Michael Caine cock(ney)s up shakespeare

INT.HOLLYWOOD DIOGENES CLUB-DAY
MICHAEL CAINE is sharing a brandy in the sedate library of this fabled haven of civility in an oftentimes torrid city with his agent, the celebrated MONTGOMERY MONCRIEFF MICAWBER-MYCROFT. Micawber-Mycroft though is wary. He knows only too well the fixed eye of the man with a grievance…

CAINE: You’ve been there ’aven’t you?
MICAWBER-MYCROFT: What, the rebuilt Globe? Yes, of course I’ve been there. I saw Macbeth there a few years ago, they had posters everywhere proclaiming ‘This is a bloody production of an extremely brutal play’; I had to stop myself from cackling with delight. That should draw in the crowds in Sarf London I thought to myself.
CAINE: And you’ve been around the exhibition part of it as well, yeah?
MICAWBER-MYCROFT: Yes, of course I have.
CAINE: So you know the booths where you can listen to all the old geezers speaking Shakespeare?
MICAWBER-MYCROFT: Um, yes I tried out the sound booths where you can listen to choice speeches, scenes and sonnets being performed by RADA’s finest graduates. 
CAINE: And?
MICAWBER-MYCROFT: And what?
CAINE: Wha’ did you notice?
MICAWBER-MYCROFT: Well, I was rather surprised that the earliest recordings, of Edwardian era actors doing Henry V’s big speeches, made Larry Olivier sound like he was being restrained by contrast when he popped up later. In fact he sounded positively subdued, and, whisper it, naturalistic, when we both know he was an enormous ham.
CAINE: No, Mycroft, you’re missing my point. Wha’ did you notice, did you ’ear a lot of regional accents in them booths?
MICAWBER-MYCROFT: Eh, no.
CAINE: Yeah, Eh, No. And why is tha’, eh? Do all the people in England sound like Laurence bloody Olivier when they open their mouth? Not bloody likely. So why can’t someone who sounds like me be featured in the recordings in them booths?
(Mycroft quickly puzzles out in his head what this meeting is really all about…)
MICAWBER-MYCROFT: Do you want me to try and get your voice into those booths?!
CAINE: Yeah!
MICAWBER-MYCROFT: But, you’ve never really done Shakespeare…
CAINE: How bloody ’ard it can be? I’m not going to record a whole bloody play, I’ll just replace the one track they’ve go’ with Olivier doing Othello. Daft bastard shouldn’t be there doing that anyway, it’s an insult. Putting on blackface at age 58, in 1965 for Christ’s sake, what was he thinking? Until Chiwetel Eijofor remembers to record his bloody vocals for that fantastic exit scene he did with Ewan McGregor a few years ago I’ll ’ave a go.
MICAWBER-MYCROFT: Oh! That speech? The final soliloquy?
CAINE: Yeah, tha’ one.
MICAWBER-MYCROFT: I’m not sure that’s a very good idea, Michael.
CAINE: Why? Wha’? Do you think I can’t measure up to Larry?
MICAWBER-MYCROFT: No, we both know you can, it’s just I have grave fears that that particular speech might sort of, well, send you looping off in another direction, almost against your will, as it were.
CAINE: Nonsense, it’s easy. (not really listening to Micawber-Mycroft anymore….)
MICAWBER-MYCROFT: (shuddering) And then I might have to deal with an angry Nolan again. And I don’t like dealing with Nolan when he’s angry, especially not now when he’s already simmering at mildly furious with me for telling Delaney I fed him a pivotal line of dialogue for Batman Begins.
CAINE: I’ll go in, knock it ou’, and be back in time to film a cameo in a remake of Jaws IV.

INT.ABBEY ROAD STUDIOS, LONDON-DAY
MICHAEL CAINE and BORIS, a sound engineer, stand on either side of the glass in a recording studio. Boris gives Caine the thumbs up thru the glass, and Caine picks up a battered old Penguin Popular Classic copy of Othello from the studio floor, bent open at the right page with a huge amount of annotation of the speech in question. He then proceeds to deliver a performance and a half; he invests the text with sub-text, pathos, nobility, nuance, and even that thing where his voice breaks when he gets very emotional – very emotional, indeed…

CAINE: Soft you; a word or two before you go:
I have done the Sta’e some service, and they know’t:
No more of tha’. I pray you in your le’’ers,
When you shall these unlucky deeds rela’e,
Speak of me, as Oi am. Nuffin’ extenua’e,
Nor se’ down augh’ in malice.
Then you must speak,
Of one that lov’d no’ wisely, but too well:
Of one, no’ easily jealous, but being wrough’,
Perplex’d in the extreme: Of one, ’ose ’and,
Like the base Indian threw a pearl away
(Twitches; self-restraining, then forlornly) The size, of a tangerine…
BORIS: CUT!
(Boris shakes his head, walks to the door, and opens it. Looks pityingly at Michael Caine and quietly says–)
BORIS: Get out.
CAINE: Yeah, alrigh’.

Micawber-Mycroft explains nervous action directing

INT.HOLLYWOOD DIOGENES CLUB-DAY

DELANEY, an agent to the stars, uneasily walks into the library of the well-appointed Diogenes Club. Yes, this may be a haven of civility in an oftentimes torrid city, but it is also entirely lacking in potted plants; which he likes to water to put his mind at ease. Thankfully he spots his friend and fellow agent MONTGOMERY MONCRIEFF MICAWBER-MYCROFT across the room and wanders over to where he is seated, only to be shushed into silence as he sits down.

MICAWBER-MYCROFT: Look at that agent over there! It’s hysterical. He’s been reading the Inception screenplay just like that for the past week and he still hasn’t grasped what it’s all about.

DELANEY: (hurt) Mycroft! You know that I don’t understand what it’s all about either!

MICAWBER-MYCROFT: Pshaw my good man! Pshaw! You don’t understand the philosophical ramifications and the apparent inner inconsistencies. He doesn’t understand how two levels of reality being depicted simultaneously can work on film. Someone tried to explain The Matrix to him yesterday and he had to lie down for the entire afternoon to recover…

DELANEY: Oh, wow.

