that again. I loved it in The Omen. When that head came off and I would turn around to look at the audience, it was thrilling.
PLUME: Does that mean you’re going to be there, front-row, for Timeline?
DONNER: Darn tootin’, baby.
PLUME: When is that ramping-up?
DONNER: It’s too late now to shoot because of the strike, so we can’t shoot until spring of next year because of weather conditions in England. We have to shoot it in Wales. So we’ll start ramping up pre-production right after the summer. I’ll have my summer, and start shooting in the beginning of the year or early spring.
PLUME: I’m not going to ask you if there’s going to be a Lethal Weapon 5, but I will ask you if there’s going to be a Goonies 2…
DONNER: Yessiree. There’s a good screenplay being written right now. If it turns out well and Mr. Spielberg enjoys it as much as I hope we do, then there’ll be one.
PLUME: Well, it’s another one of those childhood films that I hold fondly in my heart…
DONNER: So do I, pal. So do I. I love it.
PLUME: Any word on whether a collector’s DVD is in development for that, yet?
DONNER: Yes it is. And there are some wonderful scenes we took out. Some, we can’t find – some got lost – but some are back in.
PLUME: Are some of those scenes available on a videocassette print, so they can at least be included in a supplemental section?
DONNER: I don’t know. What we are able to find, we’re putting back. It’s interesting –before DVDs, the studios didn’t really take care of their films they way they should have. Now, they’re looking to the future of whatever’s going to come after DVDs, so they’re being very, very cautious with all those reels of outtakes and negatives. Soon it’s all going to be digital anyway, so it’s all going to be saved on a little coin somewhere.
PLUME: Is there any film of yours that hasn’t been visited as a special edition that you’d love to do so with?
DONNER: The Lethals were never done as a special edition, but that’s still a few years away. I’d love to do director’s cuts of all four of them.
PLUME: And you’re a fan of doing commentary tracks…
DONNER: Very much so. They’re a lot of fun.
PLUME: I must admit, I was disappointed there wasn’t one on Maverick…
DONNER: They did that without even asking! I’d love to do it with Scrooged. We have a lot of great stuff on that.
Then, for a Halloween feature, I got to chat with Donner about The Omen.
Conducted ~2003
PLUME: The script for The Omen had been circulating for awhile in Hollywood, hadn’t it?
RICHARD DONNER: Years. It had been turned down by every studio in town, including Fox – where it ended up, eventually.
PLUME: What was the main stumbling block? Was it the subject matter, or just that it wasn’t a terribly good script at the time?
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DONNER: The subject matter was good. I think what they had done was that they had tried to write it as a horror film. In other words, when I read it, it had devil gods and cloven hooves and covens… Very heavy-handed…
PLUME: So it was like a Hammer horror picture…
DONNER: Yeah… and yet it had this wonderful character-driven piece, of these people. So when I read it, and I brought it to Laddie (Alan Ladd) and he said, “What would you do?” And I said, “We’d eliminate the obvious.” Because I wanted to turn it into a mystery suspense thriller, because I knew – first of all – that we’d never get it made otherwise, and if we did, we’d never get an actor of any importance. So we turned it into what our concept was – there was no reality to it, this was just the worst day in somebody’s life. To the point where it drove him insane, and he could even attempt to kill a child.
PLUME: Up to that point, the closest directing gig you had had that was similar in tone and tenor would have been your work on The Twilight Zone…
DONNER: I did a bunch of them… Yeah, definitely.
PLUME: Certainly Gilligan’s Island wasn’t in the same vein as The Omen…
DONNER: (laughing) Maybe Naked City was. Nah, there was nothing that was anywhere close to that.
PLUME: So how do you approach material like that, as a director, when you really haven’t tackled that kind of subject matter previously, especially on the big screen?
DONNER: Well, that was my first picture of any performance. Every one of them is very special and unique, and you approach it with great fear and trepidation… which I still do! It was scary as hell to get involved with it. It was an important film for me, it was an important film for the studio. I was lucky to get people like Gregory Peck and Lee Remick. But you approach every one of them with its own unique feeling, and this was going to be a very special mystery suspense thriller.
PLUME: How fine a line do you have to walk as a director on a project like that, so it doesn’t fall into schlock?
