Tag: Scorsese

Richard E Grant

Richard E Grant likes to think of himself as a sharp flavour added at just the right moment. It’s a modest description for an actor whose career spans Withnail and I, an Academy Award nomination for Can You Ever Forgive Me?, and collaborations with the likes of Scorsese, Campion and Altman. Now, in his “condiment years”, Grant looks back on the friendships, films and insatiable curiosity that continue to define his life and work 

Grant wears Church’s, photography Douglas Irvine, styling Nilo Akbari 

“My wife said that I was in the condiment years of my career,” Richard E Grant recalls fondly, sitting in his study on a bright September morning. “I’m brought into a film like vinegar or mustard or a spice. I feel that is a very accurate description of what I’m doing at this age.” Grant, with a long and storied career under his belt and the likes of Martin Scorsese, Jane Campion and Robert Altman among his previous directors, is in his element. This year alone he appears in no fewer than four feature films, while a quick glance at Grant’s IMDB profile confirms a further 10 upcoming projects across genres and formats, from a voice performance in Wildwood, the much-anticipated animated film from Laika, to playing the father of magazine icon Isabella Blow in The Queen of Fashion. The “condiment years” are being kind to Grant, who is fitting in our conversation before an afternoon of ADR voice work in central London. He’s busy – but that’s very much the way he likes it. 

“I write every day, I collect stuff, I work in my garden,” he explains. “I’m like an ant, I suppose, I don’t sit still for very long.” Even when he’s not at work, Grant is at the theatre, the opera, a museum or the cinema, or (more often than not) reading. “I think that’s partly to do with where I grew up,” he suggests. “There wasn’t television, there was only the BBC World Service on the radio, so reading was a way into the outside world.” When I ask, offhandedly, what he’s been reading lately (Parallel Lines by Edward St Aubyn, by the way), Grant mentions he has “five or six” titles on the go at any given moment. “I’m a voracious reader, I get through about three or four books a week,” he explains. I suddenly feel both woefully unambitious about my timekeeping and impressed by his boundless energy. “When I was a little boy, my father used to say I was hypercurious, and that hasn’t changed,” Grant muses. “I like to squeeze as much out of my life as possible, because you only get one go at it.” 

This inherent excitement about the world and everything in it has shaped Grant’s career, leading him in 1982 from Eswatini to seek his fortune as an actor in London, where he would break out in bombastic fashion a few years later as the eponymous flamboyant alcoholic in Bruce Robinson’s wine-soaked dramedy Withnail and I. “When I worked with Daniel Day-Lewis on The Age of Innocence I prostrated myself and thanked him for turning down Withnail, because without that I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you today,” Grant says. Perhaps it’s kismet as much as curiosity. The two forces have also brought Grant to James Vanderbilt’s Nuremberg, in which he plays Sir David Maxwell Fyfe, part of the prosecution team tasked with trying and sentencing the surviving members of Adolf Hitler’s inner circle at the end of the Second World War. His small but pivotal role – a condiment part – comes years after Grant found himself studying the rise of Hitler for his History A-Level. “It felt like familiar territory from a very formative age,” Grant explains. “And the beauty of it was – as well as all the reading I’d done, including the biography of Maxwell – the footage of the real trials are readily available to watch on YouTube, so I could really see the man I was playing in exactly the moment I would be playing him. I’ve never had that opportunity before, and it was incredibly exciting to me.” 

The film, some 13 years in the making, is based on the experiences of psychiatrist Dr Douglas Kelley, who assessed the defendants’ mental capacity to stand trial – chief among them Hermann Göring, known as the “right hand of Hitler”, who remained unrepentant for his part in the Holocaust until the day he died by suicide, swallowing a cyanide capsule the night before he was to be executed for war crimes. In Nuremberg, Grant is part of a starry ensemble: Russell Crowe plays Göring, with Rami Malek opposite as Douglas Kelley, and Michael Shannon cast as US lead prosecutor Robert H Jackson. They’re joined by Leo Woodall, Colin Hanks and John Slattery. For Grant, it was an intimidating but electrifying experience. “The day on set that we shot the climactic courthouse scene where Jackson finally confronts Göring, I knew that Michael and Russell obviously had a lot to say, because the scene on paper was about 25 pages,” Grant recalls. “I only had a small part of dialogue, so I thought, ‘Great, I can relax today and be ready to shoot my part tomorrow.’” But then, just before lunch, Vanderbilt informed him that Crowe and Shannon wanted to shoot the entire scene in one take. Without a rehearsal. Grant smiles as he recalls the memory. “I couldn’t let James see me panic obviously, so we went ahead and did it. And not a single person flubbed a line. At the end, when I said my final line, and we see Göring realise he’s been defeated… it felt like there was a minute of silence. Then the entire crew of 600 Hungarian extras stood up and applauded.” He thinks for a moment, then elaborates: “I have only experienced that once before, when I shot The Iron Lady, and Meryl Streep delivered her first Falklands speech to parliament as Margaret Thatcher. A roomful of men in pin-drop silence, just awe-struck.” 