MICAWBER-MYCROFT: Quite. (beat) Why are you here anyway?

DELANEY: You asked me to meet you here.

MICAWBER-MYCROFT: Well of course I did dear boy. I couldn’t possibly come to meet you in your office, my only vice is indolence and I’m loathe to move from my regular armchair here. Let me to try to remember which among the many brightly-coloured balls that I must keep juggling in the air in my capacity as an over-worked agent I wanted to warn you about. Ah yes! Bond.

DELANEY: James Bond?

MICAWBER-MYCROFT: Yes. The studio has sorted out nightmarish licensing and financial difficulties, the understanding of which defeated even my vast legal expertise, and so is ready to make another Bond movie with Peter Morgan making the gibberish action script legible to thinking humans and Sam Mendes at the helm.

DELANEY: At the helm?

MICAWBER-MYCROFT: Lensing it, as they say.

DELANEY: As who says? What’s he doing?

MICAWBER-MYCROFT: He’s directing it you twit! Really, you must try and keep up with the synonyms this business throws out, no wonder McAvoy and Pellegrino keep moaning…

DELANEY: How did you know about that?

MICAWBER-MYCROFT: I quite often breach the fourth wall not once but twice before breakfast. Anyway, that’s not important. What matters is that you must at all costs prevent all your stable of actors from taking over-prominent parts in this production.

DELANEY: What?! Why?? Mendes is a good director isn’t he? I thought that people won awards, or at least got nominated for awards when they appeared in his stuff.

MICAWBER-MYCROFT: Yes, that’s true.

DELANEY: So wouldn’t my guys win awards or get nominated if they did his new movie?

MICAWBER-MYCROFT: Not a chance, Bond movies don’t get awards no matter how Casino Royale they are.

DELANEY: Oh, but still, wouldn’t it be a good career move? Mendes directing Bond? He’s a name director after all.

MICAWBER-MYCROFT: Yes, but, is he an action director? No sir, he is not, he is an actors’ director, and whenever an actors’ director gets thrown onto an action movie their soul frets in the shadow of spectacle.

DELANEY: You mean they don’t know what to do with the CGI?

MICAWBER-MYCROFT: Pshaw sir! CGI is the least of their worries. Let me conjure up a scene for you…

INT.HOLLYWOOD BACKLOT-DAY

RODRIGO DELL’ARTE, an imaginary art-house director, arrives in thru the studio gate and is immediately pounced on by A GAGGLE of production heads bellowing questions and demands.

BORIS: Where are we going to shoot the car-chase?

MICAWBER-MYCROFT (O/S): Car-what? The man’s barely aware of what a car is, he gets public transport everywhere as a matter of principle. As for car-chases they hold no interest for him whatsoever, what can a car-chase say about the human condition?

(Dell’Arte shrugs his shoulders expressively to Boris)

JOHNSON: Are we going to do all the explosions for real or will we try and skimp by with CGI for some of them to free up their budget for the wire-work in the night-time museum sequence?

MICAWBER-MYCROFT (O/S): He’s heard the letters CGI, but has never had to have an actual conversation about them before. As for wire-work, that sounds more practical but still it scares the life out of him.

(Dell’Arte nods approvingly to Johnson)

GODUNOV: Have you made a final decision on which location you want to film the base-jumping sequence from, Hong Kong or Dubai?

MICAWBER-MYCROFT (O/S): What is this? A movie or a round the world cruise? Previously he’s only ever been offered choices between tiny sound-stages and cramped apartments…

(Dell’Arte throws his hands up in despair, and defers to his SECOND UNIT DIRECTOR)

INT.HOLLYWOOD DIOGENES CLUB-DAY

Micawber-Mycroft leans back in his chair.

MICAWBER-MYCROFT: In summary, this is a world they’ll never understand, and you’ll always fear what you don’t understand.

DELANEY: That sounds oddly familiar.

MICAWBER-MYCROFT: I may have said it rather loudly when a struggling director was dining here some years back.

DELANEY: So an art-house director on an action movie simply defers to the second unit?

MICAWBER-MYCROFT: Indeed he does! They have the experience and expertise he does not, he is simply terrorised by their smooth efficiency. He’s made to feel an interloper on his own production. He leaves so much to the blasted second unit that the first time he sees the cast is two months into a six month shoot and they don’t know who he is. This does not gel an ensemble…

DELANEY: So, well then at least the action is perfect, even if he stood back from it?

MICAWBER-MYCROFT: No, the action is perfectly fine because it’s being done by professionals without someone standing over them whipping them onwards. Martin Campbell gets all the action in Casino Royale perfectly perfect because he’s an action director merrily urging his second unit on to great heights, but then he also manages to get the actors to reach the same heights in the first unit stuff. Which may have been sheer luck, the great script, or, as I suspect, the ease they felt in knowing that this man was indeed on top of everything in the film.

DELANEY: And you think that a less commercial director will just get into a blind panic over the action, and sit back from it, thinking he can focus on getting the acting scenes top notch, but then the acting doesn’t compensate?

MICAWBER-MYCROFT: Of course the acting doesn’t compensate! No one goes to an action film to see people acting! Acting is merely what they do in between explosions, fights, and car-chases to keep the action from getting monotonous.

DELANEY: So you think the next Bond film will be a bit of a mess?

MICAWBER-MYCROFT: I don’t know what to expect. Mendes has a flair for comedy which is oft forgotten because he makes such downbeat films, so you can expect the next Bond film to be quite funny. And you can guarantee he’ll draw out top-notch performances. But, you cannot put money down on it being a great film without reservations…

DELANEY: How are you such an expert on this?

MICAWBER-MYCROFT: I’m British.

