Their first scene together was the hospital scene, right after he’s had his heart attack, and she was amazing. At the end of the scene, I went up to Donald and I said, “Well?” He said, “Shushan would marry someone like her. She’s perfect. She’s great.” That was a huge relief. Donald and Mary just seemed like they were bonded, and chemistry is always the most important thing.
Once we had Mary McDonnell, we were off and running. Matthew was amazingly committed. Somehow he was able to make those flights from L.A. to Vancouver, fulfill his commitment to “Party of Five” and to us without anything ever going wrong. There were a couple of days where I really pushed him hard. One day he broke down and said, “I just don’t know what you want.” It was not my intention to break him down like that, but once he was in that vulnerable state, I started rolling and went right back into the scene again and that take ended up being in the final cut. He really did a great job.
Another great thing about the film was that we cast mentally-challenged people in some of the minor roles. They were so excited to be a part of it. We were risking the possibility of falling behind schedule because whenever somebody would too overemotional or too hyper or whatever, we had to stop and that slowed down the production. We had a guy that threw up every day at the same time. He just went off like an alarm clock, so we had to make sure that we always had somebody around to clean it up. Once we knew what was going to happen, we planned for it. We didn’t lose any time. They were a real blessing to have on set. So loving and fun.
Are you happy with the finished film?
Yes. I think we kind of captured what [Howard] Hawks always did so well, the male love story. As much as these kinds of relationships exist in life, a lot of people are not comfortable seeing the softer side of male characters. There’s a scene where Donald meets his son for lunch and he’s telling him a joke, and his son appears so uncomfortable while he’s listening. He’s just waiting for his father to get to the point. It demonstrates that they just can’t get comfortable with each other, even in the smallest moments, like a joke. Donald came up with that, and I thought it was a brilliant addition.
I think the dynamic is different when it’s female to female, or female to male, but when you put two guys together, intimacy can have a very strained quality to it. If one of those people is mentally challenged, it makes it even more difficult. In this case, Shushan is dealing with James Jones, who is like a little kid in an adult world. James gets loud and aggressive and there’s no way of knowing how violent he might become.
My favorite scene is the one where Jones brings Shushan to his neighborhood. The rest of the movie is about Shushan teaching Jones how to fit into society, how to be normal. In this scene, Jones explains that he has to act a little strange — he has to act like the Wolf Man — to keep from getting jumped in his own neighborhood. It’s a role reversal…
People actually did call the real Jones “The Wolf Man.” That was his nickname…That scene was part of the true story. There were so many interesting aspects to that man. He knew he wasn’t normal and he knew he was never going to be, but he wanted a normal connection to his father. He wanted his father to be proud of him, and because of that he really did understand the estranged relationship between Shushan and his son. What makes the story work is something very basic: that desire we all have for our parents to be proud of us for who we are and what we’re doing with our life.
One of the best reviews that I’ve ever received on any movie was for Behind the Mask. Ironically it appeared in Variety the day after the movie aired, so it didn’t help the ratings, but the reviewer just loved everything about it. Producer Stan Brooks still has that review, blown up and hanging on the wall in his office. It was one of those reviews that you’d like to put on a t-shirt and wear around town. I believe all of us who worked on Behind the Mask felt very proud of the film. [20]
The very best thing about the whole experience, for me personally, was the actor/director relationship that I had with Donald. It was unlike any other film I’ve ever done. At the end of every day, he’d always say, “What are you doing for dinner, governor?” And I’d say, “I’m having dinner with you.” We had hotel rooms right down the hall from each other in Vancouver, so I would go to his room every night for dinner and we would go over the next day’s work. Basically, Donald’s main technique was to cut lines from his own dialogue. He always said, “I don’t want this guy to be redundant.” He never touched the dialogue that belonged to the other actors, but he felt that he personally could act certain things better than he could say them. It was all about economizing the character. He’s a master at that. A brilliant actor and craftsman.
…which, because of your background in mime, you must have loved.
Sure. But it’s more about pure cinema — moments that are universally understood. The tough thing about doing network television is that you’re supposed to run every change by the network executives. Luckily, Stan Brooks was very supportive of our process. He said, “You guys do what you have to do to make this thing shine.” And Donald was so involved in the process. That’s something that he always does. If people fight him on it, they have an unhappy working relationship. If there was something that I felt we needed, he was always open to exploring it. Every so often I would convince him to try something he really didn’t believe in — always with the understanding that if it wasn’t working in the edit, I’d cut it out. He trusted me.
What about the real Shushan and Jones? Did they like the finished film?
