IT SHOULDN’T HAPPEN TO A FILM JOURNALIST
Editor-at-Large Jamie Graham lifts the lid on film journalism.
Our Jamie on keeping his friends close and his enemies closer.
One of the most common questions I’m asked as a film journalist is, “what’s it like to meet your heroes?” The adage, of course, is you never should – how can they possibly live up to their public personas and your expectations? And people want to know if Robert De Niro intimidates like his gangsters, if Meryl Streep is imperious in real life too, and just how tall is Tom Cruise?
An equally interesting question is, “What’s it like to meet your enemies?” OK, ‘enemies’ is far too strong, though I’m not about to let that get in the way of an attention-grabbing headline. But there are times when humble film journos must interview an actor or director whose work they don’t, shall we say, hold in the highest esteem. Do I exit the room after the interview intent on revisiting their canon with a fresh perspective? Or thinking, ‘Yep, she/he was a dick’?
Mortal coMbat
The first name that springs to mind is Paul W.S. Anderson. He has his fans, and there are staff members on Total Film who, like many, regard Event Horizon with great affection. But I find all of his movies blunt, laborious and visually ugly. Well, apart from the aforementioned Event Horizon, which is blunt, laborious and has some very nice production design. And yet there I was sitting opposite Anderson in a hotel suite when one of the Resident Evil movies – I forget which – came out, and I must admit that I found his boundless enthusiasm (all motoring mouth and flailing limbs) infectious. Well, until he started ragging on The Exorcist.
I had a similar experience with Michael Bay, whose movies mostly bludgeon me to boredom. It was bad enough that he answered pretty much every question by quoting his box office, but then he started telling me why his Platinum Dunes remake of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was better than Tobe Hooper’s original, which, he stated, had not aged well. Nowadays I would debate such a ludicrous claim, as I did when William Friedkin insisted that The Exorcist is not a horror film. But then I was less experienced and far more daunted, so I just nodded like a dog on a car dashboard while my blood silently boiled.
look back In anger
Another factor is when you interview someone you’ve given bad reviews to, and they bring it up. Director Chris Smith greeted me on the set of Severance with, “You’re the c*nt who gave Creep one star” (turned out he’s the loveliest guy in the world, and
I was wrong – Creep deserved two stars). And the first time
I met Danny Dyer, who, it should be said, I regard as a national treasure, he moaned that Total Film hates him and always gives his movies one star. I pointed out that we liked The Business and… anyway, his trailer was kinda cool.
Trickiest of all, though, was the time I met Liam Gallagher at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. Back then, long before the As It Was doc made me revise my opinion somewhat, everything about him wound me up. The posturing. The belligerence. The haircut. So it was through gritted teeth that I conducted TF’s five-minute video interview, bristling at each gobby answer. Then I joined the press on the beach to await his big entrance for the cameras, standing front and centre as he strutted into position to snarl disdain and pull muscle poses in a strenuous effort to inhabit the cliché of Rock-Star God.
That evening, I received a flood of texts from back home. Turns out I was on the BBC Six O’Clock News, also snarling disdain. “You looked like you wanted to punch him,” read one text. Hmm, maybe it’s best not to meet your enemies after all.
‘The firsT Time i meT danny dyer, he moaned ThaT ToTaL fiLm haTes him’