James McAvoy needs a new agent

INT.HOLLYWOOD OFFICE-DAY
DELANEY, agent to a galaxy of stars, well, James McAvoy and Mark Pellegrino, sits at his desk lovingly watering his potted plant while JAMES MCAVOY, paces around the office restlessly, waves his arms passionately, and complains volubly…

MCAVOY: It’s happened again! Again!
DELANEY: What? That I got you the lead role in a great film, yeah, you’re welcome.
MCAVOY: Pshaw! I’ve been upstaged as the lead in a great film, again, you mean!
DELANEY: What do you mean ‘again’?
MCAVOY: This is continually happening to me. Take The Last King of Scotland.
DELANEY: I did, you wanted that! You’re Scottish.
MCAVOY: Yes, I wanted it but look what happened. Forest Whitaker won the bloody Oscar for his supporting role. Best Actor for a supporting role! And I didn’t even get nominated!
DELANEY: Yeah, but then I got you Atonement.
MCAVOY: Where I was upstaged by a 12 year old girl! Who also got nominated! When I didn’t. Again!
DELANEY: She’s a very good actress.
MCAVOY: I’ll grant you that. (beat) Perhaps no one could have seen that one coming. But, Wanted, there’s no excuse for that.
DELANEY: You loved Wanted! When I told you I had the lead role in a Mark Millar action-movie, Mark Millar, Scottish comics genius, you nearly we-
MCAVOY: Yes! Yes, that’s true. But… if you’d told me Angelina Jolie was going to be playing Fox I would have thought twice about it, because she upstaged me! And she was always bound to upstage me from that role.
DELANEY: And your gripe with X-Men: First Class is what exactly?
MCAVOY: What do you think, Delaney? Fassbender upstaged me!
DELANEY: Well, couldn’t you have tried harder?
MCAVOY: Tried harder! Tried harder? He clearly had the better part!
DELANEY: What? That’s insane. Your name comes first on the cast-list. I checked before I told them you’d consider it. Only the best for my MacAvoy!
MCAVOY: Answer me this. What do I do in the movie that’s cool?
DELANEY: You drink from that silly long tubey glass, and hit on girls, oh, and read people’s minds, oh, oh, and make them do stuff they don’t want to.
MCAVOY: No, that’s funny, that’s what I do that’s funny, what do I do that’s cool?
DELANEY: Um…
MCAVOY: Nothing that’s what! Professor X wanders around like a spoilt rich kid, ignoring the fact that Mystique is plainly in love with him, and that the world does not want to sit down by a campfire and sing Cumbaya with the mutants. Meanwhile freaking Fassbender is…is… just…
DELANEY: Fassbendering?
MCAVOY: YES! He’s off in Argentina killing Nazis like he’s wandered in from some sort of deleted storyline from Inglourious Basterds while I’m doing my best to be as sleazy as Patrick Stewart’s proposed take on Professor X in Extras!
DELANEY: So, what’ s your point?
MCAVOY: My point, and I want you to pay very close attention to this because I’ve been talking to Pellegrino and so have a very realistic appreciation of the chances of you actually grasping this, is that – just because a name comes first in the list of characters or in the cast-list doesn’t mean that it’s the best part in the movie.
DELANEY: Wh-what?
MCAVOY: Sometimes, and I’m sorry for this because I know this will wound you deeply, it is actually necessary to read the script first and not just the list of characters before deciding what part is the best part.
DELANEY: Read…. Read…. (Delaney starts to hyperventilate)
(McAvoy walks over and places a finger to Delaney’s forehead)
MCAVOY: Just breathe. Calm your mind. Be Calm.
DELANEY: (Delaney’s equilibrium is magically restored) Read… the script?!
MCAVOY: Yes, or which would be better, just get Janine to read the script for you.
DELANEY: But what would she know about something like that? I’m the agent, I’m the litmus test of dramatic quality around here. She’s just the secretary.
(McAvoy hits speakerphone switch.)
MCAVOY: Janine, did you by any chance read the script for X-Men: First Class when it was lying around the office a while back?
JANINE (O/S): Yes.
MCAVOY: Now, Janine, don’t think about this, just answer instantly, which is the better part in your opinion in that script, Xavier or Erik?
JANINE (O/S): Oh, Erik of course. Erik is just a more complex and challenging role. He’s got such a compelling and justifiable motivation for his actions that it just completely skews all traditional comic-book morality. It’s probably Vaughn’s touch after co-writing Kick-Ass, but it’s hard not to think that he’s portraying Erik much like Big Daddy, as a dark superhero rather than as a super-villain.
MCAVOY: Thank you, Janine. (He clicks off speakerphone switch) You see?
DELANEY: X-traordinary. I’ve never seen anything like this before…
(McAvoy groans and slumps in chair.)

The Ashen Road

A whistle blew, and the train trembled into movement….

What’s a train?

Oh silly me, I forgot you were born after the hauntingly vague apocalypse.

So I wouldn’t know what a train was.

No, you wouldn’t.

Okay.

Okay.

The man smiled sadly. The man and the boy trudged onwards along the ashen road. The road was covered in ash, the ground on either side was covered in ash, and the trees set back from the road were ashy, probably because they were ash-trees. Ash was everywhere, even in his memories, as his wife had been called Ash, even though she had had a willowy figure. His wife. He remembered her desertion of them without emotion. It had been too long ago for the concept of emotion to remain after the language had died that could express it.

The man woke from a dream. Even his dreams were pallid and ashen. He tried to get back to sleep, hoping that maybe this dream would have some flash of vivid colour. He returned to his dream, he was following a pig in the dark but without being able to reach it. The pig had something on its back – it was carrying fire in a container with glazed sides that allowed the light to escape. The man realised he would never catch the pig. Then he woke and wept.

What’ll we do for food now?

We’ll get by. We always do. Do you remember the time we came across a bunker full of food, and before that the time we stumbled onto a truck full of food, or the time we were hunting for mushrooms in a field, down on our hands and knees rooting like pigs, and then we found a dead pig.

You think that will happen again?

Well, maybe not it exactly, but… Something will turn up, it always does, it’s like some secular intervention keeps putting food just a bit further down the road despite the fact that all life was wiped out some years ago by that oddly unspecified event.

Is that how other people survive?

Yes, that and eating each other.

But we’d never do that.

No.

Never?

Not unless it was someone truly evil. Like Lady GaGa.

Okay.

Okay.

The boy was excited when the man returned from the woods beside the road.

Who’s that?

Who?

