Ridley Scott joins GQ as he revisits some of his most iconic films from his career so far: from his breakthrough science fiction with the first installment of the Alien franchise, to the Gladiator sequel starring Denzel Washington (Macrinus), Pedro Pascal (General Acacius) and Paul Mescal (Lucius).“Paul Mescal was kind of stunned at the scale,” says Scott as he recalls working with the Irish actor on Gladiator II. Watch the full episode of GQ’s Iconic Films as Ridley Scott breaks down his most iconic movies.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00I've heard you've got great iconic movies.
00:03They're all iconographing.
00:04Of course they are.
00:13Do not be troubled.
00:16For you are in Elysium.
00:18And you're already dead!
00:22Raw!
00:24Raw!
00:25Can you describe how you executed that huge opening background?
00:30I'm trying to think where I really started the multi-camera thing.
00:33But I stepped up and thought,
00:35I can't do the one-on-one.
00:37It'll take me forever.
00:38I'll still be shooting it today.
00:39I said, I'm going to step up to, I think, eight cameras.
00:43It's simple, actually.
00:44Because if you've got a thousand extras there,
00:47and you've got Mark Surillis on the hill,
00:49and you've got Russell Crowe down below amongst the catapults and the cannons,
00:53why not put cameras in all those positions and go,
00:55Action!
00:57And it all happens together in one big scene.
01:00So I'm now in my wigwam or tent,
01:03watching eight cameras going boom, boom.
01:05And because I'm an operator, I said, boom, you missed it.
01:07Change of lens.
01:08You were slow.
01:09Let's go again.
01:10But we do all of that establishing shot in two takes.
01:13That's it.
01:14As opposed to shooting it all bloody day,
01:17or a two-day shoot.
01:18You do it in a day or less.
01:20And remembering, I'm blessed.
01:23I've got a very good eye.
01:24I'm just blessed.
01:25I've got a great eye.
01:26I can set up here in three seconds in a boring room.
01:30Boom.
01:33Boom, boom, boom, boom.
01:37Russell said, the tiger was this close.
01:39I said, I was standing there as well, dude.
01:41He said, just missed me.
01:43But that was a real tiger.
01:45An 11-foot Bengal.
01:47But the guy, the trainer, if you watch closely,
01:51as he hits the ground, the tiger's on him.
01:53He's putting something in his mouth.
01:55He's feeding him, saying, thank you.
01:57That means, get off me.
01:59If he hits the red zone, he's going to eat you.
02:01He hits the ground, he does that, and you cut.
02:11Poor Muscar was kind of stunned at the scale.
02:15And my job was saying, I see, Karl.
02:18You're fine.
02:19I said, don't worry about it.
02:20It's only a day job.
02:21Forget you've got all this stuff around you.
02:23You're in your own arena.
02:26I think he got to it pretty quick.
02:29You told me that you slapped him on the back
02:30and said, I've no time for that.
02:31Exactly.
02:38Somebody said, do they really have water in the Coliseum?
02:40I said, of course, you can build a colony and get water.
02:42The colony's a moron.
02:44They have, don't you know what these water trucks are?
02:46They have water running into the Coliseum.
02:48Their technology, they still made cement better
02:52than our cement today, you know that?
02:54They can't work out what the mix is.
02:57But the Roman road right now, the Appian Way in Rome,
03:00hasn't moved.
03:02The colony's 1,000 years old.
03:04I said, can I get a shark?
03:05He said, if you can build the Coliseum,
03:06you can get a shark in there, dude.
03:08Not me, not a 20-footer, but you get six footer,
03:11that'll kill you.
03:12They were a bit bigger than that.
03:21I said, you're the Sex Pistols.
03:22You don't want to be Tony Rotten.
03:23Was it Tony Rotten, the Sex Pistols?
03:25I think so.
03:26He had this awful blonde hair.
03:27So I said, we're going to go red.
03:29It's because you're twins.
03:30The only thing you look like is because you've got
03:32similar hair.
03:33We had a scene, which I regret not doing,
03:35which is kind of funny, because they're constantly
03:38bickering about who is conceived first,
03:42because who is conceived first is more of an emperor
03:45than the other one.