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DONNER: It’s a concept. You have the concept in your head, and you know you don’t want to make it a horror film, and you know you want to make it a mystery and a thriller and you want the suspense in, so you really just approach the subject matter like what your emotional feelings are going to be for the end result. At least for me.
PLUME: Were there any goal posts within the film where you thought, “If I can pull this off, I know that this picture will work….” ?
DONNER: Yeah. The only thing I felt I had to pull off to make it work was the little child – the son of the Devil. But how can you even say that? You can’t believe for a second that his mother was taken by a jackal. So, I mean, everything was just this ridiculous circumstance, but if you believed any of it as a reality, then it had crossed over the line and became a horror film.
PLUME: Was there any point during the filming process when you thought it wasn’t going to work?
DONNER: From day one! Day one till the first screening.
PLUME: If I remember correctly, the first screening of the rough cut didn’t go very well, did it?
DONNER: No, but that was personal. That was just for me and the editor. That drove me nuts. I was so insecure, I wanted to tear everything out of the movie and start all over again, but I couldn’t.
PLUME: What were the problems with that first cut?
DONNER: Nothing, actually. It was too long, so it was just tightening it up – but I was just totally insecure. I looked at the movie and I thought, “That doesn’t work, this doesn’t work, that doesn’t work, get rid of the dogs, get rid of the nanny…” Thank god I had a very wonderful editor, named Stuart Baird – it was his first big picture, too – and he said, “Hey, calm down. Let’s look at this again in a couple of days.” And we kept doing it, and gradually we started to see the forest for the trees. But the first real screening we had was in a Warner Bros. theater in SoHo, and we invited our friends and everybody we knew in London at the time. It was with an audience, I was scared stiff – we all were – and they saw the movie… and they were horrified and scared and it just felt right on the spot that, “Wow, we did right.”
PLUME: The closest comparable film to The Omen would probably be The Exorcist…
DONNER: If we had come out before The Exorcist, we would have done much better, but there were so many people that were afraid to go to our picture because of The Exorcist.
PLUME: Why do you think?
DONNER: Because of that horror of something to do with the occult. Everybody was afraid of the occult after that. And we ruined the breeding of rottweilers for years. Nobody wanted one.
PLUME: What would you say is the centerpiece scene in the film for you, that you worked toward pulling together the various elements you sought to achieve?
DONNER: The decapitation of the photographer, David Warner. But I don’t know… Maybe the jumping of the nanny, because that was the first piece that said anything could really be wrong. I don’t know! I haven’t seen that picture in so long now, it’s hard for me. I’m trying to go back over the picture and it’s hard…
PLUME: The two scenes you just mentioned represent two different methods of building horror – the decapitation being a technical one, and the nanny scene being more stylistic…
DONNER: Interestingly enough, that decapitation scene was improvised, because it was originally supposed to be a sheet of glass that falls from the top of a building that’s under construction, and he drops the knives and is bending over and is decapitated. We tried it so many times – we didn’t have any money to do it – and the sheets of glass used to end up leafing, like a leaf coming down, so that didn’t work. At the last minute we had to shoot that scene, and we came up with putting the sheet on the top of a glass truck, and see if that works. So it came out of nowhere. We just had an articulated dummy and six cameras, a bottle of red wine to knock off the table so at 120 frames you were confused whether it was red wine or blood.
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PLUME: How much of filmmaking is happy accidents like that?
DONNER: So much it’s extraordinary. But not any more, because so much of it is computer-generated and you don’t have to do it live.
PLUME: How do you think the proliferation of CG affects the tone of a film? I don’t know how this affects you as a filmmaker, but as a viewer, there’s something cold and uninvolving about CG-heavy films like Star Wars and the recent Matrix flick, whereas it’s easier to invest in an effect that’s done practically where you can sense a texture and unpredictability…
DONNER: Well, when you see Timeline, you’re going to say the same thing, because that’s just what we did. We made everything as physically live on the set as we possibly could and only used computer graphics when we needed it to supplement or add something. But there is nothing like touching something that’s real and making it work. I always felt that way, and will continue to.
PLUME: Do you think it’s even more important, when it’s in the context of a horror film that requires an quick buy-in to what’s being presented?
DONNER: I think it’s more frightening than when you computer generate all these horrible images – things that are not touchable, not real… that are beyond reality. And unless it’s done really carefully, than it takes the fear out of it.
