Gus Van Sant
by James Crotty
October 15, 1999
GUS COMES CLEAN
Portland,
OR
us
Van Sant, the only living director who'd have the balls to
remake
Alfred Hitchcock's "Psych" shot by shot (only in
color),
does not thank us for dinner. Perhaps the man described by
actor
Robin Williams as "so subtle he's subliminal" means
to
thank us for the excellent repast at Portland's Wildwood
Restaurant,
but can't bring himself to say it. Or maybe he did say it, but we
missed its nonverbal subtlety. It's a common confusion people
find
with the acclaimed director of "Drugstore Cowboy,"
"To
Die For" and the Academy Award-winning "Good
Will Hunting."
(We'll forget "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues.") As
with
other understated stars, much is imputed where nothing may
exist
at all.
À
la Chance the Gardener in "Being There," Van
Sant's opaque
persona allows you to project a myriad of possible
interpretations,
a perfect trait for a director respected for his ability to elicit
strikingly deep and original performances out of his leading
actors.
Matt Dillon was never more beguiling than in "Drugstore
Cowboy."
The late River Phoenix gave the most emotionally edgy
performance
of his short-lived career as a narcoleptic hustler in "My
Own
Private Idaho." Ditto for River's brother, Joaquin, in Van
Sant's highly underrated "To Die For," and for
Nicole
Kidman, who gave the performance of her career as the
maniacally
driven newscaster in the same film. And, of course, there's
rambunctious
Robin Williams, who won Best Supporting Actor for his turn
as an
eccentric counselor in "Good Will Hunting." And it's
quite
possible Good Will's writer-actor tandem of Matt Damon and
Ben Affleck
would not have reached teenage heartthrob status were it
not for
Van Sant's canny direction.
Is
there a master plan or does Van Sant just have good timing?
Is he
a genius or is he just lucky? Is that Buddha-like detachment
we
detect or just ironic understatement? We know one thing --
the manager
and wait staff at Wildwood treat him like the second coming
of Kubrick.
Before
our dinner at Wildwood -- where Van Sant explains the arc
of a great
screenplay then generously shares stories of meetings with
Burroughs,
Ginsberg, Harvey Weinstein and some very heavy hitters
whose names
and stories must remain strictly off the record -- we interview
the director du jour in his Council Crest home. Relaxing by the
fire, surrounded by photos of stars who've appeared in his
films,
Gus
seems strikingly at ease, overtly friendly, even, dare we say,
loquacious.
It could be the nearby presence of longtime
companion/photographer,
Scott Green, or maybe fame and enormous good fortune
have given
Van Sant the green light to finally let down the guard. We
don't
know the reason for this new ebullient Van Sant, but we are
happy
to be a part of it. Then again, maybe we're missing the
subliminal
message.
MONK:
Last year was a good year. You had "Good Will
Hunting." You
made it to the Oscars.
GUS: That
was good. People know me now.
MONK: Do
you like that?
GUS: [Laughs]
I don't know. They see ["Good Will Hunting" and they go,
"Okay,
you can do that, that means. . ." Before, there was never any
identity
like that. It was more like a cult identity. Now the cult identity's
become
something else so that now people like Spielberg will talk to me and
say
hi and strike up a conversation.
MONK: So
you've got the studios' attention?
GUS: Yeah,
but that can go away.
MONK: Are
you scared of that?
GUS: I'm
not scared of losing that attention. I wasn't really looking for the
attention.
I always figured it was [because of] marketing, that marketing
would do
the trick. A lot of times when studios have a lot riding on a film
they
will market it so it will be a big film, and a lot of times the big films
are half-way to do with how you're marketing it and how many
theaters
you're getting it out to. "Good Will Hunting" was a
Miramax
movie. They are always really good marketers. They make their
dollar work.
As opposed to buying thousands of billboards, they'll decide which
billboards
they want to buy. They're just more shrewd. So I don't think they
threw
a lot of money at "Good Will Hunting," but it did really
well
for them. I'm in an arena now where you get the advertising
money. For
something like "Psycho" there's a huge advertising
campaign.