03:47So then this detailed conversation about how,
03:51he said, well, if I was out last,
03:55I was conceived first.
03:57Think that out.
04:15Because of my art background, I was a kind of comic strip
04:18aficionado.
04:20I can really draw.
04:21I can draw comic strips really well.
04:24And so I read the script and knew exactly what to do,
04:27because it read to me like a comic, a dark comic.
04:31And so before I went, I drew some storyboards
04:34of the first 20 minutes of the movie.
04:36And I went out there to Hollywood,
04:38first time in Hollywood, really, as a person who
04:41potentially would direct a movie.
04:43The budget would be 4.2.
04:45I had no idea.
04:46It was four times what the duels cost.
04:48I took the boards out and showed them the boards.
04:52The budget went from 4.2 to 8.4.
04:55So the value of a vision is everything.
04:59It went whoomph like that.
05:01I was a very good camera operator,
05:03because of two and a half thousand commercials,
05:05I operated on all of them.
05:07So I was the only camera man.
05:09An alien?
05:10I did right through to Thelma and Louise
05:12as an operator.
05:13So I'm a really good operator.
05:14A lot of it's handheld.
05:16And so I knew it had to be viscerally and creepy
05:19and be constantly on the move.
05:22I do things like overlap dialogue,
05:23and I'm standing there,
05:24and there's a scene between Sigourney and whoever,
05:27and I'm always slightly moving like this,
05:29so you're always feeling a little bit uncomfortable.
05:31Why is it moving?
05:32So I drove the editor crazy, but it really worked.
05:36Don't forget, we have no digital effects in those days.
05:39Nothing.
05:40And so backdrops have to be painted,
05:43and I have to find a very tall, thin man
05:45to squeeze into a rubber suit.
05:47And therefore, when you do that,
05:51you can shoot very little,
05:52shoot as little as possible,
05:54because it doesn't really hold up.
05:56And so by being subliminal and minimal,
05:59it works very well.
06:00I think the creature was unique,
06:03and you have to believe,
06:05it doesn't matter how good my cast was,
06:07the cast was fantastic.
06:09But without that beast, it wouldn't have been the same.
06:13I can't lie to you about your chances,
06:16but...
06:17You have my sympathies.
06:19I was worried that we were actually kind of,
06:21we might run out of scares and creepy things in the corridor.
06:25So the new thing would suddenly come in,
06:28Ash would object to something,
06:30and then would have,
06:31Ash would have a bad turn as an AI,
06:35and Yafit Khodo had to take the fire extinguisher
06:38and knock him around the head.
06:40Probably he knocked his head off,
06:41so now we see a wires and metal,
06:46organic AI.
06:49The first time it was Stanley Kubrick,
06:51where he invented HAL.
06:53HAL emerged as a computer,
06:56which no one knew what a computer was in those days.
06:59The computer knows from the corporation
07:02that the journey, success is more important than the crew.
07:06So we borrowed that and made that into Ash.
07:10He was the company man, of course.
07:12If you're going to make a company man,
07:13you don't want a black box,
07:15you want somebody who's going to consort,
07:16meet, chat, drink coffee with,
07:18and be with the people.
07:20They will not know he's a company man,
07:21because he's kind of more human than human.
07:31He say you Blade Runner.
07:33Tell him I'm eating.
07:34On Blade Runner, I was inventing a new world,
07:38and I spent five months with a very good writer
07:41called Hampton Fancher,
07:43who had really written a play
07:45adapted from Duandro Dreamer Electric Sheep.
07:48And so I read the book,
07:50and felt there were 90 stories in the first 20 pages,
07:53so I thought, it's too complex.
07:56But I sat with Hampton,
07:57I said, you've written this beautiful story
08:00that takes place in an apartment.
08:02It's an internal story where a hunter
08:05falls in love with this quarry.
08:08Love your cadence, love the rhythm of your dialogue,
08:12love your dialogue, love the idea.
08:15I want to see what happens when he goes out the door.
08:17And from that moment on, we just went boom.
08:25Harrison Ford was not a star yet.
08:27He had just finished flying the Millennium Falcon
08:30in Star Wars.
08:31I remember my friend, I was just saying,
08:33who the fuck is Harrison Ford?
08:34I said, you're going to find out.
