Iron Jawed
Entering the Orchid Suite in Park Lane’s famed Dorchester hotel — usually an ornately decorated setting — you would today think it to look more like a theme park ride. Panels of aquamarine plaster with nautical bolts, giant plasma screens with images of cascading waves, and life-size publicity posters for the newest blockbuster in town, Poseidon, literally swamp the room.
And then you have one of the film’s stars, Richard Dreyfuss, seated among it all, true to form, animated in conversation, his trademark laugh bellowing. Welcome to the media circus, Warner Brothers-style.
O+: You obviously knew what you were signing up for with Poseidon. But did you have to overcome any phobias. It isn’t just acting is it. You have to live through it yourself?
RD: I think acting is easy. I think the secret of acting and becoming an actor is that it’s easy.
This wasn’t easy. It is the only time I’ve ever actually earned my pay in my entire career. Every part of it was tough. Really tough. And we all [the ensemble cast] went down with the ship. When you first see how many of the safety procedures were, to a great extent, designed as we went along — because you can never anticipate everything — that’s when you realise what a tremendous commitment a project like this is for the studio.
O+: When it’s first revealed that your character in Poseidon is gay, I thought, “ok, here we go, here’s the hysterical Shelley Winters character”. But it’s not that at all. I wondered at what stage it was decided your character would be gay and how you approached it.
RD: Well the character was written as gay in the script from the outset. But Wolfgang [Petersen, the director] had not a clue, until we shot the first scene with my character, how I was gonna play it.
That was a great morning! Also when we decided which ear my character’s earring should be on, what message I was giving to exactly which gay community and all that!
O+: I know alongside your acting these days you’re involved in many other projects, including academia at Oxford. What would you say is the greatest honour: winning the Oscar so young for a performance routinely regarded as one of the finest in motion picture history, or being appointed senior advisory member at St Anthony’s College?
RD: They’re both about equal. You have to realise it had nothing to do with being the youngest recipient of the Oscar, that was not even an issue. It just wasn’t a part of the story. At the time though, obviously, it was an amazing honour.
It’s one of the few comedy performances to have won. But being made a member of St Anthony’s, that’s a completely different arena.
O+: And how did you come to St Anthony’s? Were you invited to become a member?
RD: Well, I was asked to submit a project and if they approved it I could become a member. I wrote the biography of the idea of democracy as a Dickensian tale. Democracy as David Copperfield, if you like.
They both share a perilous birth, a fragile childhood, they’re both held in contempt with strange allies and opponents. They both have an unlikely victory and carry within themselves the seeds of their own destruction.
O+: Was it about framing the grand political idea through art then?
RD: It was first shown as a tale for children. Then I wanted the idea to form the core of a new curriculum, and from it be able to teach civics and the maintenance of Republican democracy.
If it’s not taught, that is either a signpost of cultural neurosis or suicide.
O+: It is obvious that you have a keen interest in the democratic system.Do you think we are we heading in the right direction with our democracy?
RD: If you have a democracy — which is not the be all and end all of governmental systems, but certainly it’s the most popular, and it offers the most control to the most people involved — and you don’t train people to the difficulties, it’s like turning over Enron to a bunch of, you know. Like driving a car on a highway without having learned how to drive.
O+: And do you think that’s the situation in your home country at the moment?
RD: I think it’s the situation in my home country vividly — and in yours, just less visibly. Wherever democracy is, it is paid only lip service. It is the pursuit of all and when you achieve it, the conundrum is “gee, why don’t we get anyone to actually do it. Why can we not get young people involved.” Because it’s so fragile and capable of being stolen.
O+: I guess it exposes the extent to which the power-to-the-people idea is an illusion.
RD: It’s an illusion if people insist on that. People have to pay the price for democracy, you know. It means going to school, learning the use of logic and dissent and debate. And learning as a romantic notion, not just some stern bullshit. If we can do that and instill in kids the romance, the thriller, the value of this thing from the beginning, then we’ll have it right.
Right now, it’s all been taken over by interests from within. When they established the constitution, the one thing they didn’t want was democracy. They wanted a Republic because they knew democracy meant rule-by-mob — which is what we’ve now got.
1st Jun 2006