That's what [the big studios] like to do, they like to spend a lot of
money on advertising. I always assumed that "My Own
Private Idaho"
could have been a huge hit if it went into the malls. It was
subversive
[because] I thought it was a subject that kids would like, but it
wasn't
the normal screen subject. It sort of became something precious to
the
studio as opposed to something that could have been put out
widely. [But]
of all the movies I've made, "Good Will Hunting" was the
only
one that I thought had a chance [to be a huge hit].
MONK: Did
they talk to you about making "Psycho" before you
made "Good
Will Hunting?"
GUS:: No,
"Psycho" was a project that I'd always pitched to the
studios.
During the "Drugstore Cowbo"y days was the first time
I talked
[about it]. They were general meetings. "What have you got?
What
have we got? What do we want?" In my case I was
interested in doing
"My Own Private Idaho" so I talked about that and
they'd say,
"Oh, send a script over. We have these projects we want to
do, we
have this vehicle for this actor, we have these ideas for remakes
of films
from our library."
They would
always invite me to look at their libraries because, "You might
want
to remake one of our movies" (Gus smiles wily). So my
reaction was,
"Why don't you try and get a really great title that you guys
have
in the library, like "Psycho," and NOT change
it?"
MONK: You
used that as an example. Or had you already thought about
it?
GUS:: No,
it was an example. They had never really thought of that and they
said,
"What do you mean?" and I said, "Just copy every
single
shot. Film it in color. Jack Nicholson will be the detective. Don't
change
the script, everything seems to be going perfectly, so you don't
need
to." And they thought this was too extreme an idea. The next
time
I went to Universal was probably after "My Own Private
Idaho"
and again I brought this up to them. Same thing. They sort of
passed on
it, they had other ideas. After "Good Will Hunting" came
out
all the studios were interested in getting me in their camp. They'd
take
me to their studios and show me their projects. A lot of times they
were
remakes. So I went in and had a discussion with them and they
were really
up for it. They said, "Let's do it." And I said, "You
guys
understand it's going to be the same idea." So they said okay
and
I had to make a decision on whether I really wanted to go and do it,
whether
I was serious about it. It's one of those ideas where it's a concept.
It's the only high-concept I think I've ever come up with, where you
can
say your idea in a sentence: Redo "Psycho" and don't
change
anything.
MONK: How
would you define the Gus Van Sant aesthetic? Do you have a
certain style
that is your own?
GUS: I can't
tell because I do it, so I'm not sure.
MONK: Do
you ever stand back and watch your films and go, "I can see
how I
do it?"
GUS: I can
see stuff. I usually try to change it, though. A lot of times when you
try and change it, it doesn't really change. You know, you think, I
have
this thing going and then you step out and try and do something
like "Good
Will Hunting," which is not like my other movies. And then, at
the
same time, it sort of looks like your movies even though you were
trying
really hard.
MONK: You
were trying to make it different?
GUS: I was
trying to make it not like something that I would do. But because
you're
making the decisions it ends up being like one of your
movies.
MONK: I thought
it was different. I think there was less of the
quirkiness.
GUS:: Definitely.
I tried to keep all that kind of stuff out of there. The script was
very
straight-ahead, very American Playhouse, Hallmark Presents . . . I
knew
the kind of movie that was like that so I tried to make it one of
those
movies. I can still see the presence of myself in there. I was just
trying
to present it like something I had seen elsewhere.
MONK:
How
did you hook up with those two guys?
GUS:
I met Matt Damon in a casting session for "To Die For."
He was
trying out for the kid, Jimmy Gluckman's part, and Matt looked like
the
football quarterback, not the emaciated kid from the other side of
the
tracks. I though Matt was very good, although Joaquin was more
of a name
than Matt Damon. Matt was an extremely adept actor, very quick,
and he
really wanted the part. Probably more so than anybody I
interviewed. Joaquin
wanted it really bad, too. Matt tried hard to get it to the point
where--he
was 23 and I said, "You're just a little too old," and he
said,
"No, no. I can act younger if you give me a couple
weeks"--and
he starved himself so he was real skinny and he somehow focused
his eyes
so he looked not as intelligent, and a little green, not as worldly,
about
six years less worldly. He really did look 16, and I said, "God,
that's amazing." And I kind of forgot to say, "but you're
too
all-American." It was really neck and neck. But Joaquin was
the obvious
favorite. So that's how I knew Matt, and he sent Casey Affleck,
who got
the part as Russell. So I knew Casey and then Ben Affleck
through Casey.
