Sony cancels 'Interview'; Judd Apatow on the fallout; #ColbertCountdown continues; Ralph Fiennes

I'd admired Wes' films and I never thought that this great script [would come] to me. He said, "Which part would you like to play?"

[laughs]

I just said, "Have you offered Gustave to anyone?" [laughs]

It was a great script. It was clearly a great role with an opportunity. I said to Wes, "Well, what's the tone of Gustave?" I didn't know to what degree it could be played extremely campy and really out there. The first time I read it, I thought, What if I [expletive] this up and he'll say he'll changed his mind? But I didn't quite know where it would be vocally. I mean the thing mostly is writing. Good screenwriting is something that has tension, it's unusual. A lot of screenplays are rooted in generic stuff — recognizable plot patterns, ways of writing — so it's great when you get a screenplay that's just something unusual and different. 

One of my earliest days on the shoot, there's a scene where I go into Madame D.'s room ... to collect the tip with young Tony. And there was this little pedestal with an envelope with a tip in it and Wes said, "Just try it." So I went straight up and I took it and I did what wasn't "natural" because I had my back towards the camera and he said, "You're gonna have to maybe move around and... cause we can't see you where you're standing." And I said, "Okay, but you asked me to do it naturally. I'm going to what I would naturally do."

Yeah, yeah, his natural. Which is you have to go and do a theater move: go around, face the camera, take the envelope. I guess I was slightly testing, like, "How naturalistic is this?" Then I could see [the shot] and it was great. The shot had been designed and worked out and, basically, you work to make the shot work. 

What I loved about Wes was I loved the precision of it, but he was very generous with the amount of takes. You weren't really allowed to change a word; he was very precise and quite right, too, because it was beautifully written. But he does a lot of takes, which I love, and within the confines of what he's planned, he wants you to explore stuff. And so I worked out a pattern of working with him which was that I said, "Wes, don't say anything. Let me do the first couple of takes. Let me just dive in with the thing that I thought of, the thing that I prepared. Then please you tell me what you want and direct me. And then when you get to the point where you're ready to say, 'That's it, we've got it,' and you're happy, then let me have one or two more ... just let me free up.

Yes, because most of the exhibitors are not pleased that films will be offered through VOD, so the large theater chains resisted that. They're sticking to traditional windowing so that's sort of left this to the independents. 

Mostly three months. 

To my knowledge there has not. Not even close. 

There are tremendous benefits in situations where maybe you haven't expended so much [on marketing], but that is about awareness. And the awareness of this film is about as high as it can be for a film before release ... brought by the hacking scandal. So the notion that iTunes, which is available to everyone with a computer or Apple TV, could [offer] this film that is a huge curiosity for everyone, I think would lead to a [larger] buying spree than if it were released initially on VOD. 

It's purely speculative, but I don't see why not. It would be a huge boom for transactional VOD because it would probably make some people who have never consumed VOD venture into that. It's sort of a habit thing. So once that happens, I think it would really help the growth of VOD across the board. 

My advice to the studio would be to either release the film in theaters this weekend — a week early — and not tell anyone. Or put it on transactional VOD and take the public relations win, take the pressure off of the theater owners and actually make a nice chunk of change. I think it feels like a win-win. 

"I think we're in a dangerous situation when we give in to these types of threats, because it trains people to threaten us. So unless there's very credible information that there's the potential for real violence, then we have to be very careful about not presenting movies, because tomorrow someone else can just put in a call. Where does it end? What if somebody says, "Don't use that product"? These issues are what the future's going to be about."

In light of the decision by the majority of our exhibitors not to show the film The Interview, we have decided not to move forward with the planned December 25 theatrical release. We respect and understand our partners’ decision and, of course, completely share their paramount interest in the safety of employees and theater-goers.



Sony Pictures has been the victim of an unprecedented criminal assault against our employees, our customers, and our business. Those who attacked us stole our intellectual property, private emails, and sensitive and proprietary material, and sought to destroy our spirit and our morale – all apparently to thwart the release of a movie they did not like.  We are deeply saddened at this brazen effort to suppress the distribution of a movie, and in the process do damage to our company, our employees, and the American public. We stand by our filmmakers and their right to free expression and are extremely disappointed by this outcome.

I think we're in a dangerous situation when we give in to these types of threats, because it trains people to threaten us. So unless there's very credible information that there's the potential for real violence, then we have to be very careful about not presenting movies, because tomorrow someone else can just put in a call. Where does it end? What if somebody says, "Don't use that product"? These issues are what the future's going to be about.

I think when we do not know who's making threats, and we decide to give into them, it could have a chilling effect, because anybody can make an anonymous threat. We don't know if this is a disgruntled employee from Sony, a hacker who's mad about another scandal having to do with their video game consoles, or a government. We have no idea. And so to immediately give in, certainly it will lead to other people threatening and demanding things. And the combination of the loss of privacy and people threatening and forcing action is very scary. It probably is the start of a whole new era in how business is done.

I think everyone has to make their own decision about how they want to handle things. I decide whether or not I want to go see that movie. Do I believe there actually is danger, or that this is just somebody babbling? We all will decide for ourselves. And, obviously, theater chains have to decide for themselves how much they believe or don't believe in the threats. But when every theater chain — and I guess we're headed that way — is caving in, it's the reason why we don't negotiate with terrorists or kidnappers. Because as soon as [someone says], "I'm going to commit a violent act; don't show that movie," well then maybe there'll be a bad Nazi character in the movie, and some Nazi on a computer says, "I'm going to do something."



Who knows? It could be any evil group. And then do we just shut these things down? What if they don't like a product, what if they don't like a soft drink? If they say, "We don't like their business practices, so we're going to do this act if you don't stop selling it." There really is no end to where it can go when you give in to it without credible evidence. And If there is credible evidence, it's a completely different situation. But as of right now, all we know is that somebody just said something online.

They're in a very difficult situation. Their intentions were just to make something that was very funny and entertaining, and they did; the movie's hilarious. In comedy, we attack people who are bad to other people. They picked a target that's somebody who has a history of being abusive to his citizenry, so that makes perfect sense. But we don't know that that's even what this is about. We don't know who's doing it. It's a pretty big leap to say that the government of North Korea cares at all about this. Maybe they do, [but] do they care enough to actually commit a crime like this?

I can't speak to what all the alternatives are, but I think when a country that doesn't have free speech threatens to shut down free speech, or when a hacker threatens to shut down free speech, or a disgruntled employee threatens to shut down free speech, it sets a very dangerous precedent. Everything in our culture is not liked by somebody, and as soon as we say that we're going to shut it down just because someone posted something on the Internet, we're changing the world in a big way.

I'm not saying that movies about North Korea are meant to affect any change in North Korea, and that if we don't make them we're preventing something positive from happening there. Who knows what the effects of movies are? We live in a world where everybody disagrees about everything, not just in our country but internationally. But one thing that's vital in our country is that we're allowed to say anything we want to say. And as soon as we stop doing that, we've lost one of our basic rights as citizens of this country.