PLUME: In the films you’re doing now, do you have to fight to have practical effects?
DONNER: No… only because I’m the master of my own ship. But I think that a lot of other directors that don’t carry the weight are forced into it.
PLUME: Is it seen as an expediency?
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DONNER: It’s much faster and cheaper – just generate it and don’t get involved.
PLUME: During the actual filming of The Omen, did you feel it was going to be a success?
DONNER: No.. no… no. Anybody that knows that up front is a genius.
PLUME: For The Omen, did more of that come from you having doubts in the material, or more from you having doubts in your abilities, considering this was your first major film?
DONNER: It could have been my hundredth time, I still would have felt the same – terribly insecure. I guess I’ll always feel insecure. I mean, how do you know the direction you’re going is not so subjective and so personal that an objective audience is not going to appreciate it? You don’t know. You don’t know… Anybody who says they know – they’re far better than I will ever be.
PLUME: Has there ever been a film that you have been confident on?
DONNER: Umm……….. Nope. Now that I think about it, nope.
PLUME: And is there a difference between having confidence in how a film will do at the box office and having confidence in yourself as a director?
DONNER: Yes. You’re right. You’re 100% right. The answer to that is “yes.” We made a movie called Radio Flyer, we made Ladyhawke, and I felt very confident that the film was very personal and a good film, and special in my life. But I never had any idea if it would do any business. In those particular cases, they didn’t. But they became cult.
PLUME: Is that almost like the consolation prize of the film business?
DONNER: Yes, very much so! It’s a pain in the a**! You walk such a thin line, it’s frightening.
PLUME: In terms of how the film turned out, how important was the casting process for The Omen?
DONNER: Extremely so. If we didn’t get somebody of Gregory Peck’s caliber, as an actor… He validated it. One we had Greg, than Lee wanted to work with him – it was terribly important that we got them together. People like David Warner and Patrick Troughton, who played the priest that got impaled… Then the kid was the next big thing, and boy that was a b****. At one point we were going to go with a little girl – you wouldn’t have known the difference at that age. But we found this kid and we died his hair and curled it, and he’s very East-End cockney, so he hardly spoke.
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PLUME: It’s become a habit of yours over the years, of dying your actor’s hair…
DONNER: (laughing) Who’d I do that to?
PLUME: You also did that to Chris Reeve for Superman…
DONNER: You’re right! And Gene Hackman. I remember that.
PLUME: So there’s your “director’s trademark”…
DONNER: Thanks, but no thanks!
PLUME: As far as the Gregory Peck role, you had also approached Charlton Heston and William Holden, right?
DONNER: Yup. Heston and Holden. And for some miraculous reason, Peck read it, his agent liked it – and Greg had just had some terrible emotional thing in his life, and his agent said, “Do it, it’ll be good for ya.” As it was, he made more money on that movie than he ever made on any other movie.
PLUME: He had some participation in The Omen, right?
DONNER: Yeah. They gave him big points.
PLUME: As a director, when you do such a big genre pic as your first major feature, was there a fear that it would have pigeonholed you?
DONNER: Well, there’s always that possibility, but when I was doing television I did the same thing. I did comedies… I did everything from Gilligan’s Island to Naked City to Route 66… You name it. I did every TV show, so I got out of that niche by not allowing myself to be put in that niche.
PLUME: Was it harder to avoid being placed in a niche as a film director than it was as a TV director, because it’s that much more high profile? I mean, once you have a success in a certain genre, the industry tends to want to push you back into that genre…
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DONNER: Yeah, but that’s your choice. After I did The Omen, I got scripts like that, and I just didn’t want to do another one. So, I mean, it’s your choice. You can either be put in that position of staying in a category or saying you want to break out. I won’t do it.
PLUME: At that point, did they try and push you into doing a sequel?
DONNER: I was going to do the sequel. As a matter of fact, I wrote part of the sequel. The whole sequence under the ice – that was mine. That’s been a fear of mine my whole life. I was going to do it, and then I got the call to do Superman, so I had to turn down the second one, obviously.
PLUME: I assume you still consider it a much better career move…
DONNER: Oh yeah. Totally. But the idea that I could have an icon like Superman and do that movie, I was riding high.