Then they sold their screenplay which was a big lottery. They kind
of
cleaned up. They spent about three years writing it and rewriting it
and
they ran into a situation at Castle Rock where they wanted to
have control
over the director. Castle Rock said, "Look, you guys are really
pushing
us because you're starring in this thing and yet you're no-names,
and
we're taking a risk with you, so you have to let us decide who the
director
is. And if you want to play the game, if you want to find somebody
else
to buy it, we'll give you a couple months to do that and you'll see
how
hard it is to set it up with you guys as the leads." And they
went
around and they found Miramax and, for some reason, Miramax
bought it.
So I was meeting with this guy at Miramax about something else
and I said,
"What are you guy's working on?" and he said,
"Oh, we bought
Ben and Matt's script." It was a first-name basis thing. He
knew
that I knew them, and I said, "I remember reading about that
script
they sold over at Castle Rock," and he said, "Oh really?
I'll
send it over."
MONK: That's
how the town works.
GUS: I was
curious. Sort of like, I wonder what those guys wrote if you guys
are
buying it? And I read it that afternoon and I called them to say,
"It's
a really good script," but I also said, " I'd be interested in
doing it if I'm the kind of guy that you guys want." For Ben
and
Matt that was really a big deal. They wanted somebody like me to
do it,
but for Miramax it was more like, "Oh, okay. Van Sant's
interested.
Let's get so and so going." They had about 50 guys to go to
before
me, Redford, or whoever. They went to a couple people and then
they turned
to me and said, "Look, these other guys don't want to do it, so
if
you want to do it...."
MONK: Is
Matt the math genius in real-life? Is that kind of based on him or is
that based on someone they met?
GUS: I think
Ben and Matt both have very unusual abilities and they're best
friends
from a long time ago. In some ways Matt has a very striking,
obsessional,
strange intelligence and Ben also has genius. They both have
genius streaks
in them. I think one of Matt's things is he was in Harvard. I used to
think Harvard was a place where you went to be smart. Now I
think of Harvard
as a place where you can get a good education, but also, you are
taught
to get out there and win.
MONK:
Yeah, they've got a lot of drive. They really do. What was it like
working
with Nicole Kidman back with "To Die For?" She's a
very driven
woman in her own way and both she and Tom have an interest in
Scientology.
I don't know how much that comes in to play in dealing with them,
but
what's that like? What kind of person is she?
GUS: She's
very organized and driven and she did a lot of work for her
character
outside of anything I did to help her. She really wanted to make
that
role a huge thing. She did a whole lot of work.
MONK:
What
do you mean by "work?"
GUS: She
could do improv based on any scene that we were doing. She had
already
done sessions on each scene with an acting coach with every
instance of
her character. She really put a lot of effort into making sure that
she
didn't just come in and act. She wanted to make sure that she had
built
this character. One of the ways that Nicole ended up getting the
role
was that she really wanted the part very badly. There were some
people
who were involved in talking about the role who weren't really
sure, especially
the more high-profile actresses, because in "To Die For"
it's
a character that you really love to hate. Maybe you have an
actress whose
image has never been that, who really hasn't faced that as a
woman. A
lot of guys have done characters who you love to hate, but for
lead actresses
to stretch into a role where the audience actually doesn't like
[them],
it's tricky and scary. What happens sometimes in those situations
is [the
actress wants] to start changing the screenplay to make them
look a little
less severe. But Nicole wasn't about that.
MONK: Good
for her! Real quickly, I'll give you some names of people you've
worked
with and you give me your take on them, what they're about, or
what it
was like to work with them. Uma Thurman.
GUS:: She
was really steady. Even though she comes from a modeling
background I
always thought she a had a little more experience than
myself.
MONK: Than
yourself?
GUS: Yeah,
for whatever reason I always got the feeling that she really had
the beat
on acting.
MONK: Robin
Williams.