That old man in the distance, further along the ashen road.

He looks like a Jungian Archetype.

What?

Damn! I forgot.

You wouldn’t know because the apocalypse happened, somehow, before you were born but a Jungian Archetype is a reference to Star Wars.

Star Wars?

A Film.

Film?

Never mind, the point is that if the man has a beard, he’ll be wise.

You have a beard.

Ah, but my beard’s not white. If his is white he’s wise, if he’s also British then we’re really in luck. He’ll know what’s going on for sure.

The old man stopped walking when he heard the sound of their footsteps. The man approached slowly, and tried to convey by holding his hands out that he meant no harm to the old man.

I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to talk to you, about the apocalypse.

Go ahead.

What reason?

That question makes no sense.

I was being cryptic for the sake of the boy. Can you save us?

Yes. I have a book that can rebuild technology.

REALLY?

Yes, boy of indeterminate age, I have in my mind….The old man tapped his forehead….

The complete King James Bible.

The what?

The boy stood with a confused expression on his face while the old man smiled and the man looked like he was recovering from a nasty shock.

The King James Bible, said the man, disappointed. A book that can’t even get Pi right and you expect it to rebuild civilisation?

Oh, I’m sorry, I must be mistaken, I thought you were characters from the Book of Eli. My Bad.

The old man shuffled off down along the ashen road.

I always thought Jung was full of crap said the man, before coughing so violently that blood dripped ominously from his mouth.

Later. The man was huddled in his blanket. A grizzled man stood looking at him with compassion. Life ebbing, the boy crying.

But I don’t want to leave you.

Don’t be afraid. Remember what I taught you about Hollywood clichés.

To carry the flame, and always just be myself.

Yes. And even the last man on earth can have a happy ending. You just have to believe…

The boy cried for a time. Then he followed his new father figure. If civilisation ever returned, he was sure his dead father’s story would win many awards. For bravery, and other things.

Great Production Disasters of Our Time: Apocalypse Now

Few people have understood cryptic references in interviews by other actors over the decades to Harvey Keitel’s unusual powers. Keitel is in fact a master of the mystic arts, an American Magus, who has used his powers to escape disastrously prolonged shoots twice in his career…

EXT.PHILLIPINES-DAY, 1976
HARVEY KEITEL, DENNIS HOPPER, SAM BOTTOMS and ROBERT DUVALL are walking thru a jungle with electricity cables and camera tracks running thru it. Disorganised CREW yell at each other about the chaos while various lights fall off of the rigs shambolically connected to the trees.

KEITEL: (looking around him) I have a bad feeling about this…
DUVALL: I passed on that script. I’ll tell you this for free, George is just selling out with that project.
KEITEL: No, I meant I genuinely have a bad feeling about this, right here. I think this film’s going to get badly out of hand. In fact, I’m going to check. (He pulls a pen and paper from his pocket) Sam, can you meet me in my trailer in half an hour with the following items. Don’t stress about the eye of newt if you can’t get it readily…

Keitel hurriedly scribbles a list and hands it to Sam Bottoms who takes off running.

KEITEL: (gravely) Let’s all pray that I’m wrong…. (he holds out his hands)
DUVALL: Pray my ass. I’ve got better things to do, I’m going to go ring George again, make him cry by quoting him at himself again. “Anyone can drown some kittens and make the audience cry”. Oh yeah George, and what do you call the Millenial Falcon swooping in to save the day at the last second then?
KEITEL: Look, just what is this script that you’re so bitter about ‘passing on’?
DUVALL: Doesn’t matter. I passed on it. I did pass on it. It’s rubbish. I’m not bitter. Juvenile trash. Regurgitated Joseph Campbell. Didn’t want to be in it anyway. Only read the script as a favour to him.
HOPPER: Dude, I heard he wanted you to wear a wig for the audition. A wig! Full on Sinatra… (starts to giggle uncontrollably, while Duvall stops and the others do too)
DUVALL: (tense beat) Dennis, remember when you said you were going to strap dynamite to your chest and blow yourself up as part of an art happening, and I said that’s not performance art you moron that’s suicide with the potential to become mass murder. Well, I was wrong Dennis – absolutely do that if it feels right to you.

Exit Duvall, grumbling about space smugglers needing hair to look properly roguish.

KEITEL: (He grabs Hopper before he can follow Duvall) Dennis, I want you to listen to me very carefully. On no account are you to strap dynamite to yourself and attend an art happening.

INT.PHILLIPINES-DAY
One hour later. FREDERIC FORREST walks into Keitel’s trailer to find Bottoms, Hopper, and Keitel, in a hooded cape and muttering readings from a book, gathered around a steaming cauldron, which is placed in the centre of a chalk pentagram.

FORREST: What the hell’s going on here?
HOPPER: He’s using the mystic arts man. Weird sister hoodoo is going on right here.
BOTTOMS: He’s reading the runes, and they are far-out my brother.
HOPPER: Psychedelic indeed, just grasp it – we have an authentic mage in the cast.
FORREST: Huh, trippy man.
KEITEL: Could everyone try very hard to be just a little less of a walking hippie cliché for a moment while I try to concentrate on reciting this Latin right?!

EXT.PHILLIPINES-DAY
FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA is storming thru the jungle with his PA. He is bellowing constantly at various crew members that drop ever more lights off trees in their fright.

COPPOLA: I’m surrounded by incompetent amateurs. Where is my espresso?
PA: We’re in a freaking jungle! Accept that there is no espresso machine here.
COPPOLA: Well, what am I supposed to do to keep alert in this absurd humidity?
PA: Here’s a pill.
COPPOLA: A pill. I ask for espresso and you give me NASA food. What is it?
PA: Do you care?
COPPOLA: (beat) No. (pops the pill) What’s the worst that could happen?

INT.PHILLIPINES-DAY
Frederic Forrest is storming around Keitel’s trailer running his hands thru his hair.