Shushan was understandably very excited that Brando was going to play him, then disappointed when Marlon changed his mind. When he came to a screening, he said he felt very honored by Donald Sutherland’s portrayal of him. And proud of the film. James Jones, unfortunately, died about a year after the events in this story occurred. He had a seizure in his home, fell and hit his head and bled to death.
You said Behind the Mask got good reviews. Did that help you to land your next job?
What happened is that it pulled me back into the TV movie world. It was such a great experience, and it made me say, “Well, if I can find good character pieces like this, then I’m happy to keep doing movies for television.” Ultimately, it’s about making things you’re proud of.
Along came Anya’s Bell. I can’t remember if Della Reese was attached to it from the very beginning, but the script was what sold me on it — for two reasons. First of all, it was set in the 1940s and I love that time period. More importantly, the story revolved around a twelve-year-old boy who had a learning disability that made him very anxious and self-conscious. The story was about two very different people and their handicaps: a sweet elderly blind lady and a dyslexic boy, who was sort of like me as a kid. He didn’t want to go to school because he didn’t feel like he was very smart. He wanted to escape. When I was a kid, I escaped to the movies. In this boy’s case, he sneaks off to the airport to watch the planes fly off and land.
Anya’s Bell has a very nostalgic quality to it, sort of like Sometimes They Come Back.
It was even more nostalgic, because the entire movie took place in the past. We had to find period cars and we had to find the right streets to shoot on…We shot in Salt Lake City. I’d never shot up there, so I had a great sense of discovery. This was the first time I worked with production designer Chester Kaczenski, and he managed to take a very low budget and still give us sets with amazing detail. I love Chester’s passion.
My main conflict on that movie was Della. Bottom line, she told me, “I’m a singer, baby. You put the notes in front of me and I’ll sing. But don’t ask me to sing any different than the way I sing.” My response was, “I want to make you as comfortable as possible, but at the same time I want to guide you out of total comfort and into something that’s real, vulnerable and spontaneous.” She didn’t like that. Certain actors restrain themselves if they don’t trust the director. They’re afraid that you’re going to make them look bad. At a certain point, she kind of stopped talking to
me. Either she didn’t trust me or she just didn’t want to feel vulnerable. On the other hand, the boy Mason Gamble was great to work with. He was an incredibly smart young actor. It was a great cast and crew, but doing a period film really made me long to do a feature.
While I was editing Anya’s Bell, I was approached about doing a prequel to The Exorcist. [21] William Wisher had written a first draft, which had too many similarities to the original Exorcist movie. It had a great Sophie’s Choice opening, where Father Merrin is being confronted by the Nazis. They say, “Give us the name of the person who killed our soldier or we’re going to start shooting these townspeople, one by one.” And Merrin prays to God not to let this happen, but people are killed. Then the Nazi says, “Where’s your God now?” I thought that opening was really powerful, and I was very excited about the idea of doing a smart, atmospheric prequel set in the 1940s.
Was it doubly appealing because you’d just done a movie set in that time period?
I didn’t think about that at the time. I was excited about the possibility of doing a horror movie with The Godfather / Gordon Willis style of photography. And I was challenged by the idea of doing the story of the exorcist before The Exorcist, and answering all those character questions: Who is this priest? What are the details of his first encounter with the demon Pazuzu? I also knew the film could potentially be a career killer.
I started developing the project as I finished Anya’s Bell, and I became completely ensconced in that thing for about two years. It was announced in all the trades that I was doing it. I was involved in casting and the local news stations covered our search for a black child to play the possessed boy. In my home office, I had an entire shelf filled with nothing but books on demons, possession and exorcisms. William Peter Blatty [author of The Exorcist] personally gave me a tape of a real exorcism that was performed in Italy.
I do think all of that had a subconscious psychological effect on me. A lot of dark things happened while I was working on that project, but I kept telling myself: “This has nothing to do with what I’m working on.” Now I think there is something about walking the path of this type of demonic darkness that somehow draws dark things to you.
Did you talk to William Peter Blatty about the prequel?
On day one, I said to the producers, “I’ve got to talk to Blatty.” They asked, “Why do you want to talk to him? He has no interest in seeing this movie get made.” What I didn’t know was that, years earlier, Blatty had made a deal with Morgan Creek to make his book Legion into a movie. When Blatty screened his director’s cut for the producers, somebody said, “Why isn’t there an exorcism in the movie? Isn’t this supposed to be The Exorcist III?” And Blatty said, “No, this is Legion — not The Exorcist III.” They said, “Nobody’s going to go see Legion, but they’ll go see it if it’s called The Exorcist III, so you need to add an exorcism.” Blatty refused and they said, “Fine, we’ll get somebody else to do it.” He reluctantly said okay. I don’t know how the whole thing was orchestrated, but then they spent another million dollars to bring in Nicol Williamson, the actor who played the exorcist, and add an exorcism to the storyline of Legion.
