Robin Williams, his memory, his presence obviously hangs over this film in a different way now that he’s gone. What are your recollections working with him?
You know, when we were doing this newer, cleaned up Criterion version, I had to look at the movie again and it was literally just a couple weeks after Robin died. I was not looking forward to it. I just thought, “Oh, this is going to be a killer.” But I came out, I was just grinning and smiling. Robin’s alive, he’ll be alive forever with this film. That character, Parry, is so Robin, he’s such a complete cross section of who Robin was. It was joyous watching it again. In the end, I thought, “Wow, this is a great monument to Robin.”
Working with him… I think the real reason they hired me, was that I was the bait to lure Robin in. We just worked together on ‘Munchausen.’ I was the honey trap. That was easy. Robin was right there for the get-go. To me then the biggest thing was to make sure Robin and I didn’t float off into the ether there. We just could wind each other up brilliantly and just get extremely silly. Jeff was the anchor, that’s why Jeff was so important; he became the anchor to keep the whole film, Robin, myself grounded.
So you had to curb your improvisational and manic tendencies? Rein Robin in a bit?
Oh yeah. With Robin, there was this volcano of ideas and stuff all ready to pour out all the time. I’d would find that sometimes after about five or six takes I’d say, “Okay Robin just go for it, just do whatever you want.” Then he’d get it out of his system, that was the good thing. I said, “Well, let’s do one more take, leave one or two of those things in, I’ll tell you which one and then we’ll go back to the script because the script is still the bible of this baby.” It was really important because Robin, always felt he had to give more because I think the fans expected more. They wanted all the facets of himself. I could say, “No, come on you got to stick to character here.” And he did. Jeff was such a good balance for him because Jeff never would break character and Robin would always watch Jeff and always be, “Okay, okay I’ll keep calm here and stop trying to be funny for the sake of being funny, just be true to the character.” We got through it, it was wonderful.
Actually, one night Robin was finished early so he went uptown to do a comedy set. “I’m going to be up on the east side, I just got to do a stand up routine, just to get the stuff out of my system.” I was in disbelief, so me, Jeff, his brother Beau Bridges and an unsuspecting audience were treated to a surprise 45-minute impromptu stand-up. He was brilliant. He had to get all these ideas out of his system every so often otherwise he’d explode.
“Directors tend to be ego maniacs who are trying to make their film, so everything in me was rebelling against who I was supposed to be.”
In the Criterion extras, LaGravenese remembers you saying something to the effect, “this was not a Terry Gilliam film,” you were making someone else’s script, someone else’s story. But it is still very much a Terry Gilliam film.
I just loved those characters when I read Richard’s script. I know these people, I understand them. I’m really a bit of all of them. Richard, this is his first film and I him kept around the set the whole time, I said, “Rich, this is your film and I don’t want to fuck it up. Every time I have an idea I’m going to throw it past you and if you’re comfortable with it, we will go, but otherwise you got to be the one monitoring what’s going on here.”
That’s unusual and very generous on a Hollywood production.
Having been in Monty Python and all the writers being first, you just appreciate what writing is about. I know how the system really doesn’t respect writers: at least Hollywood doesn’t. Directors tend to be ego maniacs who are trying to make their film, so everything in me was rebelling against who I was supposed to be. It was a nice way of working because I felt it was a true collaboration. That was the key thing with the cast, with Mercedes [Ruehl,] Amanda [Plummer] and Robin. They just held the whole thing together and I tried to just be there to support them and not impose myself on it, but I failed. Obviously it’s me is all over that picture.
Afterwards, Mercedes wins an Oscar, Robin is nominated for Best Actor and the movie gets five nominations total. Did that put you back in the good books with Hollywood?
Oh yeah. I mean Hollywood loves success. It’s as simple as that. “Brazil” was my Gilliam-the-bad-boy-who-took-on-the-studios and won [movie], which is not allowed. So ‘Munchausen’ was my comeuppance and I think it was like Orson Welles “Magnificent Ambersons.” So “Fisher King” was my chance to be redeemed.
That’s how it works. We were number one for, I don’t know how many weeks, and that makes a big difference. You’re on an easy path, going to do whatever else you do next. That’s the irony of the whole thing, because I’ve never been a great fan of Hollywood and yet the films I made in Hollywood, “Fisher King” and “Twelve Monkeys,” are the easy ones. Because I had the money, I wasn’t scrambling around and they were well supported. They were both big successes. My relationship is a bit strained, probably self-destructive, when it comes to dealing with Hollywood. I should relax, embrace the place and continue.
Much has been written about it, but to be fair, would you characterize your relationship with Hollywood over the years, maybe as being antagonistic?
Oh yeah. I mean, I hated Hollywood and it was always like that. That was the result of having grown up in South Fernando Valley. I’m seeing Hollywood over the hills there and longing for it, and yet hating the way the system works and a lot of the kind of films that were heralded. It was only after “Time Bandits” which we made completely outside of the system that I went to Hollywood. “Time Bandits” in America is still the biggest hit of any of the films that I’ve done in America profits-wise.
It was only after the success of “Time Bandits” that I went up to Hollywood for the first time. I rang up all the heads of most of the studios and said, “Hi, I’d like to come and have a talk.” Of course, they couldn’t wait to talk to the guy who just had this huge success. Then I’d sit and talk to them and they kept waiting for me to pitch my next movie, they were really dumbfounded that I had no movie to pitch. I said, “I just want to meet you, so when I have to pick up a phone and talk to you in the future, I know what you’re like.” They really thought I was mad.
Have your films have been embattled because you’re almost square pegging it, like you’ve got these ideas that are grand and big and Hollywood is small, in terms of their vision?
My problem always is just that I really want to control what I do, it’s a simple fact. My argument has always been: my mistakes I think are more interesting than studio executive’s mistakes. It just seems, if you’re going to hire someone, trust them. It’s like with me directing, the people I hire or choose to work with, I then let them do what they do, what they’re good at. I don’t try to control it. I mean, I work in a totally collaborative way. I find the studios are basically peopled by very nervous executives who are paid much more than their worth and they’re terrified in being involved in something that doesn’t succeed. They’re all over you the whole time. I find it very difficult to work like that.
How much do you think Hollywood has changed?
It’s terrible. I mean, I used to complain about them, but now it’s just they’re so frightened. I think they’re worse now, even when we were doing “Fisher King,” there were people there with real character, interesting people running studios and working there. Now I find there’s just drones, there seems to be nobody with any big ideas, it’s just repetition, repetition. Throwing huge amounts of money at things.