08:36So Harry became my leading man,
08:38and I couldn't find the girl,
08:41and I looked and looked and looked.
08:42I was looking for Vivien Leigh kind of thing,
08:45this dark beauty,
08:47and I finally found this girl who was 18,
08:49hadn't done a film before.
08:50That was her first movie.
09:00The reason for the pyramid,
09:02the pyramid was, I think the true Tyrell was dead
09:06inside a sarcophagus in the middle of the pyramid,
09:09because he knew he was dying.
09:10Whatever the age and the time,
09:12there will always be some industrial disease
09:14that we haven't actually dealt with.
09:16But he'd also, here's the trick,
09:18does Putin have six clones?
09:24So Tyrell had made several lookalikes of himself,
09:27so he could be anywhere,
09:29he wouldn't know where the real one was.
09:31So the Tyrell we were talking to
09:33was probably not the real Tyrell,
09:35but was a fundamentally replication of himself.
09:38So that's how complex it gets.
09:40That's how we end up with the pyramid.
09:42It never got to do the scene
09:43where they go to the sarcophagus and see he's dead.
09:45I think he died in the sarcophagus.
09:47I took it from, there's a massive power breakdown
09:51on the east coast of America.
09:53One powerhouse in one of the states,
09:56it was crazy.
09:57All the three states switched off for 22 hours.
10:01So I think I went from that idea,
10:04when it went down, Tyrell may have died
10:07in the deep freeze.
10:28That script landed on my desk.
10:30It was a very good novel.
10:32Very good adaptation.
10:34And so I read it.
10:37It was a comedy.
10:38They said, a comedy?
10:39I said, yes, a comedy.
10:40How could it not be a comedy
10:41when you survive by eating food
10:43grown from your own dump?
10:45So all of that that you see
10:47can happen is true.
10:49And so I got to know NASA pretty well.
10:52And so even the thing,
10:54that triangle that he goes off
10:56and finds it from an old mission is true.
10:59They send it up there
11:01and they leave that stuff behind.
11:03They always make a replica,
11:06so they can say, open up top left-hand corner.
11:09There's three screws.
11:10One is red, one is green, one is pink.
11:13It's that literal.
11:14So there's an exact copy a fool could follow.
11:18And that's what happened.
11:19We took that.
11:20So then he could suddenly see Earth,
11:22turned it and got connections.
11:24So that's how he made connections.
11:25I am alive.
11:29I still ask the question,
11:30we haven't sorted this out yet.
11:32So why are we going off?
11:33Well, no one can live there.
11:36No one can live on the moon.
11:37And Mars is your threshold of deep space
11:41where you're suddenly into the next planet
11:44is a short distance of one and a half light years.
11:48You ain't going to get that.
11:50But what you'll find on Mars and moon
11:54is massive mineral wealth.
11:56That's why an alien,
11:58you got the Nostromo coming in
12:00from mining expedition.
12:02It's dead truth.
12:03There's massive mineral wealth
12:05on the moon and on Mars.
12:07But we'll have to ship it back.
12:09But you can be on Mars now
12:10with this engine today
12:12in about seven months.
12:14In the moon, you'll be there in four days.
12:16It's only 250,000 miles.
12:18Relatively quick.
12:19Would you go?
12:20No, absolutely not.
12:21Why?
12:22Are you kidding?
12:23I'm not crazy.
12:32Let's keep going.
12:34What do you mean?
12:39Go!
12:48That was brought to my company,
12:50Scott Free.
12:51Not for me to direct,
12:53but for me to produce.
12:55And Kali Kuri,
12:57who actually was a receptionist
12:59at a thing in David Fincher's company.
13:01And he never read the script.
13:03And I did.
13:04I think one day she said,
13:05David, have you seen the script read?
13:07Who?
13:08Ridley?
13:09Oh, fuck.
13:10Okay.
13:11So,
13:12I offered it to five people
13:13who'd said,
13:14nah, nah, nah.
13:15Not for me.
13:16Not for me.
13:17I've got a problem with the women.
13:18That's the whole point.
13:19Having a problem with the women
13:20shouldn't be a problem.
13:21You should get it.
13:22One day I was interviewing
13:23Michelle Pfeiffer,
13:24I think it was.
