I was preparing him for the gigantic mountain that he would have to
climb. Which, of course, he not only climbed it and got to the summit,
but he put an extra-- an extra peak on it and then went over the top of that.
He literally,
“Are you ready to fly, Mr. President?”
He flew over it, yeah.
I don't have a memory where it was because
I grew up in this very tiny country town, about five or seven houses,
I get the number wrong. But we had a gas station, a farm
and at one stage my dad ran the local
cinema. And also, you know, he met my mother through photography.
So he was teaching me photography early on and he had a Super 8
movie camera that he brought back from the Vietnam War.
He was sort of a Navy SEAL
clearance diver, they call them. During that time, of course,
can you imagine?
It was a bit... I mean, without being overtly romantic,
not that I've ever been overtly romantic, but it was a bit Cinema Paradiso.
I mean, you know, I'd sit in the buyer box, I'd be down doing the choc-tops.
So you can't live in a small country town
and enter into a space with strangers where the red curtain
goes up and the Queen of England comes projected on a horse
by the way, live footage.
And you stand, you sing God Save the Queen and then enter into world
and not be influenced profoundly by the movies.
I mean, it's like everything to me.
Like I-- I have the idea and I live them, research them.
But in the same time, I'm researching the actual story.
I'm entering into the world through music,
through visuals, through collecting images for making collages.
And I write kind of three scripts really.
I developed early on with the composer or the head of music, whoever
I'm collaborating with the musical language as much
as I'm developing the scene, the visuals, visual language.
At some point to bring them all together.
I mean, to give an example,
I'm pretty sure in Romeo + Juliet
it would have said “A boy with the voice like Stevie Wonder
sings a gospel version
of Prince's Doves Cry,” in the script.
Now it turns out the boy had a voice
more like Aretha Franklin, but the idea was in the script.
Well, probably not
since Leonardo and Romeo + Juliet, have I had, it was more that he found me.
I mean, I don't-- I'm really...
Auditions are never comfortable and good things.
So I do workshops.
And when someone comes into my room, an actor is a precious thing
and I never don't try and get them the job no matter what anyone else thinks.
And we workshop and we take days
and they get in the costume and we all go there and I get them-- I try and find out
about the material with whoever comes in my room.
I put the focus on rehearsing.
But Austin was different.
He came in, he was already down Elvis street, and later I was to find
that he's such a visceral connection with Elvis having lost his mum
on the same year that Elvis did and all of that.
But I think he was like
one of those things where it was a-- it was a workshop process
that just kept going.
And I knew very early on that just pretty much no-one
came near him. But I didn't tell him for a long time
because I was not being cruel, but I was preparing him
for the gigantic mountain that he would have to climb.
Which of course, he not only climbed it and got to the summit,
but he put an extra-- an extra peak on it and then went over the top of that.
He literally,
“Are you ready to fly, Mr. President?”
He flew over it, you know.
I just so rarely make them.
I do a lot of other things.
And really, I think of myself as
in the business of stories and ideas. And all--
The only really selfish decision I make is, “Is it going to be an adventure?
Is it going to keep me sort of self-medicated from turning inward
and it's going to keep me looking outward and moving forward?” After that,
I mean, I just live them, you know. I live them so long I could research
and live the movies and never make them.
So my first question is going to be,
“What's going to keep me outward looking and moving forward?”
And the second question is, “Is the undercurrent
of what I'm making going to be useful out there right now?
Does the world kind of need...” I mean, in a world full of so much stuff,
you know, I like to think that I'm going to devote
a chunk of my life to making something that is in some way
useful.