Stephen Daldry talks about the 5 other holocaust films out in theaters right now along with “The Reader.” “Genuinely, this year I think it’s a coincidence. I think it’s a coincidence based on a number of peoples personal fascination with certain aspects of the story so I think that Bryan Singer and Tom Cruise have a particular fascination for that story and I think Edward Zwick had a particular fascination for Defiance and I think it’s also true for me, I’m just particularly fascinated with post war German but I thinks it’s just a coincidence that they are all coming out at the same time”
He talks about directing Billy Elliot. “I was going; well I don’t know how this is going to go down. Genuinely, I mean it was a surprise that the audience really took to it as strongly as they did and we go the reaction we did and it’s doing fantastically which is also still surprising.”
He talks about high ticket prices on Broadway. “I think people are finding those ticket prices too high, I think that the investors for new shows are difficult to find and I think that the impact of the economic crisis will continue to be felt particularly on Broadway. If the costs don’t come down, I think there is a real risk there won’t be a Broadway. I think the ticket prices have to come down and if the ticket prices need to come down to get the audience in, then everything else has got to work accordingly.”
He talks about the difference between West End and Broadway Theater. “The main difference to stage work in New York is that it’s more expensive. It’s more expensive to create and it’s more expensive to see and that’s a problem, and I think there will have to come a time when it’s actually cheaper to produce and cheaper to see – I hope that’s true anyway”
Friday on the BLOOMBERG TELEVISION program “Night Talk,” host Mike Schneider talks to Actor Viggo Mortensen about his latest film “Good.”
He talks about the success of The Lord of the Rings. ”I think that anybody that was involved in that project, or any fan even, that says ‘I knew it was going to be huge box office success,’ I don’t think they’re being honest. I think its revisionist thinking. Because when we were shooting that movie…it just wasn’t a known thing, and it wasn’t really noticed that we were down there shooting this all that time. It wasn’t in the papers here. It was only when they showed 20 minutes of it at the Cannes film festival in 2001 that the journalist started talking.”
And rumors that he may join the cast of The Hobbit. “I haven’t been contacted directly, and I think fans tend to know more about that stuff than I do. I understand…that they’ll try to make a bridge story. My character isn’t in The Hobbit, but they have the right, the filmmakers, to use the appendices at the end of the lord of the Rings. And I am in those, and it refers to earlier times.”
“We shot a sequence that wasn’t used that they could use, with Liv Tyler, my character and her character, from our courtship. I am in this place, this field, and I remember being there with her…no beard, longer hair, dressed more like an elf, when I lived with the elves. And that’s when they meet. And they could use that, and shoot other things. They’re pretty creative. I’d be glad to do it, as long as they’re respectful to Tolkien. I’d rather do it myself than see another actor finish the job for me.”
“Night Talk” airs in the U.S., Europe and Asia on Bloomberg TV at 10PM on weeknights and is simulcast on Bloomberg Radio at 10PM. Bloomberg Radio is broadcast on 1130AM in the New York Metropolitan area and is available on XM and Sirius. The Friday night Show re-airs over the weekend Sat at 8:00-9:00pm, 10:00-11:00pm and Mon 12:00am – 1:00am. Click here.
Night Talk host Mike Schneider and Roger Moore talked about landing the role of James Bond, “To the best of my knowledge I was on Ian Fleming’s wish list according to the publicity department after I had started it! Ian Fleming, departed this mortal coil 7 years before I took over Bond, I understand that he really wanted David Niven or Cary Grant, in fact I think at the beginning it was probably offered to Cary Grant.”
He talked about distinguishing himself from Sean Connery’s Bond, “Guy [Hamilton] wanted to make sure I didn’t have any of the things that were associated with Sean such as a martini shaken not stirred…..which I never uttered, I’ve drunk them! The one thing we couldn’t get away from, I had to say my name was Bond.”