13:25She said,
13:26listen,
13:27I can't do this,
13:28but I like the script.
13:30Why don't you come to your senses
13:31and you do it?
13:33So I said,
13:34okay.
13:35I did it.
13:44I was wrecking
13:45and I was coming through Arkansas,
13:47which is kind of,
13:48my buddy is the production designer
13:51is Chinese-Jamaican with dreadlocks.
13:55You don't go through Arkansas
13:56with Chinese-Jamaican with dreadlocks.
13:59So we stopped in Park Kettle's garage
14:01and got a rifle
14:02and put it on the couch
14:03and said,
14:04well,
14:05you boys are out of town.
14:06We're just going to get
14:07some cigarettes
14:08and we're going to move on.
14:09While Norris is doing that,
14:11I'm outside filling up
14:12and there's a giant cement mixer.
14:14There's two women
14:16with T-shirts and muscles
14:18and they've got marbles
14:20rolled up into the sleeve.
14:22I said,
14:23do you mind if I record you?
14:24So I recorded the two women talking.
14:26I said,
14:28can I have your hat?
14:29And you have mine.
14:30So I swapped
14:31and that hat went on Thelma in the film.
14:33You, sir.
14:34Yeah,
14:35you do the honors.
14:36Take that cash,
14:37you put it in that bag right there.
14:38You got an amazing story
14:39to tell your friends.
14:40If not,
14:41you got a tag on your toe.
14:42You decide.
14:43I lost the Brad I cast
14:46about 10 days out.
14:48He took another film
14:49and he says,
14:50oh dear,
14:51what a terrible mistake.
14:52So I had to look fast.
14:53I looked fast.
14:54I got two guys,
14:55Brad and another guy.
14:57Equally,
14:58kind of,
14:59attractive.
15:00And I said,
15:01did you,
15:02I got two guys.
15:03Okay,
15:04you're going to read with both
15:05and afterwards we'll discuss it.
15:06She said,
15:07discuss Brad's film.
15:08That's it.
15:09She thinks she cast him.
15:10She didn't.
15:11I already cast him.
15:18Hey,
15:19this is Black Hawk Town.
15:20Wombley Nelson,
15:21you're going to stay here.
15:22You're going to hold this corner
15:23in the next film with the Humvees.
15:25I had to
15:26get the King of Morocco.
15:27Well,
15:28I got to know
15:29because of Kingdom of Heaven
15:30and Kingdom of Heaven,
15:31they love the Kingdom of Heaven
15:32because in deep respect
15:33for the Muslim culture.
15:34So he was charming
15:35and said,
15:36so now I'm on Black Hawk.
15:37I can say,
15:38I want to bring in four Black Hawks
15:39and four Nightbirds,
15:40but to do that,
15:41I've got to bring in 125 Rangers.
15:42You know what a Ranger is?
15:43It's heavy,
15:44heavy duty,
15:45real thing.
15:46Because they'll be the insurance
15:47on the Black Hawk
15:48and I can't have
15:49the insurance
15:50on the Black Hawk
15:51and I can't have
15:52the insurance
15:53on the Black Hawk
15:54and I can't have
15:55my actors fast dropping down
15:56that,
15:57that's got to be a Ranger
15:58because if somebody falls,
15:59I'm in trouble.
16:00And he says,
16:01I'll do that,
16:02but you have to get
16:03the Pentagon
16:04to write me a note
16:05inviting us
16:06to send
16:07to me
16:08because I welcome
16:09the American Army
16:10and their devices.
16:13So he did that.
16:14He wrote in
16:15to the Pentagon.
16:16The Pentagon says,
16:17okay, we're on.
16:18So he's sending
16:19four Black Hawks,
16:20four Nightbirds
16:21and 125 Rangers.
16:22I'm working
16:23in a village near Rabat,
16:24which used to be called
16:25the Barbary Coast
16:26where all the pirates were.
16:27I took over the village,
16:28but it's a town.
16:29But in the town,
16:30I said,
16:31we're going to be
16:32up and down
16:33all your streets.
