By Philip Berk
Guido is a forty year old Italian director (inspired by the great Italian director Federico Fellini) whose last three films have been flops. He is suffering a mid-life crisis while embroiled in relationships with his wife, a mistress ,and five other muses.
At the same time he is about to shoot a new movie but he hasn’t the slightest idea for the movie.
Out of this Rob Marshall, the director of Chicago, has fashioned a work of art destined to become a classic.
Inspired by Fellini’s 8 1/2 Nine boasts an all star cast including Daniel Day Lewis, Judi Dench, Marian Cotillard, Penelope Cruz and Nicole Kidman.
At his press conference in New York Rob is nervous but pleased with the reception.
What was his connection to Fellini’s films?
“Of course he’s an inspiration for all film makers, and it’s daunting work from a Fellini film. Because 8-1/2 is such a masterpiece, the only way to create this piece was to move away from it, know that it’s a part of the DNA and the characters in the story live in the musical, to reinvent it and not to tread in those footsteps which are so huge. The gorgeous thing about Fellini’s work as a musical is, because he created such works that moved between fantasy and reality and memory so fluidly, it works so beautifully as a musical film because the music can come out of fantasy or come out of memory. One of the reasons I chose to do Nine was because I thought it could work as a film musical.”
Whose idea was it to cast Judi Dench?
“The part was re-imagined in this version as I felt that Guido needed a confidante, someone he could speak to and talk to. He’s the most honest with the character of Lilli. I felt we needed that connection. In the Broadway production, that character was the producer and on stage it was Guido and all women. In our movie because it’s reality, the producer is a male as it would have been in the ’60s in Rome so I re-imagined that part. I wanted to find someone who could sing of course and Judi created the part of Sally Bowles in London in Cabaret. I needed a great actor to be with Daniel. I really wanted someone who could bring humor, warmth, a sense of playfulness between them, and to me, Judi is one of the greatest actors in the world.”
He has five Oscar winners in the film. What was his criteria in casting?
“We had work sessions with each. Your hope when you’re casting is that the actors claim their roles. That’s sort of what happened when Marion Cotillard came in, for instance, to play Luisa. She came in for Lilli. I actually ended up casting the majority of it before we even started writing because I wanted to write for specific actors. It became clear as we started moving forward who was who. Penelope Cruz read for three different roles. The one person I knew I needed to cast in this movie no matter what was Sophia (Loren) and I called her. I was a nervous wreck. I said, “I can’t do this film without you. could you please play Guido’s mother and she said yes.”
The set piece which recurs throughout the movie, were these scenes all shot at one time and was he able to shoot in continuity?
“Because I come from theatre, I understand desperately wanting to do full numbers and try and work in continuity when you can. That’s the hope but with this film there were so many moving parts, so many actors involved I actually had to move out of sequence. In terms of the conceptual idea of the film. Obviously, this man has this enormous set for his movie, but there is no movie. It’s just an idea; so he’s desperately trying to put something on that in the sound stage. All the numbers that we shot took place on that stage, and I don’t know if that was clear but every time we were able to imagine the space, we’d fill it with sand and broken old chairs, and it became cinema. It became the Italian, or we would put a huge white backdrop and create a fashion runway. Something like Cinema Italiano. It always helps me as a film-maker too because there are so many possibilities in musicals. There’s so much to choose so you try and limit your choices. When I came up with the concept of creating all these musical numbers in that space, it helped me figure out how it would all work. We would shoot a number, then we would have to dismantle that. We’d did a musical number a week.”
After Javier Bardem dropped out, why didn’t he pursue Antonio Banderas who did it on Broadway, and how did he end up with Daniel Day Lewis?