Grant speaks about his experience on Nuremberg with demonstrable passion. He recalls the way that the cast, despite the incredible weight and darkness of the subject material, found camaraderie and kinship during the shoot. “We were all staying together in the same hotel, so we’d go out for dinner and drink together, staying up late,” he grins. “It was a real friendship-forming time, and we’re all still in contact.” I mention that I’m a great admirer of Michael Shannon, and saw his excellent performance in Eugene O’Neill’s A Moon for the Misbegotten at London’s Almeida Theatre (which, naturally, Grant also caught before the run ended). “I’d never dared dream I would be calling Michael a friend before this,” he says, “but he has the most lethal, dry wit,” Grant remarks fondly. “And a face that looks like it could have been carved into Mount Rushmore.”  

Nuremberg is the final film of Grant’s spectacularly busy year, but there’s another I have to ask him about: Julia Jackman’s delightful genre-defying 100 Nights of Hero, in which he briefly appears as the villainous omnipotent deity Birdman. How did he end up having a tiny role in a queer indie fantasy film that counts Emma Corrin, Maika Monroe, Charli XCX and Nicholas Galitzine among its achingly chic cast? “I had an in,” Grant laughs. “My daughter was the casting agent, and she – without my knowledge, I must say – put me up for the role. I was very happy to be involved, because it’s based on such an unusual graphic novel, and Julia was a director I admired. But it was a nepotism hire,” he jokes. Grant’s daughter, Olivia (who did an excellent job casting Jackman’s film), also had a say in one of her father’s most iconic roles. “When my daughter was about eight years old, she was totally possessed by the Spice Girls,” Grant says. “So when she found out I was being offered the role of their manager in Spice World, she was absolutely ecstatic.” 

“I was berated by some people in my profession for taking that part,” Grant continues. “But Adele, with whom I share a birthday but not a bank balance, is a huge Spice World fan, and she kindly sent me some tickets to her sold-out tour at the O2… so it paid off in the end.” It was that very performance as Clifford the Spice Girls’ manager which brought Grant to the attention of a young Lena Dunham, who would later ask Grant to guest star on her smash-hit series Girls as Jasper, who has a brief dalliance with Jemima Kirke’s Jessa after they meet in rehab. Recently Dunham came calling again, offering him a role in her London-set Netflix sitcom Too Much as adman Jonno. “I never thought that Spice World would have that sort of legacy, and it comes with its own sort of cult following,” Grant says. “But then again, I never thought that I would be BAFTA and Oscar-nominated for a role at 62, for a film where I had replaced another actor last minute.” He’s referring to his turn as the charming rogue Jack Hock in Marielle Heller’s sublime crime drama Can You Ever Forgive Me?, for which Grant received critical acclaim and a nomination for Best Supporting Actor at the 2018 Academy Awards. (Chris O’Dowd had been slated to play the role before the part ended up with Grant.)  

Considering the garlands that Can You Ever Forgive Me? received at that point in his career, I ask Grant if there are any films from his past that he looks back on and thinks deserved more attention than they got. “I don’t tend to think about things like that unless I’m forced to, like you’re doing now.” He gamely considers my question all the same. “I had a great time working on The Portrait of a Lady and I don’t know if that film ever found its audience,” he says. “Nicole Kidman and Viggo Mortensen were delightful, but Jane Campion is so specific as a director, and at that time I don’t think I’d worked for a female director on a movie before, and I will never forget the atmosphere she created on set, because she was surrounded by this incredible team of women working on this adaptation of a book written by Henry James and giving so much to the female gaze and interpretation of that text,” Grant explains. “It made for a very different atmosphere, and it made a deep impression on me.” 

Grant has continued to work with many female filmmakers since, now counting Dunham, Heller and Jackman among them, as well as Emerald Fennell, Phyllida Lloyd and Thea Sharrock. “You can’t generalise, but I will,” he says mischievously. “When I work with a female filmmaker, it always feels more collaborative, and that people’s opinions matter. Working with Emerald Fennell was extraordinary because she sounds so posh, and she is, but this crew of 200 were ready to jump off a cliff for her, because she has this gift of making everyone feel their opinion counts, and that it informs what everyone’s doing. You feel valued as somebody on her set, and included, and if she offered me work for the rest of my career I’d be very delighted.” 