FORREST: HOW LONG ARE WE GOING TO BE HERE?!
KEITEL: A year and a half at least seems to be what the powers are indicating. Divination is not an exact science. It’s not actually a science at all, technically.
BOTTOMS: Oh man, will the drug supply last that long?
KEITEL: Believe me when I tell you Sam that the drug supply will last long after everything else has run out, including sanity.
HOPPER: Oh man, can I righteously wait that long before dynamiting myself?
KEITEL: Not that sanity was in much supply to begin with… Gentlemen, it’s been… peculiar, but, if you’ll excuse me, I have to contrive to get fired as soon as I can.

INT.PHILLIPINES-DAY
Keitel knocks on the door of Coppola’s trailer. He thinks he is interrupting but it turns out that Coppola is merely bellowing orders at a tree thru the window for no reason.

KEITEL: Francis! Glad I caught you. I had some ideas I’d like to run past you.
COPPOLA: Come on in man, come on in! That’s what doors are for!!
KEITEL: (sits nervously) I want to do at least one scene thru interpretive dance.
COPPOLA: Groovy. I love interpretive dance. (He gets up and starts to dance)
KEITEL: I’d also like to juggle chickens during the plantation dinner scene.
COPPOLA: Sure. (He sits down and starts juggling cigarette-lighters, and drops them all quite quickly) Sure, sure, I’m sure you can pull it off with practise. You, man. You. (beat) You.
KEITEL: Yeaah. I, uh, I want to interpret Willard as a tomato filled with self-loathing at his hyphenated status who slowly learns to overcome his liminal status by embracing it. But only in alternating takes. The other takes – I’ll be a French mime.
COPPOLA: Interesting take on the character… Really ties in to the politics of it all.
KEITEL: I also have deep ethical issues with actually killing a cow with a machete.
COPPOLA: You’re fired.
KEITEL: Thank Christ. I was beginning to think I’d never push you over the edge.

Keitel pulls his cloak around him while he stands up and disappears in a puff of smoke. Coppola observes this without emotion, but eventually starts to look askance.

COPPOLA: I’m requesting an espresso machine gets flown in first thing or we’re never going to get any work done around here.

Great Production Disasters of Our Time: The Avengers

Edward Norton was undiplomatically relieved of his role as Bruce Banner/Hulk in Whedon’s forthcoming The Avengers after one disastrous production meeting…

INT.LOS ANGELES, MARVEL CONFERENCE ROOM-DAY
DELANEY, not Mark Pellegrino’s celebrated agent but a Marvel Studios producer who by an amazing coincidence has the same surname, is seated beside JOSS WHEDON at the head of a long conference table. EDWARD NORTON sits at the opposite end with a stack of comics and books, while SCARLETT JOHANSSON and SAMUEL L JACKSON sit beside two empty chairs on one side, with CHRIS EVANS and CHRIS HEMSWORTH opposite them, beside another two empty chairs.

DELANEY: First off I’d like to thank all of you who showed up today, for taking the time to come here to meet your new writer/director for The Avengers, Joss Whedon.
WHEDON: Hi everyone. This is just a sort of informal meet and greet to talk you through some of the broad ideas that I have for the direction I’m going to take the film in and-
NORTON: Well I’m glad that I’ve caught you in time then because I have some creative ideas I’d like to talk about regarding Hulk’s centrality in-

He is interrupted by ROBERT DOWNEY JR exploding into the room with a cup of coffee in each hand and a cell phone nestled under his chin against his shoulder. He precariously keeps everything from spilling or dropping while dancing over to sit next to Scarlett Johansson who he purrs at before facing the others.
 
DOWNEY: Hello, hello, hello – sorry I’m late, I’m trying to find a Moriarty. (nods) Sam the man. Scarlett witch. Buffy-man. Delaney. (beat) And, two new guys.
EVANS: Chris Evans – Captain America.
HEMSWORTH: Chris Hemsworth – The Mighty Thor.
DOWNEY: You’re both Chris? Oh man that’s too much for me to deal with this early in the morning.
JACKSON: Robert, it’s 2pm.
DOWNEY: Is it? Am I that confused with the time? What time is it London then? I’ve been annoying Ritchie all morning/day/night. I’m just gonna call you Cap’n.
EVANS: Fine with me.
DOWNEY: And I’ll call you Chris.
HEMSWORTH: Okay. Aren’t we short some actresses?
DOWNEY: Oh, Gwyneth’s in London. She said she wanted to spend more time with – iPhone, iPod?
JOHANSSON: Apple!
DOWNEY: Yeah, that’s what I meant.
NORTON: Where’s Jennifer Connelly?
DELANEY: We’re not sure if we’re using her yet.
NORTON: Well now hang on a minute!
DOWNEY: Oh, we should totally use her, and I mean that in as sexual a manner as the rating will allow. We should have like three different love triangles in the movie – one for each act. In the first act it can be all crazy Scarlett vs Gwyneth action for me, and in the second act it can be all me vs Ed for Jennifer-
NORTON: It’s Edward actually.
DOWNEY: -and the third act should be totally homoerotic, so that it looks like it’s me vs Cap’n for Gwyneth but actually we really totally want each other and the girl is just a medium for our inexpressible homosocial desires.
DELANEY: Whedon, don’t even think about taking him up on any of those ideas, especially the last. This film has been enough trouble for me already…
DOWNEY: (phone rings) Ooh, Ritchie.

Downey bounds to his feet and dashes out of the room with a cup of coffee.

WHEDON: (to Delaney) Are you sure he’s not on drugs?
EVANS: (to Johansson) Scarlett, did he just come onto me?
JOHANSSON: (to Evans) No Chris, he’s just still in Sherlock Holmes mode.
DELANEY: (to Whedon) Downey’s on fire right now commercially, this is one time where he can legitimately be high on life.
NORTON: (perturbed by the skittish nature of this meeting) Right…like I said I had some creative ideas regarding Hulk’s centrality in the film’s mythos. Now, I brought along a copy of Sophocles’ Antigone as well as a Hulk graphic novel by Jeph Loeb and some trade paperbacks of the late 1970s comics and I think that-

Downey re-enters the room talking, tosses his empty coffee cup and picks up his other cup of coffee, starts to leave the room again but his call ends just as he opens the door.