“It’s one of the hardest things to do when you’re casting. I loved Antonio on stage in Nine. He was fantastic. I met with him but I really wanted to begin with a new Guido. I really felt like I needed to reinvent him from the stage production. In terms of Javier, we talked about it for quite a while. He had won the Oscar for No Country for Old Men, and it was quite overwhelming to him, and he just didn’t want to work. The ship was moving, we were just starting, and he didn’t feel he wanted to do it. That’s always a blessing because you know it’s not meant to be. I’m a real believer in it has to be meant to be. Luckily Daniel’s managers are also Judi’s managers and we know Daniel is very particular about what he does, a movie maybe once every three years. He wasn’t looking to do something and a musical would be the farthest thing from his mind. Still, I met with him and he was intrigued by it. I was shocked that he was intrigued. Then we found out that he could sing, and from that moment I knew I’d found my Guido. People don’t see him as charming, but he’s so charming and he’s so wonderful and he’s such a complicated, great actor with such depth, I was just in heaven.”
Talk about Marion Cotillard’s performance.
“What’s amazing about Marion for me as Luisa is the simplicity of her work. The honesty, the truth. Some people have that ‘I can see through skin’ where you can feel them, feel what they’re feeling. She can sing as well. That was such a revelation to me. When I saw Piaf, I thought, ‘Wow, she’s lip-synching so well’, but when she started to sing and she sang ‘My Husband Makes Movies, it just broke my heart. I needed that vulnerability, and that’s what she brought; beauty and vulnerability, strength, sadness. She’s magic.”
Penelope replaced Catherine Zeta Jones at short notice. How did you help her prepare for the role?
“The incredible thing about Penelope is rarely can you find one person who can be sexy and beautiful, funny, vulnerable, and also be able to play a dramatic scene. That range is pretty unbelievable. Penelope is a perfectionist. She will do it 800 times. She was the first one there, the last one to leave every day of rehearsal. She cried when the number was over because she’d worked so hard on it. She had to deal with these ropes. When we were shooting it, she developed calluses, and they were breaking and bleeding. When you’re doing it over and over again and really trying, it’s tricky. It was really hard and scary because she doesn’t come from theatre. Here she is, she had three spotlights in her eyes. he couldn’t see the edge of the frame. I remember Daniel Day Lewis came the day we were shooting. He was an incredible support for all the ladies and he kept calling her a worrier. She worked really hard, and I’m proud of her for that.”
Why Kate Hudson?
“Well, it’s interesting. Kate came in, and I’ve known her for years, but I had no idea she could sing, had no idea she could dance. I thought she was a great actress. She is so infectious and such a wonderful person, but when she began to sing it was astonishing, and it suggested this idea of ‘Wouldn’t it be nice to have a woman from the American perspective in the film?’ And what about Kate? because I use her in this film that’s really European. When she danced I was knocked out and I thought ‘Well, that’s it!’ I knew we had to figure out a way to make this work in our story.
Daniel Day Lewis is as charming as ever. When I tell him an actor we recently interviewed told us that after watching There Will Be Blood he seriously considered giving up acting (Ewan McGregor) he is amused.
So what made him decide to do this film?
“When Rob first started talking to me about working with him on the film, I had the same response all the actors have, which was a tremendous desire, but at the same time, that lurking fear that comes with trying to express yourself in any way that was completely outside of your usual frame of reference. Everybody sings, but to try to attempt to express something through music seemed to be a real challenge. We all made a fool of ourselves more or less on day one, which you have to do when you’re unsure of things. Rob is one of those men who makes everybody feel that it’s safe to do what they need to do. He literally pulverized us with compliments, all day long.”
What was it like working with all the incredible women?
“First and foremost, Judi I have loved and admired for as long as I can remember. So the chance to work with her again, the first time in about 25 years, since we did Hamlet together. I sent her a note saying, ‘I promise not to run out on you this time.’ So that was such a treat.”
(He did in fact walk off the stage in mid performance vowing never to return to the theatre, and he’s kept his promise. Judi claims he had a nervous breakdown. He ended up in Buenos Aires where me made a dreadful film.)
“And Sophia – when I told my mum that Sophia was going to be playing my mum in this film, she was so excited about that. Marion I met for the first time last year at the Palm Springs Festival, where I was invited to present an award, having just seen her in that unforgettable performance (Piaf.) Penelope and each and every one of them I’ve admired and hoped to work with again.”
Although this is not the story of Fellini, it’s about a director somebody like Fellini. Did he research his life and films, or did he just depend entirely on script?