Then again, he’d have to make more time for Fennell’s films. A scan of his thriving Instagram account this month shows Richard has been to see the V&A’s new Marie Antoinette exhibition; cuddled some puppies at the Toronto International Film Festival with his Nuremberg co-stars, and even popped down to see Ralph Fiennes directing As You Like It in Bath, starring Charlie Rowe, whom Grant acted alongside in 2010’s The Nutcracker in 3D. If these are, as his wife once told him, the condiment years, it seems Richard has developed an incredibly refined palate.  

Grant wears Church’s

Photography Douglas Irvine

Styling Nilo Akbari 

Photography assistant Tom Buller

Styling assistant Roksi

Grooming Bjorn Krischker @ The Wall Group

Production The Production Factory

This article is taken from Port issue 37. To continue reading, buy the issue or subscribe here

How They Made The Last Waltz

The story behind Scorsese’s documentary curtain call for The Band

 

It is hard to imagine a modern equivalent of the talent onstage at certain points in The Last Waltz. It is hard even to imagine a modern equivalent to The Band themselves; a backing outfit with an identity and output of theirs is somewhat out of synch with today’s musical world. The group of musicians stood together as the curtain fell on Thanksgiving Night 1976 are perhaps only rivalled by the best of closing slots at Woodstock or Glastonbury, but The Band’s association with these people was much more intimate than any festival send-off.

Four parts Canadian and one part American, they initially met backing Rockabilly legend Ronnie Hawkins before backing an electric Bob Dylan after he decided that was the way forward for his sound. It was after splitting from Dylan in ’68 with a sound of their own that Rick Danko, Garth Hudson, Richard Manuel, Robbie Robertson and Levon Helm became officially known as ‘The Band’. Eight years later they would’ve ceased touring altogether, thoroughly jaded and amazed they made it through, but not without crossing paths with some of the greatest country, blues, soul, rock and pop artists of their generation – many of whom would join them onstage for their swan song.

A newly named The Band in upstate New York, 1969. L-R, Rick Danko, Levon Helm, Richard Manuel, Garth Hudson, Robbie Robertson

Seen as the end of an era, The Last Waltz – their agreed upon and heavily promoted last concert together – marked the end of their touring life, but also a change in the wind for rock n roll, which (depending on how you saw it) was either dying or morphing into punk and other offshoots. The Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco was chosen because it was one of the first places they played as a group in their own right. With a relatively small capacity of five and half thousand, this assured not only exclusivity and sentiment but also a more manageable crowd for the man in charge of filming such an event, Martin Scorsese.

The project grew from Robertson’s original intention to document the night for posterity into a full blown studio project via Scorsese and was ultimately bankrolled by Warner Brothers. Six weeks before shooting they didn’t even have a director, but when the night came around, the stage was dressed with material borrowed from the San Francisco Opera, the songs were fully storyboarded like a feature film and the complex lighting cues all set – but even this was not foolproof. The sheer length of the concert meant that loading rolls of film and difficult camera manoeuvring limited what could realistically be captured. For starters, Scorsese had to cut into the sprung ballroom floor and pour concrete just to get the master camera steady for the night.

Thanksgiving dinner for the five thousand attendees before the concert. The central camera was manned by Vilmos Zsigmund, who also shot “Close Encounters of The Third Kind” that year

The seven cameras on the night were armed by some of the most celebrated cinematographers of the 20th century, but the broader staging of the film took several different forms. At face value, The Last Waltz is a live concert film, but it is augmented by several songs recorded at MGM Studios and interviews shot later at The Band’s “Shangri-La” studio in Malibu. Over the course of nearly five and a half hours (the film itself runs just under two), The Band played nearly 50 songs, punctuated by poetry readings and occasional chatter. Not only this, the whole affair was preceded by turkey dinner and ballroom dancing, making it one of the most memorable and eccentric nights in rock and roll history, as put on by legendary promoter Bill Graham.

Like a million dollar revolving door in the wings, most of the accompanying performers are introduced in a roundabout way by the intercut conversation preceding them: Neil Diamond is mentioned as a friend from Tin Pan Alley before playing Dry Your Eyes, and The Band talk about their sexual relationships with women on the road before Joni Mitchell joins them for Coyote, a song about her own exploits. One of the few not formally introduced is Bob Dylan, who at the time would hardly have needed an introduction to anyone, never mind fans of The Band. Dylan’s inclusion was the most complex, as he was making a film of his own and had a contract drawn up to minimise his appearance – which meant that despite his huge influence on them, was only filmed for two tracks and the stacked finale.

