Credit where credit's due?

A surprising number of star actors are also namechecked as co-producer on their films. So have they really been mucking in with the crew, asks Dave Calhoun?

At a recent film industry lunch, Jude Law gave a speech about his passion for cinema and introduced himself as ‘an actor and producer’. Hang on – producer? A quick browse on the internet proved that it wasn’t the wine flowing to Law’s head. He’s credited as a producer on the 2004 fantasy flick ‘Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow’ and has the same credit on the recently wrapped ‘Sleuth’, a remake of the 1972 original. And let’s not forget his involvement with Natural Nylon, the production company which launched in 1997 with Law, Sadie Frost and Ewan Macgregor on board but came to a halt in 2003. He’s not just a pretty face then: watch your back, Dino de Laurentiis.

But what does it mean when an actor is credited as a producer? Is it a matter of prestige? Is it a savvy fund-raising technique? Or is it a genuine reflection of backroom toil? Law’s not alone. A further trawl reveals that other actors are playing a similar game. Johnny Depp is a producer of Bruce Robinson’s adaptation of Hunter S Thompson’s novel, ‘The Rum Diary’; Brad Pitt is a producer on Michael Winterbottom’s ‘A Mighty Heart’; and Joaquin Phoenix is a producer on James Gray’s ‘We Own the Night’.

The reasons are numerous and complex: Depp, for example, had a long-standing friendship with Thompson and so we must assume that he is willing to trade on his name to get the film made; Phoenix has worked with Gray before and presumably feels the same about a close collaborator. Here, producing doesn’t mean getting your hands dirty on location: the producers’ credits on these small budget movies have more to do with practical and financial necessity than an actor’s ability to choose superior production managers or organise the on-set catering. It’s unlikely that these guys, however committed, were sitting in meeting after meeting with financiers. In other words, a producer’s credit for an actor can conceal a web of horse-trading, ambition and real-politik.

Producer Stephen Woolley – currently shooting ‘How to Lose Friends and Alienate People’ – sheds some light. ‘What people must know is that financing is based on actors. The reason that Scorsese has an open cheque to make whatever he wants is not because he’s a leading director but because he can cast Leonardo DiCaprio. To most of the world, Scorsese’s films are DiCaprio pictures.’

Woolley’s point: never underestimate the power of an actor in the filmmaking equation. In that light, it shouldn’t surprise anyone to learn that DiCaprio was an executive producer of ‘The Aviator’ and is credited as a producer on Scorsese’s upcoming ‘The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt’. Without his star wattage, the picture might flounder.

Credits are often well-deserved: Woolley remembers producing ‘Rage in Harlem’ in 1991 and giving Forest Whitaker a co-producer’s credit. ‘For three years, he stayed with us through thick and thin,’ he says of Whitaker.

But it’s not always so rosy. ‘If you can attach a big-name actor to your film, then you’re powerless if that same actor then says, “Give me this or that credit”,’ Woolley adds.

On a low-budget level, an actor’s commitment as producer can be make-or-break. Consider Tilda Swinton, who is credited as a producer on two recent American indies in which she appears: ‘Thumbsucker’ (2005) and ‘Stephanie Daley’ (2006). Swinton explains that the credits reflect an informal collaboration. ‘I have always worked this way, starting with Derek Jarman,’ she says. ‘My name now appears as producer not because my way of working has changed, but because these days, having worked on profit-making independent films for 20 years, my association apparently counts for something to financiers.

‘Being a producer declares an act of faith, a commitment of any resources I may have. Sometimes the best thing I can do for a film is open my address book.’

Swinton’s approach is informal; it’s a world apart in Hollywood, where actors such as Tom Cruise can take charge of the means of production because of their box-office potential and make a mint along the way. Cruise teamed up with Paula Wagner to form Cruise/Wagner productions in 1993 and until last August the pair enjoyed a deal with Paramount and produced such films as the ‘Mission: Impossible’ series. Last November, Cruise and Wagner announced that they had partnered with MGM to revive the United Artists label.

Cruise is one success story. Tom Hanks is another: the Playtone company that he runs with Gary Goetzman (there’s always a partner in the background…) has had successes such as ‘The Ant Bully’. But there are other examples of actors being given the chance to develop projects simply as a way of a studio holding on to them as profitable actors or as an additional clause in an agency deal. It’s a culture that’s fading. According to Variety, in 1998 around 60 actors enjoyed production deals at studios, including Sylvester Stallone, Ice Cube, Jason Patric and Demi Moore; by 2005, that number had halved.

Woolley is curious about the studios’ motives for signing up actors to such deals. ‘Studios will sometimes give an actor an office and development money and a secretary,’ says Woolley. ‘What they may want is their commitment to the next sequel. In most cases these relationships don’t work. They develop scripts that never see the light of day.’

If only we could read those scripts. Imagine, for fantasy’s sake, the ultimate vanity project: a script by Sylvester Stallone about Edgar Allen Poe which the star of ‘Rambo’ would direct…

Sorry, that actually exists, and with the success of ‘Rocky Balboa’, we should expect shooting on ‘Poe’ to start anytime now. Let’s just hope and pray that Stallone isn’t eyeing up the title role.