DOWNEY: Couldn’t you get Ian McKellen then? (beat) What do you mean too old? (beat) Well couldn’t we rewrite the part to make it less physical? (beat) Well get back to me with this mystery option of yours as soon as you can.

He turns around and walks back to his seat.

DOWNEY: Right, sorry about that. Where were we?
WHEDON: I was about to say that the broad theme I have for the movie is-
JOHANSSON: Can I just ask if my character will have some purpose other than titillation in a backseat in this movie?
HEMSWORTH: Can I take Jon Favreau’s part in that scene if we’re doing one?

Whedon starts to crawl up into a foetal position in his chair.

JOHANSSON: It’s just a bit insulting that Jennifer might not even be in the film because Gwyneth and I are already there to be eye-candy but not play a pivotal ro-
DELANEY: Jesus, Johansson! Do you have push the feminist line so hard at this point?

He starts to stroke Whedon’s head soothingly while cooing to him.

DELANEY: (Accusingly to Johansson) Doesn’t he have enough to do without making every female character he ever writes Buffy as well? He’s got to somehow combine four different franchises into one coherent film and also-
JACKSON:  Possibly save the Thor franchise, no offense, Chris.
HEMSWORTH: Hell, none taken, I haven’t even seen a rough cut of it yet.
DOWNEY: I think they should have just released the table read where Branagh did all the parts for the production heads, no offense.
HEMSWORTH: Starting to take offense, but broadly I agree that was fairly awesome.
JACKSON: How’s your film looking Cap’n?
EVANS: Okay, not great, but Hugo Weaving’s going to steal it, the Aussie bastard.
JOHANSSON: Where are we with villains for The Avengers?

Whedon suddenly comes alive again and crawls back into an upright position.

WHEDON: Villains? Villains! Villains, villains are important. Villains should have some depth and-
NORTON: Exactly, (takes a deep breath) now I figured that a conflict between legal duty and human feeling like Creon suffers would be perfect for giving a villain some depth and sympathy and that if Hulk were to be the Antigone to Fury’s Creon then-
DOWNEY: (phone rings) YEAH! (beat) WHAT?! (beat) Let me call you back. (hangs up) He wants to cast Jason Statham as Professor Moriarty for the next movie now. Thoughts, people?
WHEDON: (to Delaney) How come Ritchie gets to cast his regulars and I don’t?
DELANEY: (to Whedon) When you make a film that makes as much money as Sherlock Holmes I’ll let you use motion-capture to cast Nathan Fillion in every part, but until that day…
JOHANSSON: I like the idea of Statham, sounds like it could be a lot of fun.
DOWNEY: But I don’t want a Moriarty who spends his time telling his minions they’re ‘bang aht of order’.
WHEDON: You realise that in England if you met a guy on the street and he got in your face you’d be terrified if he sounded like Statham and just amused if he sounded like McKellen.
DOWNEY: I want someone who sounds proper British! Not Dick Van Dyke British!
NORTON: (lunges into a micro-second of silence) So, my concept would not only give a villain depth and problematise notions of heroism it would also give Jennifer a pivotal role. It raises interesting ethical questions and subverts expectations! (beams)
JACKSON: Whedon, man, could you move this along? I’ve got three other meetings to fit in this afternoon.
DOWNEY: Do you have to constantly make films now that you’re off drugs because you have an addictive personality?
JACKSON: How many cups of coffee have you had in the last hour? How many topics have you talked about since you came in here and how fast have you talked? Hm? Now talk to me about addictive personalities…
DOWNEY: Touche. I can see why your character is the boss of my character.
NORTON: And I think that basing the film around Hulk’s ethical dilemmas and introducing Iron Man as a Deus Ex Machina in the third act when all seems lost would utterly confound audience expectations and wow the critics globally.

There is dead silence around the room instantly, as jaws drop down and hang there

WHEDON: Edward, three things. (1) I’m directing this film, not you. (2) I can’t base a franchise cross-over around the weaker performer of the two franchises to date. (3) The story-lining stage is kinda over. We’re already thinking sets and costumes.
NORTON: You mean you won’t even consider playing this as a Greek tragedy?
DELANEY: NO! NO!! Look that where sort of craziness got Ang Lee’s Hulk!!
NORTON: Do I at least get some input into the editing process then?

Samuel L Jackson falls off his chair, he then drags himself up to table height.

JACKSON: Good God Man! We’re just actors!! Actors!!! (he falls to the ground)
EVANS: What he said.
NORTON: Wait, you have no interest at all in any creative input by me into this?
WHEDON: Interest in your acting ability, everything else creative I can handle…
NORTON: FINE! FINE! Well I can see I’ve been wasting my time taking this seriously when apparently all the rest of you want to do is make phone calls, drink coffee and bitch about casting choices. Well I am not just an actor but also a writer/director and an editor, and I had a vision that would have wowed millions around the globe and tapped into Jungian undercurrents but FINE! I’m not upset!!
HEMSWORTH: (giggles) ‘Don’t make him angry, you wouldn’t like him when he’s angry’.

Norton sits quietly fuming, fighting it, but then, he turns pale green and swells in size, but manages to restrain himself so that only his shirt bursts open, and then storms over and lifts Hemsworth in his chair and throws him thru the office window.

NORTON: HULK SMASH! HULK UNAPPRECIATED! HULK EXPOSE HIMSELF TO GAMMA RAYS FOR RESEARCH AND GET NO THANKS! HULK COMBINE COMIC-BOOKS WITH GREEK TRAGEDY FOR SUPER-STORYLINE AND GETS ACTORS PASSING OUT IN RESPONSE! GARH!!

Norton/Hulk storms out of the room, yanking the door off its hinges as he goes.

