Cinema Canada (Nov 1977)

But you must have difficult times... There have been times. Take Oliver Reed. He has a reputation for being an extravagant liver, shall we say, and my first interview with him and Les Wedman of the Vancouver Sun was a perfect example. But, I wasn’t surprised. Oliver wasn’t working yet and he was enjoying himself. And he works with Reg, his friend and his stand-in. They've been together for 6 years. I think they work as a team because, after all, don’t forget, it must be very boring for an actor to give interview after interview after interview. So I think that he and Reggie have a little game they play. Occasionally he turns to him and says, ‘“Shut-up, Reg’, and this is kind of shocking, you see, to an interviewer. That day, gin was spilled and notes were thrown in the air and so I phoned Michael Klinger and said, “Listen Michael, I’m going to tell every journalist that if they want to interview Oliver Reed, they have to do so at their own risk. What’s more, I want an insurance taken out on me.” He just thought it was funny because, after all, Oliver is good copy, and if fact, I found him to be very cooperative and just very, very amusing and very creative. It’s just to avoid the boredom that he just likes to do kooky things; he’s been super and he hasn’t been nasty. He’s been really great. Besides, people are only temporarily nasty. I think anyway that films do expose people. It’s like the primal emotions, you know. Actually, that’s why I like films because you’re in a kind of a microcosm and you're living a six-week tightly knit set-up where you're working very hard, very close to these people and it’s... what is it like? Not like an orgasm because that’s kind of pleasurable. And it isn’t always pleasurable. It’s like living extremely intensely for six or seven or eight weeks and that’s wonderful because you can get on a high on that. And people are really down to their basics and that’s terrific. And it can be nasty and it can be a high, you know. You get the whole range of everything in the context of that intense, intensified period. How’s the pay? Well, I get paid on a weekly basis like anyone else, but I’m non-union so I don’t get overtime. I started off my first film at $250 a week, and I’ve added on every single film ever since. All of a sudden I realized what the crew were making. You know, the coffee boy in some films with overtime was making $600-$800 a week. That’s incredible. I mean, I’ve never made that much per week. But from now on, I will charge so much per day. And, to live comfortably, it would take a minimum of three films a year. After my experiences in England in my magic job for five years, I do not want to work in a bureaucratic environment ever again: fifty-two weeks a year with two weeks holiday! So, I’m prepared to earn less money. If I only do three or four films per year, I’m obviously going to make less than if I had a permanent job, but I don’t mind because I really like the time off and I would like to travel some more. Films are bureaucratic but you know it’s going to end. So you can put up with it. If there’s a nasty situation you know, well, this film is only for 3 or 4 more weeks so I don’t care, I’m just going to get on with it. But if it were a permanent job and there was a conflict of personalities, that would be disaster. . I want to be a free agent is what I’m saying. I want to be independent. I’m going to try — it’s an experiment for me to try and support myself in the film industry so Ill continue to do so as long as people hire me to do films in Canada. On the other hand, Id like to go out on location abroad. This is another aim of mine. I would like to work on location; David Hemmings mentioned about doing Vol de Nuit in Brazil and he said offhandedly, ‘Well, you can work on that, if you like’. Now, that would be wonderful, to go and work on a film in Brazil. That would be my ultimate aim: to get out of the country on to locations somewhere else in the world. How much difference is there for you between working in Toronto and working in Montreal? In Toronto, it’s much easier. It’s a centre. Take CBC for example. On Coup d’Etat I had two national items on CTV and CBC in Toronto. You know the little bit at the end of the news where they have to do a little humorous thing or whatever? I know the girl who does that, but she can’t do it in Montreal because she’s in Toronto, and she wouldn’t send a crew all the way here just to do an item. So in terms of national cover SPOT LIGHT age, it’s easier for me out of Toronto. When I’m in Montreal I feel really pissed off that I don’t speak French better. One of my plans is, in January or February, to go to Aix-enProvence and just immerse myself because I don’t want to spend the winter in Trois-Rivieres. I had signed up for a course at Laval before Expo and then the job came up and they said, ‘‘You had better start now’. I’m impressed with the bilingualism here, and I can converse on the subject of the film in French because I know what the jargon is. But I cannot work fulltime in terms of writing my own releases; I have to have somebody translate them... Is the Quebecois press sympathetic? They’ve been very good. — They’re not so interested in Tomorrow, as they were in Blood Relatives, but then that was Claude Chabrol who is a gem. He was just wonderful. They’re very supportive. I always speak to them in French first. I try and then I say, “Parlez-vous anglais? s ‘andicif théycsuy, > No’)... 7 say “oh, ok”, and then I just think it out very slowly. And actually, I like doing it. I like the French press. I like the verve. The French-Canadian have much more verve than EnglishCanadians. They really do. Have you ever had a real bad shoot? Not really. I can tell you that Coup d’Etat was a joy. I can tell you that Tomorrow Never Comes is a very pressured film, mostly because the weather has influenced the shoot a lot. We have to shoot out of doors, and the schedule changes nearly every day because it’s been raining for a long time. That creates a few problems in terms of having to cancel. Like the other day, I had to reschedule five interviews. So let’s hope it doesn’t snow. This has been, I will tell you, the toughest film I have worked on but that’s also because I am now working on an international basis and a great deal more is being demanded of me. We're working with Klinger who is an international guy. He’s very keen on publicity and he is tremendously demanding. But that’s ok, because if I can survive this film, I shall be much better at my job. Klinger even said, ‘“‘Prudence, by the end of this film you will be the best public relations lady or publicist in Canada”. Connie Tadros November 1977/11