16:34So I employed
16:351,500 people
16:36in the town
16:37every day
16:38for like
16:39three months
16:40for a month
16:41and they loved it
16:42and every one of them
16:43could use
16:44a handler weapon
16:45or could sprint
16:46in
16:47in the streets
16:48and they loved it
16:49and every one of them
16:50could use
16:52a gun
16:53and flip flops
16:54and they could
16:55run in
16:56ragged clothing
16:57and shoot
16:58from Sierra Leone,
16:59Congo,
17:00everything.
17:01Fantastic.
17:02What did that film
17:03teach you about war?
17:06No one wins.
17:07Everyone dies.
17:08Everyone gets hurt.
17:22On January 24th,
17:23Apple Computer
17:24will introduce
17:25Macintosh
17:27and you'll see why
17:281984 won't be
17:30like 1984.
17:32We're basically
17:33going to be controlled
17:34by 1984
17:36by a hierarchy
17:38and I think the hierarchy
17:40is this.
17:42This is genius
17:43and a fucking disaster.
17:45Get your kid to go
17:46climb a tree
17:47and leave this at home.
17:48Alright?
17:49So
17:50I didn't meet
17:51Steve Jobs.
17:52I think I met Wozniak
17:53and I drew my board
17:55and they went
17:56oh that's cool.
17:57Here's this silly thing.
17:58I said
17:59what's it for?
18:00They said
18:01a computer
18:02but it doesn't mention
18:03a computer, no.
18:04It doesn't mention
18:05the price.
18:06How much does it turn off?
18:07That's expensive.
18:08How wrong I was
18:09I should have bought
18:10stock then.
18:15And why the woman
18:16in the red and white?
18:17Well she was
18:18a great looking athlete
18:19Jesus Christ, okay.
18:20She was good.
18:22And I like that
18:23we invented the hammer
18:24like the hammer and sickle
18:25and all that.
18:26So we're underscoring
18:27the possibility
18:28of oppression from there.
18:30So the guy on screen
18:31we shot him
18:32on that morning
18:33ranting
18:34because he wasn't
18:35we just get him to rant
18:36and she destroyed
18:37this oppression
18:39and I had
18:40200 skinheads there
18:42because I couldn't afford
18:43to shave everyone's head
18:44so I had 200 skinheads
18:45there saying listen
18:46you get breakfast,
18:47lunch and dinner
18:48I'm going to throw
18:49this thing at the screen
18:50I'm going to then
18:51blow you cover
18:52with tongue powder
18:53and one of you
18:54will have to go
18:55and they did.
19:03But you are advising me.
19:06I just need you
19:07to be sure
19:08that you're locked in.
19:10Because I don't know.
19:13Maybe I should tell you
19:14what Mickey Rourke
19:15told What's-His-Face.
19:17That's my recommendation
19:18anyway Counselor.
19:19Don't do it.
19:20Counselor I've been
19:21beaten up for
19:22but actually he's
19:23the best dialogist
19:24in the business.
19:25Call him McCarthy.
19:27I'd already had
19:28his Blood Meridian
19:30and then he sent me
19:32he'd written the screenplay
19:34and the dialogue
19:35was the best dialogue
19:36I'd ever written.
19:37I fell in love
19:38with the dialogues.
19:39I got Brad Pitt
19:42all those people
19:44in
19:45four days
19:46they said I'll do it.
19:47So we were able
19:48to make that film
19:49for nothing.
19:50Make that film
19:51for a low price
19:52for us then
19:53would be about 32 million.
19:54For that film
19:55with that cast
19:56Harvey Bourdain,
19:57Penelope Cruz,
19:58Michael Fassbinder,
19:59Cameron Diaz.
20:07And how did you
20:08approach the scene
20:09with Cameron
20:10having sex with a cop?
20:11Yes I said
20:12how do you feel about
20:13climbing out the car
20:15and making love
20:16to this Ferrari?
20:17She said no problem.
20:19Box splits.
20:20Yeah.
20:21That's not her.
20:22Somebody else
20:23can do the splits.
20:44I was fairly well-to-do
20:45because of advertising
20:46and when I was 38
20:47I realized
20:48my God
20:49I'm never going
20:50to make a movie.
20:51And so
20:52I started reading
20:53I've always been
20:54economic
20:55public domain
20:56and we read
20:57a hundred-page novella
20:58called
20:59The Duelists.