PLUME: Does it surprise you that The Omen continues to have the same kind of power over the years?
DONNER: Does it surprise me now? It would have then, obviously, but now… no. I think it was a very well done film that… I didn’t realize it would stand up as well as it has over the years, but it has stood up pretty strong, and continues to. So that surprises me. Everything about this business surprises me!
PLUME: And it’s a genre that you really haven’t revisited since then, except for in TV…
DONNER: You know, I would if I found something. I’ve always been looking for something. A couple of years ago I read a script that was really good – and it’s been made without me – called A Godsend. It’s coming out soon, and I don’t know what they did with it, but I hope they did good. But that could be every bit as frightening because it was very personal and it was driven by characters. So if they did that one right, they’ve got a big hit.
PLUME: It’s interesting how many of these iconic horror films have their basis in religion…
DONNER: Well, that’s what we live today. Religion seems to put the fear of “God” in everybody. Fear is what has motivated a lot of it over the centuries, so it makes a great subject matter for a film, or a book, or anything. It’s like treading on thin ice.
And the final time I interviewed Richard Donner was for the release of his adaptation of Michael Crichton’s Timeline, in 2003…
Conducted ~2003
KEN PLUME: What are the difficulties in the adaptation process – a process you’ve had to do previously in a much looser form with a much broader range of material, with Superman? With Timeline, this is the first time since then that you’ve gone into full adaptation mode…
RICHARD DONNER: It was not easy. Crichton writes a book that is really conditioned for motion pictures. He’s brilliant when it comes to that. His visuals are extraordinary, and his writing – although what we had to face, I don’t know how many hundreds of pages… to distill it down into under 2 hours… and there were a lot of things we had to change to make it work. His whole theory of time travel was extraordinarily interesting, and therefore the usage of it, in a commercial vein – which is what the book was predicated on – was fascinating, but when you try to say that in 50 words or less, you’re in a lot of trouble. So we took the liberty of changing it from somebody who’s gone out to invent time travel, and we made it inadvertent – much like in The Omen they were victims of circumstance rather than the reality of it, that demonic beings couldn’t be. So in this we changed it to that they were in the process of trying to develop a dimensional fax machine – much like a few years back you never thought that you could go to your telephone and a piece of paper would come through it. What we designed was that they were trying to build a machine that could fax a 3-D object, and in so doing, they inadvertently opened a wormhole, and they found that you could traverse it. And that wormhole – for some indescribable, unsolvable reason – went to 1357 France. So they sponsored the dig because they wanted to find out a reason from the academics why the wormhole only goes there. I felt, in doing this, it was much easier to explain it in short paragraphs than to explain it as time machines. You had to make departures. We had to join some characters together as one. We made the boy in the piece the professor’s son rather than a student, because we felt the ties that bind in relationships of family are stronger. But it’s very difficult – you take a book that’s a bestseller and mess with it, and you’re messing with an audience that’s coming to see what they’ve already seen. Hopefully – so far from our previews – we’ve been accepted, but we’ll see.
PLUME: When you’re adapting it, are there certain points where you go, “No, we’ve gone too far in changing the book…” ?
DONNER: Yes. Yes. A lot of times you go, “Well hold on, guys, hold on. Let’s settle in here and go back. These are good ideas, but it’s too much of a departure.”
PLUME: Anything that sticks out in your mind that was mooted but rejected?
DONNER: No, no… It’s so many years ago. It’s like three years ago, or something.
PLUME: What has been the difficulty in the development and shooting process of this film? Because when I spoke to you in 2001, you were about to shoot…
DONNER: The problems we ran into with this film are extraordinary. First it was a b**** developing the screenplay, which we finally did. Then we picked the location – we couldn’t shoot in France because everything around the Dordogne Valley and around that area was all built up – so you couldn’t get a Medieval look without spending a fortune to take everything out with computers. We looked for locations all over Europe, and we found the best one at that time in Wales. So we decided it was going to be Wales, and we art directed it for Wales, we started to design sets, we booked studios nearby… and in what could only happen to us, Hoof & Mouth disease hit England, and we were asked to leave because they wouldn’t allow anybody to travel with vehicles or trucks in and out of areas. We were literally shut down – a few million dollars gone down the drain. And then we looked all over Europe and we found – I don’t know if this is the exact history, but these are the things – and we were going to shoot in the national forests that were outside Berlin, which were quite beautiful and relatively untouched. Then 9/11 happened, and we didn’t want to be in Berlin with a high profile American film. Then we came back and had the threat of the strike, which closed us down for 6 months, and then when we got the go again we tried to do it in America, but it was much too expensive and wouldn’t hold up on the budget. Then we scouted in Canada, starting on the west coast and working ourselves east. The only place we could get away from mountains – because it’s such a mountainous country – was by the time we got to Montreal, and we stayed away from the Laurentians and found farmyards. So it was an incredible process to get this film made. We went through unbelievable problems.