“I certainly spent some time discovering and rediscovering the films of all the great directors of that period. Visconti, De Sica, Antonioni – all of them. That was one of the great joys, a great excuse to look at those films again and try and think about that period of time. Because you begin from the outside until you have a sense of the world that you’re moving towards, there’s no point in trying to move towards it. That was the beginning. Yes, Fellini. And his own writing is so wonderful about himself and others. I guess that is where the journey started. But his shadow would be an impossible shadow to emerge from. If you chose to dwell too long in that, it would be fatal. So I tried to forget, at a certain point, about his influence on everything that we were trying to do.”
Fellini’s Guido (in 8 1/2) doesn’t believe that you can change reality. His Guido is more of a tragic figure. How did you invent your Guido?
“I don’t know. First of all I certainly didn’t begin the work in opposition. I didn’t dwell upon 8 1/2 because it’s a masterpiece. It always will be. Even we can’t destroy the legacy of that film, which has influenced every filmmaker since it appeared. I adore Mastroianni and I saw him a lot. I would have been utterly paralyzed if he had been the starting point for my journey. I really watched his work on its own merits and tried to think. Luckily, I was able to put him in a box and close the lid. So I don’t know how to answer your question.”
Has he any idea what his next project might be?
“No.”
So he just waits until something comes along?
“I’m not really, in a sense, waiting. I don’t have the sense of waiting. Something will fire my curiosity, but I’m not waiting for it.
Is there any director that he would like to work with?
“Well, there are quite a number of directors that I’ve already worked with that I would happily work with any time in the future. I’m in touch with quite a number of the directors who’ve remained solid friends over the years. We always know what we’re doing, what we’re working on. I like to believe in the accident of a coincidence in time where two people feel the need to do a piece of work in that moment.”
Any thoughts about Martin Scorsese?
“He is and remains for actors working today a man of supremely indescribable gifts as a director. His body of work speaks for itself. The discovery of Martin’s work when I was still a kid came with Mean Streets and subsequently Taxi Driver. Taxi Driver was a seminal film for all of us. I was living at that time in South East London. I wanted to know every single thing about not just those people in that world that he was describing, but the man behind that story – Scorsese. Long before I ever got to meet him, he’d already taken on proportions in my imagination. One of the great joys I never had expected in my life was to meet and get to work with him. Then again. That will always remain the great, great joys of my life. There’s nobody like him.”
Judi Dench rolls in like an armored tank ready to take on the world despite her 75 years.
This was her first musical role on film. Any trepidation?
“Not at all because I feel easy in my skin about doing a musical, which was entirely due to (director) Hal Prince who came over to do Cabaret in London. He gave me a wonderful note I’ve never forgotten, which said, ‘If that is the way you speak, then that is the way you sing, and you never finish speaking and assume another voice’ It was an absolutely golden note for me.”
How is her French in real life?
“Zilch. Really bad. I just about get by but that’s all.”
She has wonderful rapport with Daniel on screen. How well did they know each other? Did it happen in rehearsal”
A: Well, it was a fabulous relationship – the two characters, but I’ve known Dan for years because I played Gertrude when he played Hamlet at the national in the ’70s. We’ve known each other for a very, very long time. You can have a shortcut because you know and understand the person but I defy anybody not to be able to work with Daniel. He’s just spectacular.”
Did she forgive him for walking out on her?
“Oh, completely. That was just something that happened. I was glad to have been there though, at the time.”
She originated the role of Sally Bowles in “Cabaret.” Does she have special memories of that?
A: It’s such a long time ago. I was doing a play in London called Promise with Ian McKellen and Ian McShane, and Hal came to see it, and he asked me to go the next day with my agent and he said will she come and sing something, so we went to lunch. I had glass of wine because I was so frightened and then we went into the theatre to sing it. I asked could I sing it from the wings with a piano? Very well. So in fact what happened is that Hal sat out in the theatre and I did sing it from the wings with a piano. Then I was cast in it; so it was a totally new thing for me and with a lot of dancers, and I remember I used to keep my door open the whole time because I used to come with notes and all sorts of things to help me through. I’d always been a bit of a dancer. I’d wanted to dance as a child, but in those days, y’know… Sally wears green nail varnish in the play. In those days, in ’68 we had no nail varnish; so we had to send to America for it. It used to come in a batch of 3. We never had things like false eyelashes and all the dancers used to make these fantastically wonderful false eyelashes which they used to bring to me. They’d come with a lot of notes and things like that. I was very much helped by them because I was completely new but I used to keep, on my dressing table, Christopher Isherwood’s book Goodbye to Berlin open all the time because in it you know he says that Cliff walks into the room and that she stands there, and he reiterates that she never ever could have been a star. Although here was something about her that you couldn’t stop watching, and I used to read it every single night as a kind of boost.