21:00Joseph Conrad
21:01would be his
21:02large sketch
21:03idea
21:04for the film
21:05and I said
21:06I'm going to make
21:07a movie
21:08and I said
21:09I'm going to make
21:10a movie
21:11and I said
21:12I'm going to make
21:13a film
21:14for his kind of
21:15war and peace
21:16so I got it free.
21:17And I found
21:18a very good writer
21:19called Jerry Vaughan Hughes
21:20who's probably
21:21one of the best writers
21:22I've come across
21:23in the industry.
21:24He's
21:25sadly passed
21:26but I got this
21:27beautiful script
21:28from him
21:29and from that
21:30did the journey
21:31because I could
21:32afford to fly
21:33and travel
21:34and I flew
21:35to Canada
21:36to see Homer
21:37called The Frame
21:38because they said
21:39they'd seen
21:40and knew
21:41and when I got there
21:42they said
21:43well this is more
21:44of a movie
21:45so why didn't you
21:46say that before I left?
21:47So I went to Hollywood
21:48shopped it round
21:49didn't get it going
21:50came back to England
21:51and finally
21:52called up
21:53David Putnam
21:54now Lord Putnam
21:55who said
21:56this is a good script
21:57and I said
21:58I knew
21:59and he said
22:00we can probably
22:01get this together
22:02so he introduced me
22:03to Paramount
22:04in so doing
22:05we got it going.
22:12The opening line
22:13of meeting Harvey
22:14in New York
22:15he said
22:16you want me
22:17to play Hazar
22:18you've got to be
22:19out your fucking mind
22:20and he said
22:21I've never handled
22:22a sword before
22:23and I don't get
22:24on horses
22:25so I said
22:26that's exactly
22:27what I want
22:28because Harvey
22:29would take
22:30two hands
22:31to a saber
22:32and use it
22:33like an alley cat fight
22:34and I wanted
22:35an alley cat fight
22:36none of this
22:37alley cat
22:38fighting
22:39I wanted an
22:40alley cat fight
22:41none of this
22:42elegant nonsense
22:43so Harvey
22:44would spit
22:45and come at him
22:46with a saber
22:47but Harvey
22:48was great
22:49because he was
22:50the opposite
22:51Napoleon was
22:52very smart
22:53he realised
22:54very quickly
22:55the new guard
22:56the
22:57I say
22:58the working class
22:59guys who
23:00became officers
23:01he realised
23:02he needed
23:03the old guard
23:04as well
23:05so he actually
23:06started very quickly
23:07to graft
23:08what he was
23:09also about
23:10he was very smart
23:16nothing is more
23:17magical
23:20as long as
23:21they roam the earth
23:23evil can never
23:24harm the pure of heart
23:25Legend
23:26was
23:28a fairy story
23:29that
23:30written by
23:31a guy
23:32who was a cowboy
23:33from
23:35way north
23:36above Montana
23:38William
23:39Yotsburg
23:40who'd written
23:41two great books
23:42called
23:43Symbiography
23:44and Falling Angel
23:45that Alan Parker
23:46had made into a film
23:47called Angel Heart
23:49and I called him up
23:50and said
23:51can you come and meet me
23:52I want you to do a fairy story
23:53he said
23:54okay
23:55so he gets in the car
23:56and he arrives
23:57and we have breakfast
23:58at the Beverly Hills Hotel
23:59and I'm going to
24:00show him
24:01Jean Cocteau's
24:02Beauty and the Beast
24:03he said
24:04what's it about
24:05I said
24:06in a word
24:07a unicorn
24:09okay
24:11off his wallet
24:12and inside he had
24:13a piece of origami
24:14which is a unicorn
24:16what a weird coincidence
24:17because it would be
24:18about a unicorn
24:19but I use the same unicorn
24:20in Blade Runner
24:21but
24:22from that
24:23I need to the devil
24:25and I was so blown away
24:26with
24:28Tim Curry
24:30and he came and said
24:31yes
24:32I'll do it
24:33it was so much fun
24:34playing the devil
24:38we are all
24:39animals
24:40my lady
24:44but in there's
24:45Mia Sara
24:46and Tom Cruise
24:47is 21
24:48Tom is 21
24:49the film's great