Some of the high profile guests who pepper the setlist amassed onstage towards the end of the concert

To draw particular praise to The Last Waltz as a piece of cinema – the most visually pleasing pieces in the film are naturally the two songs shot on a soundstage – The Weight, performed with The Staple Singers and Evangeline, performed with Emmylou Harris. Each were recorded separately in more of a live music video setting, using different camera rigs and a stage dressed more subtly – dark backing with soft red lighting for The Weight and a cool blue to compliment Harris’ dress on Evangeline. Using MGM’s sound stage meant they could do multiple takes and work at their own pace, as well as crucially dub audio later on, as was also done for any audio recorded at Winterland that wasn’t up to scratch.

The rest of the film was shot live as it happened and was not without incident. Drug use off-camera was rampant with cocaine particularly prevalent, though various members of The Band and their entourage were also using heroin. Drugs were such a feature that Neil Young infamously had to have cocaine painstakingly erased from his nose frame by frame in post-production. Many of the segueing conversations show The Band blatantly high and/or drunk as they discuss their messy touring career together. It’s not a particularly pretty picture at times, but it is at least authentic.

Robbie Robertson being interviewed at Shangri-La by a wiry Scorsese

The Last Waltz has been criticised for its focus on Robertson, a not unfair argument that has peaked and troughed in the almost forty five years since. The Band argued in the aftermath that the decision to end their time on the road was very much dictated to them by Robertson, while he argued they wouldn’t even have survived another tour. Certainly most of the screen time belongs to him and he was closest to Scorsese. Levon Helm maintained until his death in 2012 that he and the rest of the band were never paid fairly for the profits made from The Last Waltz. Watching it back however, there does seem to be an element of truth to Robertson’s claim that at times he felt like he was the only adult in the room. But then again, this was also a man who had his guitar for the night encased in bronze to celebrate the occasion, which made it so heavy he could barely play it. The politics behind The Band’s demise remain one of the great debates of the rock and roll world.

As the film begins, before any title or credits “THIS FILM SHOULD BE PLAYED LOUD!” flashes on-screen to remind the projectionist (and audience) what they’re in for. Scorsese’s meters read their highest come Van Morrison’s contribution, Caravan – to many, the musical peak of the film and one that features some even more out of sight performers than the other members of The Band. With horn arrangements from New Orleans legend Allen Toussaint, this Caravan is turned up to eleven by deafening trumpets, trombones and saxophones who are barely shown – perhaps to highlight the men whose last night together was being celebrated. Robertson and Scorsese couldn’t believe their luck when a drunk Van – a typically taciturn and reserved man, began kicking the air to their fantastic sound. Tuba, piccolo trumpet and fiddle join this elusive horn section for another track The Band could not have left the stage without playing – The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, a song which reflects much of the personal complexities of the group in itself; an American Civil War ballad written by a Canadian (Robertson), rueing the collapse of the Confederacy to an everyday southerner, sung by the bandmate he least got on with – drummer and Arkansas native Helm.

As the evening nears its close, Robertson and Danko gesture to the wings to bring onstage – in addition to Dylan already stood between them – Neil Young, Ronnie Wood, Ringo Star, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Neil Diamond, Ronald Hawkins, Dr John, Paul Butterfield, Bobby Charles and Eric Clapton. Some time after performing their last track together, Robertson laments to Scorsese’s camera in Shangri-La about it all, “The road was our school, it gave us a sense of survival, it taught us all we know – but there’s not much left that we can really take from it”, before the film gently transitions back to MGM for the actual last waltz – a classical piece which would foreshadow Robertson’s impending career in film scoring alongside Scorsese.

“You’re still there huh?” – Robertson to the crowd before their 2am encore

But in order to properly appreciate the end of the concert as it actually happened that evening, you need to go back to the start of the film, where the encore was surreptitiously presented first. Ensuring a never-ending loop where The “Last” Waltz wasn’t never intended to be. And for a band as turbulent as they were, this is surely a much sweeter way of remembering them – infinitely in their finest hours, as opposed to the bitterness and squabbling that marked their careers thereafter. In a recent documentary about The Band, Bruce Springsteen said that together they were much greater than the sum of their parts would’ve suggested, and as raucously captured by Scorsese in their last waltz, savouring all they were about to leave behind – they were never better.