‘Money’ & greed
Ridley Scott riveted by true kidnapping saga
LOS ANGELES — On the eve of his 80th birthday, Ridley Scott was not thinking of a milestone, much less cake topped with candles: He was racing the clock to reshoot key scenes of his $40 million true crime epic “All the Money in the World,” which had to be delivered for its Christmas Day release.
His mission was accomplished with billionaire John Paul Getty played by Oscar winner Christopher Plummer, a last-minute replacement for Kevin Spacey, removed from the film following sexual assault allegations.
The unbelievable-if-it-wasn’t-true saga had captured his attention once he read David Scarpa’s script about the 1973 Rome abduction of Getty’s 16-year-old grandson.
“It’s a movie about money and the power it has over people’s lives,” Scarpa said.
“That Getty had refused to pay the ransom! That was like a Shakespearean jumping-off point. Here is a man who loved his grandson but was so addicted to money he couldn’t part with it.”
Scott was hooked: “I jumped in.” When it became necessary to replace Spacey, Scott had just 26 days to meet his deadline.
Plummer, with two days’ notice, began nine days of filming in Italy.
“Ridley made me confident,” the Oscar winner said. “I had to rely on him. I had no preparation at all.”
Reshooting in Italy was possible only through great luck because both Michelle Williams as the kidnapped teenager’s mother and Mark Wahlberg as Getty’s ex-CIA fixer were available for the extensive reshoots.
“Ridley,” said the film’s producer Bradley Thomas, laughing, “eats stress for breakfast.”
“Stress,” Scott replied, “for me is not working. My job is my passion and my life.
“The pleasure is the challenge. There’s positive stress, and negative stress is doing nothing. The worst is feeling unemployed. I came to directing without film school or anything. I was thrown into the deep end doing live TV, where I kept getting beaten up by actors because I didn’t know what to say to them.
“I discovered the most powerful thing to do is make a partnership with an actor. Because it a partnership. My job is to be the actors’ best friend.”
Added Williams, “Ridley was so kind. I’ve never worked with someone who’s given me so much freedom. He said, ‘This space is yours. Go be free.’ It was intoxicating.”