How important is the director?
“I am a person who vitally, vitally needs the director. Passionately needs the director. It’s up to us to contribute to that. I find it most painful the day the director can’t speak to you anymore, that you’re running the play and he’s sitting at the back writing notes on a piece of paper. I hate that because in a way it’s like allowing the baby to walk for the first time and I always find that very painful and unnerving.
Do she ever disagree with the director?
“Oh,yes, disagree with the director? Absolutely. No, I would argue a point if I felt that it was vital. It used to be the director would say, “And you move there, and then you move upstage and you…” Well, it’s not like that anymore. It’s much more diplomatic now. I remember once telling Sam Mendes, who directed The Cherry Orchard – I remember telling him, “Sam, Sam, I just want to try this scene in a slightly different way.” He was very young at the time. It was about the second thing he did,and he was sitting on a chair trying to avoid my stare and he said, “You can try it, but it won’t work.” I was immediately incensed and I’ve never let him forget it.”
Is there any film from the period of Italian cinema that has influence her?
“I remember La Dolce. I have to tell you a really terrible thing. I did a film, very, very, very long ago called The Third Secret. Nobody will have seen it. Nobody, I never saw it, but in it was Vittorio de Sica and one morning he took me for a coffee. I was so young, I was just at the Old Vic and we had coffee together, and I said, ‘What are you going to do next?’ He said, ‘I’m going to make a film – back to Rome to make a film.’ I said to him, I mean it’s forever on my conscience, ‘Will it be the first film you’ve made?’ He said, ‘You may have heard of a little thing called The Bicycle Thieves.’ Then, of course, it completely flooded in. I wasn’t able to say another word to him.
Her relationship to musicals?
“I absolutely love musicals.”
The absolute revelation of the film is Marion Cotillard. Not only is she grace personified on screen but her singing takes your breath away. Never a false note.
Getting a chance to sing in this film, was that a dream come true?
“It was my dream to do a musical. An American musical, because as a kid, I loved American musicals so much. I thought it was not possible for a French actress to do a musical, and when Rob called me to audition for Nine, I was so fortunate and happy to be a part of this amazing American musical, and especially one directed by him, who is the maestro of musicals.”
What was it like working with him?
“There is so much love in this man. Love for people. Love for dancing, singing, cinema, musicals, actors. He works with amazing people… John DeLuca and Paul Bugaev, who was our marvelous singing teacher. But singing teacher is too small to describe what he did with all of us on this movie, because he had a way to take all of us where the performance, the singing, would be so alive and so close to authenticity, to reality, yet in the dream. And also the dancers we worked with, all of Rob’s team is full of love. They were so confident that we could dance, that we could sing. It’s not so easy to sing and dance. Rob creates an atmosphere of work and joy. He is very good with actors. He’s an amazing dancer himself. He knows how to do musicals. He’s also a fantastic director; he really goes into details with actors. I could talk about him forever, because of his passions… and his kindness. If I say he’s the nicest man in the world, it’s not just an expression, it’s what he gets from people by being so elegant. We didn’t want to finish the movie. Nobody wanted to finish the movie. It becomes a family, but this family was very, very hard to leave.”
Did she get lots of bruises and rug marks or cuts from that dance number?
“Actually, yes. When they give me the song, I thought it was so powerful. The first time they showed me what they wanted to do with the choreography, it was very exciting, because when you see something, you ask yourself, ‘Am I going to be able to do this?’ and you are not sure. As an actress, that’s what I love. This particular song – it’s not sexy, it’s fierce. She is desperate to tell him that she’s empty. He took everything out of her. It was so special to do. I love that we can show again many levels of Luisa. She’s not weak. She’s suffering, and she’s showing him what it is to suffer. She just needs some respect.
