The Devil’s Guide To Hollywood (75 page)

The star is not your script’s ally
.

P
roducer Mace Neufeld described Harrison Ford’s contribution to the script of
Patriot Games
this way: “He’s always looking to eliminate false notes, writer’s directions that look good on paper but just don’t work.”

Some screenwriters hate actors
.

A
uthor/screenwriter William Saroyan hated Marlon Brando. He had his reasons.

1. When he was a young man, Saroyan discovered that Brando had seduced his wife, Carol.
   
2. When he was an old man, Saroyan discovered that Brando had seduced his daughter, Lucy.
   

Why Marlon Brando could seduce both Mrs. and Miss Saroyan
…

A
n actor friend of Robert Duvall’s told him that as far as sex is concerned, “acting is the greatest leg-opener in the world.”

You’re lucky you’re you and not Tom Cruise
.

S
creenwriter William Goldman: “It’s shitty work. Not the money, not the power, that’s all neat. But have you ever been on a movie set? Death. It’s all mechanical stuff. Done in quick snippets. Sure, there’s craft involved in sustaining a character over a four-month shoot—but most stars only play themselves, so even that isn’t so hard. Ask anyone—movie acting is the snooze of all the world. So it’s shitty and it’s phony and the fame doesn’t last. No wonder they’re crazy. Maybe the real wonder is that they’re not crazier than they are.”

Actors are bullies
.

R
yan O’Neal, sometime producer, played a studio executive in my film
An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn
.

The script called for him to hit a
National Enquirer
reporter named Alan Smith, played by a real
National Enquirer
reporter named Alan Smith.

O’Neal, a Hollywood lothario, had reason not to like the tabloids … and Alan Smith, who had written about him in the past.

So when the scene was being filmed, Ryan hit the real Alan Smith so hard that he almost broke the man’s jaw.

“Score one for us,” Ryan O’Neal said.

If you’re really pissed off at an actor, touch him or her
.

W
hat’s awful about being famous and being an actress,” said famous actress Winona Ryder, “is when people come up to you and touch you. That’s scary, and they just seem to think it’s okay to do it, like you’re public property.”

ALL HAIL

Mercedes de Acosta!

The screenwriter/playwright seduced both Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich.

A friend said she looked like “a Spanish Dracula with the body of a young boy.”

She was known in society circles as “the dyke at the top of the stairs.”

You’re too smart to learn anything from actors
.

P
rofessor James Ryan in
Screenwriting from the Heart
: “Having worked early in my career as a professional actor in stage, film, and television, I tried an experiment. I got my writing students on their feet doing improvisations. It helped enormously even if they were lousy actors. They began to understand that good dramatic writing is acting on the page and there must be truthful moment to moment behavior for their characters. I devised ‘simple-stupid’ exercises to get all their ‘learning’ out of the way, so that they could access their deeply felt imagination and find that place in themselves that would give them a sense of prowess—a feeling of being alive and true.”

H—E—L—P!

Forehead

One of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s favorite words—it means a stupid person or a person who argues with Arnold. Most of the legislators in California are “foreheads.”

Lame-o

Jack Nicholson’s version of “forehead.”

Their PR person will decide about your script
.

A
ctress Sally Field said, “I hesitate to say that Pat Kingsley does my public relations. It’s way beyond that. I send her material, the scripts I’m thinking of doing or developing. And I’m not the only one who does. Jim Brooks, Goldie Hawn—a whole bunch of people ask her about scripts, about writers.”

Oh, wasn’t Jim Brooks a writer once?

T
he screenwriter/director, according to Sally Field, sends his scripts to Pat Kingsley, PR person, for advice.

A writer who sends his script to his PR person?
For advice?

This is the meaning of “star power.”

S
creenwriter/director Billy Wilder: “There was an actress named Marilyn Monroe. She was always late. She never remembered her lines. She was a pain in the ass. My Aunt Millie is a nice lady. If she were in pictures, she would always be on time. She would know her lines. She would be nice. Why does everyone in Hollywood want to work with Marilyn Monroe and no one wants to work with my Aunt Millie? Because no one will go to the movies to watch my Aunt Millie and everyone will come out to watch Marilyn Monroe.”

You, too, can leave your wife
.

M
ike Medavoy said this to Kevin Costner after meeting him for the first time: “You know, I have this sense that I’m sitting here with someone who is going to become a great big star. You’re going to want to direct your own movies, produce your own movies, and you’re going to end up leaving your wife and going through the whole Hollywood movie-star cycle.”

Stars are better with their mouths closed
.

S
creenwriter Robert Towne: “What was once said of the British aristocracy, that they did nothing and did it very well—is a definition that could be applied to movie actors. For gifted movie actors affect us most, I believe, not by talking, fighting, fucking, killing, cursing, or cross-dressing. They do it by being photographed. The point is that a fine actor onscreen conveys a staggering amount of information before he ever opens his mouth.”

Work with actors who are unknown
.

P
roducer Sam Spiegel: “When actors are still comparatively unknown, they are easygoing and amiable. When they lose their sense of proportion, they become lionized and begin to believe their own publicity.”

A complete unknown can be better in a part than Robert De Niro or Gene (“the Hack”) Hackman
.

D
irector Phillip Noyce: “Between a beginner and an experienced actor there is a huge gap. And often it’s better not to fill that gap, because someone with absolutely no experience, and therefore no technique, can be just as good as the most experienced actor. With experience come actorly tricks, acting techniques that can make a performance false.”

If you marry an actress, don’t write a script for her
.

A
rthur Miller wrote
The Misfits
for Marilyn Monroe. This is what she had to say: “Arthur did this to me. He could have written anything and he comes up with this. If that’s what he thinks of me, well, then I’m not for him and he’s not for me. Arthur said it’s his movie. I don’t think he even wants me in it. It’s all over. We have to stay with each other because it would be bad for the film if we split up now. … I think Arthur secretly likes dumb blondes. Some help he is.”

Find your own Marilyn Monroe and have a fling with her
.

M
exican screenwriter José Bolaños found the actual Marilyn. He was one of her last lovers. This is what she said about him: “He’s the greatest lover in the whole wide world. I heard he writes some of the worst movies in Mexico. Silly romances. But what do I care? Everything else he does is incredible.”