PLUME: Was there any point where it could have been permanently derailed?
DONNER: At every point. We had spent so much money, and you just wanted to say, “Hey, wait a minute. Maybe it’s just better to recoup our losses and close up.” We lost all that money in Germany, we lost all that money in England, we had to close down because of the strike, we had to pay people off – maybe it was just better to wrap it because we’re never going to see that money on the screen. But we persevered… Let’s put it that way.
PLUME: What was it about the project that drove you to persevere?
DONNER: We were committed… We were committed. We’re were gonna do it. We loved it, we had a couple years of our lives in it, and we knew we had a good project. You couldn’t turn away from it.
PLUME: Had casting always been locked in during those permutations?
DONNER: No no no no… The final casting was done after we got back., and
PLUME: How difficult was it to cast the film?
DONNER: A little difficult, in that it was such an ensemble that you really wanted one to compliment the other. Paul Walker was just kind of… They made him for the role. Because he was a really good looking kid, nice kid, not all that interested in what he’s doing- but when his father gets in trouble, his life means everything. And Billy Connolly, of course – after I had seen him in Mrs. Brown, I just thought, “Wow. I don’t know if we can get him…” But we met, talked, and we had him. And then everybody else fell in. Gerry Butler is going to be very important – he’s wonderful. Frances O’Connor, David Thewlis, Anna Friel – everybody just worked. And they worked together well – and that’s what it had to be. It had to be an ensemble, and they were all pulling together. Every picture takes a lot of casting, but when you have an ensemble piece like this with this many people, it’s pretty bitchy getting it. It’s tough.
PLUME: You have two distinctly different time periods in the film – how did you set out to differentiate the two periods, either visually or stylistically?
DONNER: That’s a good questions. I had Caleb Deschanel – who is, as you know, one of the great cameramen. We decided that the contemporary period should have no distinction. It should just be. It’s today, it’d day, it’s night – it’s inside, it’s outside… there’s no real strong delineation, except that it’s almost documented. But then when you went back in time, we wanted to make it beautiful, but we wanted to make it very gritty. There’s very few cameramen who could have found that little trade, but he did it, and he did it just wonderfully. It’s just – you look at it and it’s a visually fascinating place to be, but it just feels almost a little dirty. Just… gritty. Gritty’s the word, I guess.
PLUME: Is there a similar period piece that you could compare it to? Does it feel more like Excalibur or Monty Python & The Holy Grail, or does it feel like The Adventures of Robin Hood?
DONNER: No, none of them, because they had a touch of fantasy to them. Don’t forget – we were going back into the 100 Year War. These academics have always looked at this as a very beautiful period where gentlemen were gentlemen and the wars were relatively righteous and the people were good and jovial and happy – and what they find in return is that it’s a terrible, terrible time. It’s shortly after the plague, it’s the 100 Year War, it’s brutality in its worst form – so their disillusionment had to be complemented by what they saw and how they see it. So as I say – we put the gritty edge.
PLUME: Providing a disillusionment for the audience as well as the characters…
DONNER: Yes, very much so.
PLUME: How authentic did you try to go in recreating the time period?
DONNER: Very… very. I mean, we did massive, massive research. I surrounded myself with the best people I could, and one of the best swordmasters, one of the best weaponry guys. The costumer was just great, and was from England and had just done the medieval period. In everything we tried very hard – within the realm of reason – to have our own sense of reality and make it work.
PLUME: Besides Maverick and Lady Hawke, this is the only other period piece you’ve ever done, right?
DONNER: Right.
