Opening Gala with Salma Hayek and Robert Towne |
Chinatown. Shampoo. Reds. The Firm. Mission: Impossible.
At a glance, the list reads like one of those most popular films of the century rosters, and while the movies do indeed fit that bill, they’re also entries on the resume of one of the most revered and respected screenwriters working in Hollywood, Robert Towne.
And along with penning some of America’s most critically hailed and commercially successful films, Towne’s also effectively stepped behind the camera as well (Tequila Sunrise, Personal Best, Without Limits) and now, eight years after his last outing, his latest film as writer-director premiered at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival after some three-plus decades of development hell: an adaptation of John Fante’s 1939 novel Ask the Dust. Set in pre-Chinatown Depression-era Los Angeles, the story follows the tempestuous, incendiary romance between the Italian-sired aspiring author and L.A. newcomer Arturo Bandini (Colin Farrell) and the proud waitress Camilla Lombard (Salma Hayek).
“I was afraid of the part,” Salma Hayek told Hollywood.com of her initial resistance to accept the role almost a decade ago. “She's a very complex woman. I think now it's the best part I've ever played…I was always a big fan of Robert and his writing, and I have to say that I am eternally grateful to him because he wrote an extraordinary character and I was just so lucky that I got to play it. She goes through so many things, so many different emotions. I almost get to play these different parts in one. Usually women in films are very linear, but this one goes through a lot.”
Hayek discovered that she was as taken with how Towne made the story come to life (L.A.’s ‘30s-era Bunker Hill district was recreated on a set built in South Africa) as much as she was enthralled by his writing. “I loved the rehearsal process that he had,” she said. “We rehearsed a lot and he was very open even though he wrote the script. He would find things within the rehearsal and he would rewrite things from what he saw. We had months of rehearsals and that's how we found the characters, and that's how he ended up finishing them off. That was amazing and such a great pleasure to be able to do.”
Hollywood.com sat down with Towne on the terrace of a luxury hotel bungalow in Montecito to discuss the film and its stars, his legendary status in Hollywood, his future plans with past collaborators Tom Cruise, Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson, and the unique distinction of having owned the only Oscar-nominated sheepdog in history.
Hollywood.com: How did you first get interested in this era of Hollywood and Los Angeles, the 1930s and 1940s? What sparked your interest originally?
Robert Towne: First of all, there is a glamour to the period in general, to L.A. in particular. Even the Depression itself: the unity of the people struggling against a common foe, which was in this case hunger and unemployment. They also had a hunger and a determination to make it work for yourself. I remember–it was still in the Depression, and I was a few years old, but a few years later, my mom and dad told me that all they ever wanted was $5,000 in the bank and the ability to send me to college. The appeal of the time in which people's goals were so clear and the corruption of luxury and of materialistic acquisitions was just not an issue. The joy of living– it's like people in combat; a few days of R&R after being behind the lines makes you feel wonderful. The ability to go out with your family and take a drive, to go to a drive-in and have enough money to buy hamburgers. These things held pleasures for that time. Another thing is that in my case the period is just at the very edge of my consciousness and I think that we're all fascinated with that sort of thing, and to be able to just try to get there to bring it to life is a kind of impulse that makes for good movie making.
HW: When did you first get the idea of bringing John Fante’s novel to life, and how long did it take to bring it to fruition?
RT: About 33 years. I was doing research for Chinatown and I was looking for something that was roughly in the same period that I felt had some of the characters behavior and the diction, the way that they spoke–something that convinced me that that's the way that people spoke during that time and place, because I was looking for that during Chinatown. I inadvertently stumbled onto Ask the Dust and fell in love with it, and it's been a long journey from then to now.
HW: What was the final determining factor that got this movie made?
RT: Colin Farrell. After four years of being committed to it as an unknown, he started to become a movie star and it made it possible to be financed. And then of course Salma coming onboard didn't hurt it.
HW: You've had a lot of good fortune working with people who both good actors and are movie stars. How does Colin Farrell fit into that equation for you?
RT: Well, he wasn't a movie star when I met him. His agent just called me and said, “I have an actor who I think is right for this script.” It was a script that was known and respected, even as it was rejected by studios. It was respected by talent and talent handlers. So he showed up at my doorstep and he was an unknown, but I felt that he was just dead right for the part.
HW: What did you learn about him as an actor while you were directing him and seeing on him on the set every day?
RT: I'm trying to think of the most distinguishing characteristic… How quick he is. He was a quick study and he responds immediately if you make a suggestion. You don't want to over make a suggestion because he's there so fast. How quick he takes even the semblance of a suggestion and makes it his own and moves with it–he's just fast.
HW: Farrell has the perception of being a fun-loving, bad boy sort of character, and obviously it’s come with some price for him. Did any of that spill into work at all, or is he a different person on set?
RT: Spill into work? Oh my God, the man is so professional. He's like a metronome or a Swiss clock. He's always there. Always on time. Always knows his lines. He knows his wardrobe and is full of suggestions. That really is not a part of the work experience when it comes to Colin.
HW: What was it about Salma Hayek that made her just right for this particular film?
RT: A combination of boldness, haughtiness and fragility.
HW: You offered the role of Camilla to her once and she turned it down. She told me she was not ready to tackle the role.
RT: Yeah. I think that what she said at the time. She hadn't been in America all that long, because this was about eight or nine years ago. She said, “Look, Robert. Unfortunately, I've lived this life. I can't deal with this kind of prejudice. I would be putting myself into the same bag that I'm trying to get out of.” I think that she was looking for parts that were crossover parts. Then she did Frida and realized that it was possible to enjoy success as a Latina actress in America playing Latina parts, and that's something that no one else could do. She read this years later and thought, “Why did I ever turn this down?” And she came onboard and I was like, “Thank God.”
HW: I imagine that there are many surprises when you're filming a movie that you've written. What came up in this one?
RT: Well, one of the things that came up was how much like Los Angeles that South Africa looks [Laughs], and the other is how Salma seemed to make the dialogue her own and added wonderful touches to it.
HW: They have such a great chemistry. Was there a lot of rehearsal to get to that chemistry ahead of time?
RT: Well, we did a lot of rehearsal, but their relationship established itself. We'd rehearse and block a scene. We would discuss what it was about, and then you watch it. They established their own repartee very nicely, and I think that their ability to be hostile in that unfettered way was precisely because they became such good friends that it allowed them not to censor themselves. They could say anything, because they knew that they really liked each other, and only because of that were they able to hammer away at each other and enjoy it and not feel bad.
HW: There'd been a little time that had passed–eight years–since your last film as a director, Without Limits. Did that time off help you at all when you started this film, or was it challenging to get find your bearings after the break?
RT: I don't think that it helps. It was too long, and the older that you get–I wouldn't want to do that all the time. It took a little bit of time, I think. It took a little bit of time because that sense of the interim, where you're sitting in a room for eight years and you're writing, and you're working as a writer with other directors. It's not quite as easy to be as authoritative and outgoing and say, “This is the way that this has to work and this is the way that that has to work.” That's a habit too that you have to foster, and I'm not naturally an autocrat or an authoritarian type of man. So I had to kind of psyche myself up for that. So it took a little time.
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