Talk about the audition?
“My first audition was not for Luisa. It was for Lilly La Fleur, when she was still French, and for Claudia. And then the second audition – I was so happy that I had a second audition. The second audition was a dancing audition. That was hard. I had to learn a lot of choreographies. Very hard choreographies. I always work for my audition, and that time, I was so busy that I didn’t really have the time to work. I was freaking out. i was in my hotel room in New York and I tried to work on the choreography but I had a very big problem with my left and right. It was like Mein Herr (from Cabaret), which is so hard to do. I went to the audition dancing in the street like a freak because I was trying to remember every choreography. I ended up not doing those choreographies at all. We danced with Rob. I had such an amazing time. And with John DeLuca (his partner.) They wanted to know how I could dance. Thank God I was able to follow. And then, that same day, they asked me if I would audition for another part, and they gave me two songs: Be On Your Own and My Husband Makes Movies. I didn’t realize that it was Luisa’s character, because i didn’t know the musical. Then the third audition was two days after. I had to work with Paul Bugaev for an hour, and then Rob would come. I had learned Be On Your Own. He told me you should work on My Husband Makes Movies, and I said, ‘But it’s really hard. I mean, in two days, and I have a lot of things to do.’ And again, I was freaking out. Then I tried to work on My Husband Makes Movies. I arrived with Paul, and we worked for an hour, and I couldn’t sing the song because it’s so complicated. I really couldn’t do it. I was like, Am I going to fail at that point? Sometimes, miracles happen, and Rob arrived. I thought I might try to do something. Suddenly, I don’t know what happened, maybe because it was meant to be, but I was able to sing the song. Then right away, they told me that I got the part.”
Nicole Kidman arrives looking absolutely gorgeous, taller than ever and bubbling with happiness.
She plays the Anita Ekberg role.
What is her relationship to her character?
“The song that I sing is very much about, ‘You don’t really know me. I love you and you love me but we love each other in a creative way and that’s where it should stay.’ It should always stay in that director-actress-muse place. I loved that. I think that someone like Pedro and Penelope, they have that love affair that exists just as a creative love, and they do beautiful work together.”
Sophia Loren is a living legend. What did she teach you?
“The thing I most learned from her what she said. ‘All of this isn’t real. Make sure you have love and family.” And that’s what she did in her life. It’s the same thing that Lauren Bacall emphasized. ‘This is nice but it all fades.”
The film is a great showcase for women. You get to show a side we don’t see often. How did it feel to show that sexy side of yourself?
“It was lovely being able to work with so many women and see them in their element. It’s rare these days that you get to embrace the glamour, the costumes.”
And Your sexy side?
“But that’s very much Rob Marshall. He would always say to us, ‘I want to revel in you all.’ And I think that’s what he’s done. He’s been meticulous with so many in the cast. He said, ‘I want you all to have moments,’ which is a lovely thing for a director to offer his leading ladies.”
Because this was your second musical , were you more relaxed?
“I think I was, but at the same time, ‘Unusual Way’ is a tricky song, because the melody is minor key. They lowered it an octave just two days before I had to go in and sing it. I was singing it very high. Rob went, “Hmm, I think you should bring it down and sing it in your chest voice.” But I think it works much better because then you feel her sadness.”
What went through your mind when Rob Marshall told you he wanted to give you a moment to shine? Why was this special?
“I loved the story and I loved that there’s not many musicals made; and so for Rob to say that he was going to do this — it’s different to Chicago, it drifts between memory and fantasy and reality. It still is based in real psychological longings and yearnings. That’s what’s so fascinating about this film, and to be asked to be in it, to contribute to, to know that this is an ensemble and that we’re all in it together and we’re all sort of supporting it – that’s rare in this industry.”
Am I correct when I say you were considered for Chicago?
“But it wasn’t when Rob was directing it. It was when Nick Hytner was going to direct it and they offered it to me.”
You have worked with so many passionate directors who have their own vision. Actresses who have worked with Rob remember it as a love affair. How special was it to you personally?