Blatty was pissed that they owned the rights to The Exorcist title. It was the biggest mistake in his life, as far as he was concerned. So he looked at me and he said, “Look, I don’t know you from Adam, but I’m telling you this: If you make this movie and I don’t like it, I’m going to go on every talk show and slam this thing — and you!” It wasn’t even close to a veiled threat. I said, “Sir, if this doesn’t come out well, I’ll be slamming it right next to you. The Exorcist changed my life. I saw that movie, studied that movie, and went to every seminar involving anybody who worked on that movie. I could write a book on it, and the reason I got this job is because I came in with so much passion. I know it could be the death knell for my career, but I believe I could do something very cool with the right script.” I guess I somehow won him over, because the rest of our meeting was wonderful. He was very supportive. Before I left I said, “I swear to you on your house — because his house was shaped like a cross — I will not do this movie if I don’t think it’s going to be great.” In the end, that statement was the main reason I backed out. I gave the man my word.
What happened that made you lose faith in the film?
For pretty much the entire time, I was campaigning to get Caleb Carr to do a rewrite. I thought The Alienist was a brilliant book. When we finally got him on board, he and I had great discussions and I was convinced that his script was going to be brilliant. Then he came back with a script that was basically “My Dinner with Satan.” It was so talky. I said to the producers, “I don’t think this works.” And they said, “So you’re telling us that after two years you’re walking away from the movie?” I said, “I need to get back to you on that.” I called up my agent and asked what would happen if I walked off. He said, “You get nothing. They’ve got to fire you.” I’d never been fired off of anything, so I decided to let this thing play out. The producers wanted to greenlight the movie, but I said I wanted to do another rewrite. They said, “Well, we think it works the way it is.” I told them I had to believe in what I was doing, and I didn’t believe in the current script.
What happened next is that they went to other directors, and a number of people responded the same way I had: “The script doesn’t work.” Then John Frankenheimer agreed to do it. That was really weird. I walked away from something that was going to be directed by John Frankenheimer, who had directed me as the mutant bear in Prophecy! I figured he was powerful enough to get the script rewritten. He was involved with it for about a year, and then he went into the hospital for back surgery and then died suddenly of some complication.
Then the script came back to me and they said, “Are you interested?” I said, “Well, let me look at the script and see where it is.” It was the same fucking script! Not a word had changed. I said, “John was going to shoot this script?” They said, “Yeah, he was really happy with it.” I said, “Well, I still don’t think it works.” So then it went to Paul Schrader, and I figured that Paul Schrader — because of his talent and his religious background — would make it a classic. But he didn’t change a word either! Shot it as is and turned it in. Executive producer James Robinson saw his director’s cut, said “this isn’t scary,” fired Paul Schrader, and then started looking for someone to shoot additional scary sequences for it. Finally, they got Renny Harlin. Renny decided he wanted to reshoot the entire movie with the same cast and the same D.P. So they made this thing all over again. It was exactly what I hadn’t wanted to do — filled with CGI effects. I had been adamant about doing it the way they did the original, with in-camera effects. So the movie I was going to make for 18 million was made for…I think the first version cost thirty to forty million, and then the second version cost, I think, fifty million.
Wow. I had no idea it was that expensive. I guess that’s why they eventually released both versions — because they needed to make some of their money back.
When they released Renny’s version, it got panned badly.
And then everybody on the Internet was saying, “Why did they scrap Schrader’s version?”
They decided to show Paul Schrader’s cut at a film festival. Somebody said, “Well, it’s certainly better than the other one.” But most audiences didn’t fall for it. They just said, “Haven’t we already seen this?” I think, all together, both versions ended up making about forty million domestic. [22]
It seems to me that you channeled all of your ideas for The Exorcist prequel into your episode of the Steven Spielberg series The Others. Is “Theta” your version of The Exorcist?
Not consciously…But it came out well, I think. The directors on this series were all given carte blanche to make their episodes however they wanted to make them. When I turned in my director’s cut, I got no notes. Spielberg approved without making any changes. After that, I got a call from DreamWorks, asking me to come in for a meeting
. There was all this enthusiasm about what I wanted to do next. Then that guy accepted a job at another company and that was the end of my ten minutes of heat.
What was surreal about The Others was that I was shooting it at the same time that my mother-in-law was dying. Right in the middle of shooting, I needed to go with Nancy up to San Francisco to be by her bedside. Then go to her funeral. It was very emotional. These things put you in a frame of mind that really affects what you’re doing. The line between reality and fantasy gets blurred, and somehow the emotional experience of that period in your life ends up on the screen.
A Strange Idea of Entertainment: Conversations with Tom McLoughlin Page 19