“I didn’t even have a set of nerves about it until about an hour before the first press screening in London and I was on my way in my house in Denham to the screening and I suddenly thought ’supposing they don’t like it’ and I have these terrible butterflies, then in five minutes it passed and I thought ‘Well, its like having a baby, you are on the way to the delivery room, the baby is going to come out.’”
He talked about how A View to a Kill became his last Bond film, “We were discussing whether I would (do A View to Kill) …..I was beginning to feel I shouldn’t…..when the leading lady starts looking younger than your granddaughter then you think ‘uh erm’ it’s a bit like Gary Copper and Love in the Afternoon.”
He talks about Connery’s feud with the Bond franchise, “I think his resentment stemmed from the fact that he was not financially rewarded. He felt enough for what his contribution was to the series, and it went on and of course eventually it became, I believe very viable, his financial rewards…and in fact the last film he gave his money to a Scottish society.”
Friday night on the BLOOMBERG TELEVISION program “Night Talk,” anchor Mike Schneider talked to Kung Fu Killer’s David Carradine. Carradine talked about leaving the Kung Fu television series in the 1970s, “I didn’t want to play this little bald Chinese guy for the rest of my life.”
He talked about playing “White Crane,” an orphaned son of Western missionaries who was raised as a Wudang monk. “I’ve always wanted to do…something about this character [the historical character in the new movie], but I never could because Warner Brothers owns the rights. But they don’t own the rights to history. Nobody has a copyright on history.”
“Night Talk” airs in the U.S., Europe and Asia on Bloomberg TV at 10PM on weeknights and is simulcast on Bloomberg Radio at 10PM. Bloomberg Radio is broadcast on 1130AM in the New York Metropolitan area and is available on XM and Sirius.
Tonight on the BLOOMBERG TELEVISION “Night Talk” anchor Mike Schneider talks to Actor Dennis Hopper about his films Elegy and Swing Vote. I love Elegy.
Anyone who longs for stories about the studio days, this interview gives a taste as Hopper talks about what he misses about the old studio system. “The old studio system, in my mind at the time, we all hated it, but when I think back on it, it wasn’t bad. We were kind of indentured slaves, but at the same time we had pools of directors, pools of actors, writers, producers, all under Warner Brothers or MGM or whatever studio, 20th Century Fox, whatever studio you were with. And it was a great time.”
He shares how his demands for being in Apocalypse Now were not met. “I said I’ll be in the picture if I have one line with Brando…Marlon would not have me there the same nights that he worked. He would work one night and I would come in and work. And then he would listen to what I did the night before and I would listen to what he did the night before. So, one day I come in and they said – you know Marlon called you a whimpering dog last night and threw bananas at you.”
He talks about how Easy Rider’s themes ring true today. “How strange it is that I chose to put all the money into a gas tank that had the American stars and stripes on it and a big beautiful chrome machine blows up by the side of the road with all the money in it. I had no idea we’d have this kind of gas and oil crisis.”
And he remembers his old friend James Dean. “He used to say the reason he was going to be remembered was because he had Marlon Brando on one hand saying ‘go screw yourself’ and he had Montgomery Clifton in the other saying ‘please forgive me’ and somewhere in the middle was James Dean.”
This interview is a treat. Don’t miss it. “Night Talk” airs in the U.S., Europe and Asia on Bloomberg TV at 10PM on weeknights and is simulcast on Bloomberg Radio at 10PM. Bloomberg Radio is broadcast on 1130AM in the New York Metropolitan area and is available on XM and Sirius. The Friday night Show re-airs over the weekend Sat at 8:00-9:00pm, 10:00-11:00pm and Mon 12:00am – 1:00am.
Friday on the BLOOMBERG TELEVISION program “Night Talk,” host Mike Schneider talks to Actor Viggo Mortensen about his latest film “Good.” 
Fleming’s wish list according to the publicity department after I had started it! Ian Fleming, departed this mortal coil 7 years before I took over Bond, I understand that he really wanted David Niven or Cary Grant, in fact I think at the beginning it was probably offered to Cary Grant.” 