“He’s very gentle. He has a very deep sense of what he wants. He’s very bright. His emotional core is very available. I think that’s why actresses and actors just become devoted to him because he cares about you.
Can he be tough?
“I’ve worked with Kubrick, so I don’t see him as a task master. I see somebody that wants you to be the best you can be, who is not going to let you fail. You feel very safe with him, and you don’t want to work with someone that doesn’t have those qualities. So when Rob wants to do it again, wants to try something new or anything, it’s beautiful. I would work with him again like that,” ash she clicks he fingers.
Finally we talk to Penelope Cruz, the one diva who refuses to talk about her personal life.
So let’s talk about her big number in the film?
How difficult or challenging was it to do that number?
”It was very exciting. There was never a boring moment on this movie because it was extremely challenging. I will be lying if I said the numbers were easy. They were not. We had a lot of time of rehearsals, a couple of months, and we had great teachers. We had this big building in Shepperton. One room was for singing, one was for dancing. One room was the choreographies. I have to have a dialect coach because I had to speak English with an Italian accent. The day that I saw the choreography for the first time I almost fainted. I thought, ‘I don’t know that I will ever be able to do that.’ Rob talked to us and said, ‘You’re going to have the time. Little by little every day you will get to that point where you will be able to run the whole number from beginning to end and sing it while you are dancing.’ I love that Rob didn’t want any tricks. He didn’t allow any of us to do just pieces of the number. He shot the number with us running it from beginning to end. using these different cameras at the same time. It was scary. I’m glad he pushed us to do that, because when I experienced the feeling of doing the entire number in its entirety, I felt like I was flying. It’s really an amazing feeling.”
You and Sophia had a very special relationship. Can you talk about that, if it’s not too private?
(For Sophia it was private.)
“No, no, of course. I love to talk about Sophia. I have always admired her very much, and had a feeling that we were going to connect and it was really from the first day we were hugging each other and behaving like we had known each other forever. She was very sweet to me, very kind, very open about everything in her life. We would talk about everything, not just work. I know I drove her crazy with questions about De Sica and Mastroianni and Fellini and wanted to know if Fellini was really a liar, the liar that we both say he was in the film. But she loved all of them. She has amazing stories about all these incredible people, and she shared them with us. We did bond in a strong way. She was always very worried if I was eating enough. I was gaining weight for the character because Rob and I decided that it was better than she was more curvy. She was always watching me, and nothing seemed enough for her on my plate. She always wanted me to eat more, and we developed that familiarity that we felt very comfortable with each other. I adore her, I think she’s an amazing lady.”
How about Rob?
“Of course Rob is an angel. He is also very demanding. He knows exactly what he wants from you in each moment. He can handle a huge amount of pressure without ever being nervous or insecure. He’s never mean to anybody; he has a way of doing things that is like a gentleman from another time. When you meet him, he’s so enchanting and charming, and you think can somebody be like this for a long time. You think maybe a week later you will see the real person. I’ve seen him in the most difficult situations. It’s a lot of pressure to do a movie like this but he’s always so smooth and calm and so focused. I think he’s a very special human being, and we all love him. He’s really an amazing man.”
Talk about the audition.
“The first audition was a singing and dancing audition. We did another one, until he decided which character was the right one for me. I said to Rob, “Which ever character you want me to do, I will be so happy to be in this movie.”
The director said you really worked so hard, in the end, you were even crying.
“I really wanted to give Rob everything, because he worked so hard to teach us. I was actually proud and happy to have those bruises and to have all those blisters in my hands. I showed them to everybody, and they became my little medals. it was really one of the best experiences that I’ve had on a set. That’s why at the last moment, when Rob said, ‘We have the number,’ I realized that I don’t get to do it again. I have to hide, just take a moment to myself, and Rob came, and he caught me crying, and he said, “But what’s wrong? Aren’t you happy? You were great,’ and I said, ‘Rob, but I’ve been living with this for all of these months, doing it every day, and now it’s in the can. It’s there forever in the movie, but we don’t get to do it again,” and it was such a bonding experience for us, one of those days you will always remember, he and I backstage alone in the darkness.”