DOWNEY: Hulk/Edward doesn’t play well with other children.
DELANEY: Shut up.
EVANS: Looks like we’re going to need a new Hulk.
WHEDON: If you write something that means ‘Edward doesn’t play well with other children’ in the press release then I won’t push Nathan Fillion to replace him as Hulk.
DELANEY: Okay, I’ll write something like “We need an actor who embodies the creativity and collaborative spirit of our talented cast”. Deal?
WHEDON: Deal.
DOWNEY: Ooh! I think I know someone who’d be good for Hulk. I’ve been hearing a lot about him – some wiry guy with real intensity, name’s James Marsters I think…
DELANEY: Frak My Life.
EVANS: (beat) Should we tell people that Edward Norton actually is the Hulk now?
JACKSON: (to himself) I had no idea his method went so deep! I’ve gotta apologise to the man, that’s a level of commitment all actors should aspire to.
JOHANSSON: (looking out the window) I’m just glad we’re on the ground floor…

Great Production Disasters of Our Time: The Matrix Reloaded

The Matrix Reloaded was originally scheduled for release in December 2002 before being pushed back to May 2003. Few people were ever allowed to know why…

EXT.AUSTRALIAN OUTBACK-DAY
The WACHOWSKI BROTHERS are standing around with a copy of the Reloaded script and are arguing over architectural plans with a PRODUCTION DESIGNER and a SPECIAL EFFECTS GURU. KEANU REEVES, dressed in a suit, walks straight up and addresses the two Brothers.

KEANU: ‘There may be a problem’.
LARRY: (beat) Did you just quote our own dialogue at us?
KEANU: Yeah, I’m practising my lines by dropping them into appropriate situations.
LARRY: That’s not your line.
ANDY: Bigger problem, not only is that not your line, that’s not your line – from the first film!
LARRY: Why are you quoting from the first film?!
KEANU: Damn! (to himself) I knew those lines seemed too easy to learn…
ANDY: You’ve re-learnt the lines to the film we’ve already made?!
KEANU: Look, let’s focus on the problem I found.
LARRY: What problem?

Keanu produces his own copy of the Reloaded script, flips thru it and points at a page.

KEANU: See this, um, this (hesitates) …that word, right there.

Larry & Andy squint at the word, then look at each other quizzically.

ANDY: What’s the problem?
KEANU: Well, Carrie has to say that word, and, we’re Canadian, and…um…
LARRY: What?
KEANU: (swivels round in desperation and shouts) Carrie! Get over here

CARRIE-ANNE MOSS, dressed in black leather, strides over and stands beside Keanu and the Brothers. The production designer and special effects guru melt away.

CARRIE: Whatsupski?

Larry & Andy roll their eyes at this familiar greeting.

KEANU: (points at his script) This word.
CARRIE: (peering at the script) ‘Roondaboot’, Roondaboot? What?
ANDY: (to Larry) Did she just speak French to him?
LARRY: (to Andy) No idea.
CARRIE: What about that word?
KEANU: Well, nothing to you and me, but (gestures to the Brothers) to them, um…
CARRIE: What?
KEANU: Look, I’ll read in for Laurence and you do your part.
CARRIE: Okay…

They huddle in to read from Keanu’s copy of the script and stand in poses to indicate that they are now in their characters.

CARRIE: The roondaboot?
KEANU: Yes.
CARRIE: You always told me to stay off the roondaboot.
KEANU: Yes, that’s true.
CARRIE: You said going on the roondaboot was suicide.
KEANU: Then let us hope that I was wrong.

ANDY: Jesus-
LARRY: Christ…

The brothers look stunned, Carrie looks uncomfortable and looks at Keanu.

KEANU: (looking away, mumbles defensively) We’re Canadian…
ANDY: (to Keanu) Why didn’t you tell us about this before now?
KEANU: I hadn’t read this part of the script! It’s 20 pages of hyper-detailed descriptions of wall to wall action…and I’m not in it. You’ve got me jerking around some castle somewhere…
LARRY: (to Carrie) And what about you?
CARRIE: Oh, I haven’t read either of the scripts.

The Brothers try to process this – one actor learning the wrong script, the other not learning any script. Andy is the first to compose himself.

ANDY: Uh, why?
CARRIE: Laurence thought it would be more in the moment for us to just learn the pages each day as we went. He hasn’t read the scripts either…
KEANU: It’s not like it’s that a big deal guys, I mean c’mon, it’s just one word in a few lines – change the dialogue.
LARRY: Oh, it’s just one word in a few lines is it?!
KEANU: (puzzled) Yeah, it’s not like it’s crucial to anything. Right?

The Brothers look at each other then glare at Carrie who looks towards Keanu who looks at the Brothers like they know something he and Carrie don’t…

CLOSE UP:
KEANU: What?

The camera cranes up from his face and pushes over the tops of some trailers behind him, before soaring over a ridge to reveal techs laying camera tracks along the edges of road-network constructed for real in the desert, the centrepiece of which is a roundabout so preposterously enormous that it makes the Arc de Triomphe one look like one of those roundabouts you drive over while looking for the roundabout before realising that that painted bump in the road was the roundabout.

ANDY: (O/S) Larry, do you want to flip a coin to decide who gets to tell the studio?

Mark Pellegrino gets ambitious

INT.HOLLYWOOD OFFICE-DAY
DELANEY, an agent to the stars, well, minor actors, sits at his desk lovingly watering his potted plant while MARK PELLEGRINO, seated opposite him, complains…