PLUME: When doing a period piece, is there a challenge in trying to find a visual base to hang your design work on, in order to have an audience relate to it?
DONNER: There’s a book about the medieval period, and it’s called Distant Mirror, by Barbara Tuchman, and it was 90% of our research – except for weaponry and things like that. That came to our weaponmasters, who designed catapults that actually worked, and fired these fireballs, like 300 yards. It was extraordinary what they did.
PLUME: Would you say that once the actual production got going and you were on the ground filming, things went smoothly from that point? Or were there any other issues?
DONNER: Well, the issues were that it was an hour outside Montreal and we shot in both winter and summer, and it was freezing and raining. The entire battle sequence was night, and that took us a couple of months, and it was a b****. It was really totally uncomfortable. And then as spring and summer came to us – we had obviously planned all this – it got so mosquito-y and buggy and muggy… it was a b****. But what shoot isn’t? Maybe doing it in Paris, but I don’t get that lucky.
PLUME: Is my understanding correct that there were some reshoots done for the film?
DONNER: Not really reshoots – there were add-ons.
PLUME: What was the impetus for doing the add-ons? Were there certain plot holes or threads you wanted to address?
DONNER: The thing is – I always try to save a hunk of money so I don’t ever have to go to the studio if I want to do pick-ups or changes. We saved a hunk of money, and then when we cut the picture together, I looked and I said, “You know what? I think maybe I knew this too well, and maybe the audience needs more explanation here – because if they don’t understand this particular thing, they’re not going to understand that.” So we would sit down and write these and take out time, and then go, “Wait a minute. I don’t need it.” Because we did find something else. Finally we got to a point where I said, “We got enough for a 5 day shot, so let’s go shoot.” And I didn’t have to ask anybody because I had already had the money in the budget.
PLUME: What are your feelings on the negative buzz that has built up around this project, with people saying, “There were reshoots – there must be problems…” ?
DONNER: I never reshot anything
PLUME: Do you think it’s become harder for a filmmaker, in this age of the internet, to do the kind of postproduction and testing that your average film requires without being bombarded by this sort of critical assessment?
DONNER: I hear about that, but I can’t worry about it. You’ve gotta go by the way you make films, and you have your process. Maybe you have to make some modifications, but we’ve had screenings – we’ve had good screenings. I haven’t heard anything bad – as a matter of fact, all I’ve heard has been good.
PLUME: Has your filmmaking process changed over the years?
DONNER: It’s very much the same. The only thing that has really changed is the advent of the computer. As I said, if you can do it real – so it’s tangible and can be touched and it’s visceral – do it. If you can’t – if it’s impossible – then go to the computer. But my feeling is try and do it the old way, Try and do it real. Let the actors live in a habitat that has a sense of reality to them. I still try and do that.
PLUME: As a director, it seemed like you were averaging a film almost every year during the 80’s and early 90’s…
DONNER: Right…
PLUME: What slowed down that momentum? Was it a conscious decision you made to do less projects?
DONNER: No… I’m in less of a rush to do them. But this thing took me forever. There was so much time wrapped up in this that it was extraordinary. Plus, I has taken a year to build my house. I wanted to be there – which I never should have been, because it cost me a fortune. I’ve learned my lesson. But I wanted to be there, and I did it. Right now, this is coming out, and I’m going to have a Christmas and New Year’s vacation, and then when I come back I’m going to start on another picture.
PLUME: Which picture would that be?
DONNER: Well, I’m not sure. It’s one of two, but I think it’s going to be an original Brian Helgeland script, which I love desperately.
PLUME: What is the current status of Goonies 2?
DONNER: Waiting for Warners to say yes. They’re being ridiculous.
PLUME: Still something you want to do?
DONNER: If I don’t direct it, I’ll produce it. I do want to make it, though. I definitely want to make it.
PLUME: What are all these rumors that have been circulating over the past few years regarding you and a Captain Marvel project?
DONNER: For me? First I heard of it. I did Superman – I don’t want to do any more of those.
PLUME: People have also been clamoring for you to make a “director’s cut” of Superman II, or wondering why Warners hasn’t offered you a new Superman film…
DONNER: People would have to ask Warners…
PLUME: Is it even a franchise that you would want to revisit?
