Director Ridley Scott is glad Kevin Spacey’s replacement in All The Money In The World didn’t want to see clips of his predecessor.
The Brit was forced to reshoot scenes in the completed film after deciding to cut Spacey’s role as billionaire J. Paul Getty and offer the job to Christopher Plummer, who originally auditioned for the part.
Scott, Plummer and the rest of the cast and crew spent the last month reworking the film ready for its Christmas Day release, and now the director has started talking about the process of editing scenes in a hurry.
Ridley tells WENN he felt no pressure reshooting, admitting his biggest job was protecting Plummer.
“I had to protect Christopher from ever having seen what Kevin did because it has to be his,” he explains. “Christopher has to own it.
“Of course I asked him if he wanted to see it and he said, ‘Absolutely not!’ So, off from that, I was born with a natural geometry in my head which is a gift for me, frankly, which is polished from doing years of commercials, to shoot from any angle… But I never discussed that with Chris.
“I protected him from that but I wanted to slide in what we already had to minimize the extent of what we’d have to do if I started all over again. It was driven by practicality but mainly by the fact that I liked the scenes.”
Scott recalls meeting Plummer in “this awful conference room” at the Four Seasons hotel in New York, and the two veterans quickly came to an understanding of what was needed.
“Honestly, for years I wanted to work with Ridley and I’m not just saying that to get another job,” Plummer smiles. “I’ve admired his work tremendously.
“He just made me feel comfortable with his outrageous sense of humor. That would calm anybody down…”
“He’s such a pro he gets it and if I’m gonna fly all that way to see Christopher it’s gonna be something serious,” Scott adds. “He took that on board.”
Ridley chose to cut Spacey from his film after the actor was accused of sexual misconduct by a string of men, including actor Anthony Rapp, who alleged The Usual Suspects star pinned him to a bed in his apartment when he was 14.
