MISTER METICULOUS
Warren W Beatty B i is pretty particular i l about movies, marriage, Diet Coke
It was the rise of feminism and then the advent of the Sexual Revolution that kept Warren Beatty from getting married in his 20s, 30s and 40s. So says Warren Beatty. “When I was a young movie actor,” says Beatty, “I could not help but look down the road and think, ‘ Well, I think I’m seeing a lot of divorces coming.’
“It wasn’t that I was afraid of marriage when I was younger. It was that I was, I think quite correctly, afraid of divorce. And maybe that should be plural. Afraid of divorces.
“I had long, loving relationships with several very wonderful women” — over the years, Beatty was involved with Joan Collins, Natalie Wood, Julie Christie, Diane Keaton and Madonna, among others — “but I was not married until I was 54.”
Beatty came to Chicago to promote his new film “Rules Don’t Apply,” opening Wednesday. He and I had dinner at RPM Steak, where he marveled at the sheer heft of the bacon and dined on a salad, mac and cheese and fries. (“You get to a point in your life where you don’t worry too much about carbs and such,” said the 79- yearold Beatty with a grin.) We picked up the conversation the following afternoon, where the talk turned to social media, politics, the changing nature of the movie business and the proper way to enjoy a Diet Coke.
Warren Beatty has a very particular way of enjoying a Diet Coke. The Diet Coke should be at room temperature. The glass should be in- deed glass, a tall glass at that. Ice cubes in a bucket. With tongs, you take one cube at a time and fill the glass threequarters of the way up. Then, you pour the room- temperature Diet Coke — slowly, mind you — to get just the right mixture of fresh carbonation and cooling cubes.*
“But maybe you want to do it a different way,” says Beatty.
No, no. I’m good. I’ve been here for five minutes, and we should probably get past the Diet Coke tutorial.
And to think some people have said the Oscar- winning legend can be slow and deliberate and maddeningly precise when it comes to making movies.
Back to the talk of relationships.
“I like to think the smartest thing I ever did was to get Annette Bening to marry me and to have these four spectacular children, whom I like to call my four small Eastern European countries that I negotiate diplomatically with constantly and every once in awhile emerge victorious when I receive an actual answer to my texts.”
Like just about every other parent in America, Beatty sometimes fights the battle with his kids to put the phone down when they’re having dinner. He has resisted joining social media and sharing his every thought and experience with the public.
“I’m not as inhibited or, as some would say to me, boring as I used to be,” he says. “And, yes, there is a time when people reach an age where they can say anything — but don’t kid yourself, I’m not going to do it today!
“I don’t know about Twitter and Critter and Fritter, but I did something on this thing called Ask Me Anything [ on Reddit], and it was fun. I got compliments from my kids.”
Beatty’s first movie in 15 years is set in the late 1950s and early 1960s, mirroring the time when Beatty was an up- and- coming superstar in Hollywood. It was in the early 1960s when Beatty first became interested in Howard Hughes, whom he plays in the film.
“What has percolated for a long time has been the amusement I’ve always felt about Howard Hughes, in particular his wish to be hidden. The impossibility of working for him, with him, has always seemed to me to be good fodder for farce.
“I was lucky. My first movie [ 1961’ s ‘ Splendor in the Grass’] was what they called a hit, which then caused me to be whatever that’s called, and one thing I chose to be was very sensibly paranoid about being followed by tabloids.
“I was at the Beverly Hills Hotel, I was 23 or 24, and I thought some tabloids were following me, so I called the desk, and I complained. I said, ‘ I want to tell you how disappointed I am you’re allowing the tabloids to spy on me.’
“And they said, ‘ Mr. Beatty, those people are not with the tabloids. They’re with Mr. Hughes.’
“‘ Are you telling me I’m in the next suite from Howard Hughes?’
“‘ Confidentially, he has seven suites. And he also has five bungalows.’
“Seven suites and five bungalows, now that is fodder for a French farce. As I grew older, I always had in the back of my mind that if I were to make a movie about Howard Hughes, what I would really be making a movie about would be why I was amused by him.”
As for any effort to draw comparisons between himself and Hughes, Beatty laughs and says:
“One belief I’ve held onto for all of these years of what I guess would be called fame, or maybe a better word would be access, which fame brings, sometimes unfortunately, but, yes, it brings, is that I have continued to believe that a man who is not paranoid is a man who is not in full possession of the facts.”
* For the record: Best Diet Coke I ever had.