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INTERVIEW
SOUND BITES – ALEXANDER
By Fred Topel
Alexander
is the epic Troy wanted to be. It’s the epic that King
Arthur wanted to be. The difference really is that Oliver
Stone has a clear vision. He knows you can’t do everything,
and he knows what he wants. He’s also a damn good filmmaker
and uses technique the right way.
What
is Oliver Stone really like?
The
actors put it in perspective:
Angelina Jolie: “He’s tough.
The thing with Oliver is he’s very smart. He can make
some reference to Aristotle, he can make jokes about things
that are so of such high intellect you don’t know what
he’s talking about. But he’s actually great. He’s
just a real passionate, professional person who just loves
these characters. He’s worked and lived with them for
13 years, sees them a certain way and is very driven, so you
can’t step on and in any other film say, ‘Well,
this line here… I kind of have this…’ He’s
like, ‘What are you doing? Why? Back it up.’ So
any kind of decision you make, you have to be ready to go
to the mat for and back it up with why you’re going
to do it.
Colin Farrell: “You know, with someone
like Oliver who loves what he’s doing and is as impassioned
as Oliver is about what he’s doing, genuinely just cares
about it the way he does and if you’re the same - and
I am the same, and most people that were involved in this
film were the same, whether it was Jared or Rosario or Angie
or Val - you don’t clash heads but you end up rubbing
off each other every now and then. But it’s all good
and there’s no huffing and there’s no ‘I’m
not talking to you’ or ‘Go up and apologize’
or any of that bullshit. You just really both have a vested
interest and you share that and it’s an interest in
the same thing. It’s doing the story justice and doing
each character and each scene and each moment justice. So
in that respect, I had more healthy arguments with Oliver
than I’ve ever had with another director, maybe another
man in my life and it was great. It was very liberating and
it was the way it should’ve been.”
Jared Leto: He could be everything. He could
be intense, he could coddle somebody, he could cajole them,
he can terrify you, he can be funny. He’s very smart;
he works with different people different ways. But the thing
with Oliver is, if you’re good and you work hard and
do your job, he respects you. You don’t, you show up
and you’re not doing your job well, then you better
figure out a way to do it fast because, and that’s great
because he doesn’t pull punches. He’ll come up
and be like “It’s great. It’s great. Terrible!
Great! Ok, do it a different way. And do it again.”
Then he’ll come back and be like, “Great! That
was what I was looking for. No you were terrible.” You
know what I mean. He’s very—that’s great,
you want to know what’s going on.
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