GUS: Robin
is . . . ummm, very spontaneous.
MONK: To
say the least!
GUS: He was
very much a team player. We had talked about Harvey Milk
before and that
one didn't work out. Robin is really fun to work
with.
MONK: Does
Robin ever calm down?
GUS:: I think
it depends on who he's with. When he's with me he's very calm. I
always
wonder what he's like when he's at home on his computer
because I think
that's a place where I think he has a life. He's been into cyberspace
since before I knew what it was. He has a really developed interest
in
the Internet. I always wonder what he's like when he's having fun
like
that, when he's really just relaxing, because I know him as a person
who
is really calm. I view his comedy as something he's brilliant at, and
at the same time, it's his job.
MONK: He
described you as "so subtle you're
subliminal."
GUS: It could
be that when he's with me he's picking up me and he's assimilating
my
mood into part of what we're doing at the moment. There's a lot of
subliminal
stuff that I do. Not on purpose, it's my only way of communicating. I
think he probably picks up on it.
MONK: Like
what? Give me an example.
GUS: Like
if an actor says, "Do you like this?" and [I] say
"yeah,"
but they'll know by the frown it's a half-way yeah. There are little
motions
I probably make and he can read them where other actors
wouldn't be able
to. It's weird that he said that because I think it's totally right on.
A lot of times I do it because there's nothing else you can do.
There's
just so many things going on that subliminal comes in from not
being in
control. It's like a way of being in control without being in control.
It's in your whole gestalt and it sort of comes out of you. Robin
actually
doesn't take well to orders so maybe he wouldn't be able to act
unless
you were subliminal. It's very possible because whenever I did say,
"Maybe
you should do this," he would go "No, no, no" and
he would
have some other idea. Maybe he likes subliminal
ideas.
MONK: I think
you have a spaciousness that comes across in your films.
GUS: It's
kind of like chance but then at the same time you're trying to
organize
it. You're trying to set it up so that the chance things will happen.
You really want things to happen out of the blue, anyway. You
can't really
dictate it because then the good stuff doesn't happen. For one
thing,
when I'm directing, I want everyone to be really comfortable so
they feel
free. I want them to be able to make mistakes because then
they're making
a go for the good things. Actors are used to this--as soon as they
make
one little move where it's their idea, they're taking a chance. The
director
that's a control freak, they go, "No. Do it like this." And
the actor realizes the game plan very early on from the first
rehearsal.
I'm never saying anything like that. If they ask me [to tell them what
to do] I can do it. I can tell them what I want if they need it. Some
people need it. Some people really want you to tell them what to
do. Some
actors demand that you freak out. I don't like working with the
actor
who needs you to be a tyrant or else they can't do their job.
MONK: Who
is that, for example?
GUS: I think
in some ways all actors are like that. They need to know that
somebody's
in control somewhere. They need to see the parent around, so all
of them
need to see you freak out just a little bit. Some of them need to
see
you freak out all the time. That's the one I can't deal with. It's sort
of like, if there's no parent, if everybody can do what they want, it's
real uncomfortable. It starts to become like an unruly playground
and
actors don't want it to be like that either.
MONK: What
movie made you the happiest in the making of it?
GUS:
They're
all really hard so I don't really have one that I wasn't really focused.
They were all really similar in the making. I think "My Own
Private
Idaho" and "Good Will Hunting", partly because of
the lead
character. In some ways all of the films have this quality. The lead
character
is your co-conspirator. In the case of River and Matt, they were
really
gentle co-conspirators. Sometimes I wouldn't really have to talk to
them
because they understood what they were up to.
MONK:
What's
the happiest moment that you can remember in your life?
GUS: I always
think the happiest moment's in the future.
MONK: You
must have been very happy the night of the Academy
Awards.
GUS: No,
I was really nervous because it's a big party and I don't like parties.
It's like a wedding, or something, so you're worried about how
everybody's
doing. It was fun but it wasn't my happiest moment. I'll tell you when
I was really happy recently: when I got the offer on
"Pink,"
my novel. I don't think I've ever been that happy before. I don't think
I've ever had that experience before--they call it walking on air. I
really
felt like I was walking on air for about a week. I don't think movies
can have that.