DONNER: It all depends on the material. If they make it with the same respect it should be made, I’d be interested. If they make it with little respect but strictly “How do we catch up to everybody else that’s making these?” – I don’t want to be involved.
PLUME: Is it even possible, at this point, for you to do a director’s cut of Superman II?
DONNER: I don’t think so, anymore. I don’t think the material even exists.
PLUME: If the material that you shot still exists, would it be possible?
DONNER: Oh sure. Yeah, if it was around I could put that material back together. I would love to. We had terrible times finding that stuff. I don’t know what the Salkinds did with it. That’s negative, man, and it’s got to be treated right or it doesn’t exist. And I don’t know where they have all the outtake negative.
PLUME: Well, it wouldn’t be the first time they did something they shouldn’t…
DONNER: Oh, you are so right…
PLUME: Speaking of things I’d love to see, are there any plans to do a special edition DVD of Scrooged?
DONNER: God, I don’t know… I never even thought of that. What a great idea!
PLUME: When I spoke to you last, you mentioned there was all kinds of behind-the-scenes and deleted footage that exists for that…
DONNER: Yeah… Damn! I’m going to do something about that. There’s a lot of footage that didn’t make the movie.
PLUME: The only other special edition I’d still like to see is Maverick, which Warner released only as a bare-bones edition…
DONNER: See, they’re not too smart. It’s too bad. There’s another one – I’ve got a lot of footage on that one. A lot of footage.
PLUME: So can I cross my fingers and hope for the best?
DONNER: You know what? I’m gonna ask.
PLUME: Are there any projects at this time that you can point to and say, “I desperately want to get this off the ground…” ?
DONNER: The one I’m going to do with Brian Helgeland.
PLUME: Is this one that’s been in play for awhile?
DONNER: A long time. The story was, and then Brian wrote it. I had the story, and I waited and I waited. Brian is the only guy who really found a handle on it, he wrote it on his own, and he did just a wondrous job.
PLUME: Do you think that you’ll ever lose your desire to direct?
DONNER: If I do, we won’t be having these conversations.
PLUME: You’ll always have producing…
DONNER: Ehhh… If I ever lose my love for directing, then I don’t know what I’m going to do. Go fishin’?
PLUME: Is there a difference in the emotional investment between producing and directing?
DONNER: It is for me, because one is totally hands-on. The other is extraordinarily great support. And I gotta be hands-on.
PLUME: Do you find that easier now than it was in the past, or do the same hurdles still exist?
DONNER: It’s a lot easier. They don’t bother you making the films. Just make up your mind which material you want to devote that year and the beginning of the next to.
PLUME: So you’ll be helming the next X-Men film, right? I hear you have an in with one of the producers…
DONNER: Yeah, tell me about it!
I’m Ken Plume, and soon you’ll be listening to “A Bit Of A Chat” with me, Ken Plume.
I’m Ken Plume, and soon you’ll be listening to “A Bit Of A Chat” with me, Ken Plume.
I’m Ken Plume, and soon you’ll be listening to “A Bit Of A Chat” with me, Ken Plume.
I’m Ken Plume, and soon you’ll be listening to “A Bit Of A Chat” with me, Ken Plume.
I’ve had the opportunity to talk with a lot of interesting people over the years. Sadly, it often seems to take one of those people passing away for me to remember that I’ve had those opportunities.
I’m Ken Plume, and soon you’ll be listening to “A Bit Of A Chat” with me, Ken Plume.
I’m Ken Plume, and soon you’ll be listening to “A Bit Of A Chat” with me, Ken Plume.
I’m Ken Plume, and soon you’ll be listening to “A Bit Of A Chat” with me, Ken Plume.
I’m Ken Plume, and soon you’ll be listening to “A Bit Of A Chat” with me, Ken Plume.
I’m Ken Plume, and soon you’ll be listening to “A Bit Of A Chat” with me, Ken Plume.
I’m Ken Plume, and soon you’ll be listening to “A Bit Of A Chat” with me, Ken Plume.
I’m Ken Plume, and soon you’ll be listening to “A Bit Of A Chat” with me, Ken Plume.
I’m Ken Plume, and soon you’ll be listening to “A Bit Of A Chat” with me, Ken Plume.
I’m Ken Plume, and soon you’ll be listening to “A Bit Of A Chat” with me, Ken Plume.