PELLEGRINO: I just…it feels like I’m stuck in a rut, you know.
DELANEY: A rut? Don’t I get you roles in good stuff? Didn’t Capote win Oscars? Doesn’t Dexter win Golden Globes?
PELLEGRINO: Yeah, and I’m glad to be in good stuff but…I’m getting typed. What was I playing in Capote? The second-string killer from In Cold Blood. What was I playing in Dexter? Rita’s strung-out abusive ex-husband. I don’t want to become the go-to guy for down the bill vicious rednecks. I’d even shave if that would help…
DELANEY: Is this an ego thing? You want to be a regular now?
PELLEGRINO: No, it’s not a credits thing. I just want something, bigger, you know.
DELANEY: Bigger?
PELLEGRINO: Yeah, (mimes with his hands) BIGGER.
DELANEY: So, okay, bigger, okay, so you want something like Jake La Motta, something where you can bulk up like De Niro for the part? Be bigger-
PELLEGRINO: No, not physically bigger you idiot.
DELANEY: -Because I could still get you an audition for the Blob in Wolverine if you want to go full-on method to get attention.
PELLEGRINO: No, no! Not… (pause) Why do I keep paying you?
DELANEY: Some deranged sense of loyalty?
PELLEGRINO: (sighs) I don’t want to gain weight you moron, try to understand me. When I say bigger I really mean, loftier, you know. Some role where I don’t have to explain what my part was, and then have people go ‘oh’, and think ‘vicious redneck, I can see that’. I want a character whose name speaks for itself. I don’t mean get me Macbeth-
DELANEY: What’s Macbeth?
PELLEGRINO: (pretends he didn’t hear that) I just mean get me something that’s a bit classier than the seedy thugs I’ve been playing with distinction and sensitivity.
DELANEY: So, still a small supporting role, not a regular, but lofty.
PELLEGRINO: Lofty, you know.
DELANEY: Lofty, yeah, I getcha.
PELLEGRINO: So, do you think you can get me something lofty?
DELANEY: Sure, no problem.
PELLEGRINO: Good, good. Thanks Delaney.
(Exit Pellegrino)
(Delaney waits a few beats, dives into his desk, and emerges with a dictionary)
DELANEY: ‘Lofty’…

INT. HOLLYWOOD OFFICE-DAY
DELANEY sits at his desk lovingly watering his potted plant while MARK PELLEGRINO, seated opposite him, looks expectantly at him…

TITLE: 2 MONTHS LATER…

DELANEY: They’re so lofty they’re practically- (hits speakerphone switch) Janine what was that word again.
JANINE: (O/S) Non-corporeal.
DELANEY: They’re so lofty they’re practically non-corporeal.
PELLEGRINO: Well what are ‘they’?
DELANEY: Well I’ve got you a part in Supernatural.
PELLEGRINO: That’s the one with the two guys?
DELANEY: Yeah, the two pretty boys who drive around the country looking outrageously pretty while killing monsters with a surprising amount of gore for a network show so that it appeals to every demographic!
PELLEGRINO: Okay, that doesn’t sound over lofty though, what’s my part?
DELANEY: Lucifer.
PELLEGRINO: Oh cool! There’s name recognition for ya! No need to explain that part to people. Good going Delaney.
DELANEY: I thank you. I also got you another recurring role in another show.
PELLEGRINO: What show?
DELANEY: LOST.
PELLEGRINO: No freaking way!
DELANEY: Yes freaking away.
PELLEGRINO: Awesome! I get to ‘work’ in Hawaii. What’s the part? Is it lofty?
DELANEY: Oh it’s very lofty, you’ll be playing Jakob.
PELLEGRINO: Who’s Jakob?
DELANEY: He’s so lofty he’s non-corporeal. He’s, sort of, God, on the island.
PELLEGRINO: He’s God?
DELANEY: Yes. No.
PELLEGRINO: Well which is it? Yes or No? Because that would make just a teensy bit of difference to how I play the part…
DELANEY: He’s, well… Look they explained it down the phone and they weren’t particularly clear about it but just play it as probably being God, okay?
PELLEGRINO: Probably?! (pause) Okay, I can explain to people that Jakob is God and then go ‘I also played the Devil – Range!’ When do these two roles shoot?
DELANEY: Next few months.
PELLEGRINO: What, both? I’m doing them simultaneously?
DELANEY: Yes, that’s what I agreed to.
PELLEGRINO: Oh Christ, that’s going to get confusing. You’ve got me playing God and the Devil in two shows at the same time!
DELANEY: Well it shouldn’t be hard to remember which is which. If it’s hot as hell,
PELLEGRINO: Yeah?
DELANEY: Then you’re playing God.
PELLEGRINO: (beat) Not helping dude.
JANINE: (O/S) Did you want something else sir, because I’m still on speaker…
PELLEGRINO: (head in hands) About a million post-its with, ‘Please tell Mark which Ultimate Being he’s meant to be today’, please Janine.

How to Watch 300

 

So you want to watch 300 but you’re put off by the insane pumped up butch machismo you fear is all it has to offer? Fear not gentle reader for you can view it instead through the absurd prism of Michael Fassbender. Who is Fassbender you ask? How can I explain the man, the legend, the fun? Fassbender is the Irish actor who swam to New York to say “Sorry” in that famous Guinness ad. He then popped up in Sky One’s ‘British Buffy’ Hex as the Big Bad, fallen Angel Azazeal, where he enjoyed himself far too much for a man meant to be working for a living. In the trailer for 300 you will notice the inimitable Fassbender delivering the line “Well then, we shall fight in the shade” with the air of a man once again enjoying himself far too much. When 300 wrapped the producer probably came over to Fassbender with his paycheque and was waved away with, “No, really, I couldn’t. It’s just been such a blast. Can I keep the cape?

You are doubtful. Can one man really have that much fun? Oh yeah. As the film opens with the 300 marching off to battle Fassbender is already grinning… It’s not possible to overstate how gleeful the role of Stelios allows Fassbender to be. Stelios is the Spartan from the trailer that leaps over the Persian soldiers and lands right beside the camera. He jumps in slow motion to chop off the arm of the Persian who threatens the Spartans with a thousand nation army, “Our arrows will blot out the sun”. Stelios delivers the famous riposte in a supremely nonchalant manner. Stelios is even one half of a Spartan Legolas/Gimili style partnership in mayhem and has a slo-mo fight alongside Tom Wisdom’s Astinos where they attack and sever Persian limbs left, right and centre.

Fassbender gets to do one cool thing after another. When the Persian mystics are throwing bombs Fassbender runs out, catches one and throws it back, then shelters behind his shield as the arsenal of bombs explodes. This is the ultimate glee moment as in the darkness lit only by bomb blasts we can’t see Fassbender’s face underneath his helmet until we see his teeth, as he grins. Who does something awesome in the denouement to allow Leonidas to do something even more awesome? Fassbender. Who holds hands with Leonidas for their butch last lines? Fassbender….If you’ve got into the spirit of things you should shout “I LOVE dying!” at this point. You will have no objective judgement of 300’s quality, but you will have enjoyed watching it far too much…