Q&A With Oliver Stone

He talks about casting Colin Farrell and fulfilling a lifelong obsession by bringing Alexander the Great

Dec 24 2004

Oliver Stone is one of cinema's most colourful characters. Whether investigating the death of a President ('JFK') chronicling the life and times of a rock god ('The Doors') or recounting his own troubled experiences in Vietnam ('Platoon'), Stone's films are epic in scope and scale, and whether you like the man or not, his work is impossible to ignore.

January sees the release of his latest cinematic foray, 'Alexander', and we thought we'd catch up with the director to find out what drove him to tell the story of one of history's greatest warriors, why he picked Irishman Colin Farrell for the lead, and just what conspiracy theories he has got on his mind this time around.

'Alexander' is a film that you’ve wanted to do for some ten years. Why?

It's a dream. I claim no special relationship but millions of people around the world admired him and as a dramatist it's a tremendous challenge because it has never been done.

When did you first hear of Alexander the Great?

As a child. He was the ultimate hero, and a modern hero in the sense that we know he existed and he did achieve amazing things. But as I learned more through Robin Lane Fox and other historians, I realised that I could not have done this movie ten years ago when I wanted to do it. I wrote a script in 1996. I went to Greece and wrote it because of the light. I wrote it on Mykonos. And I didn’t like it. And then I kind of gave up.

How did it come back into play?

Well, it came back into being with Thomas Schuhly and Moritz Borman (producers), these two German guys brought it back to life and Warner Bros. came in later in the game and I'm very grateful that they did. You know, I'm 57 years old and still young enough to stand up to the endurance race but frankly, if I'd waited a little longer it would be impossible and at the same time, if I'd been younger I wouldn't have had some of the maturity I have now. Because the movie is told through the eyes of Ptolemy, who is 78-years-old (played by Sir Anthony Hopkins), it is an old man telling the story of a young man - that's what I Iike about it. It's what could have been, what Ptolemy understands now as an old man and what wasn't achieved. I think it's a good message for young people in the sense that Alexander was a great hero, a doer, an achiever, an idealist, and they need that. Conquering was part of it, yes, it was, warfare, yes, but that's one third of the story. He was a liberator and he gave back far more than he ever took, that's for sure. He was never rich, he never became rich off of it and he lived on the road for 13 hard years and he died pretty much as a result of that.

Did you keep any of that original script?

Oh sure, pieces here and there, but it was a younger man's script, I was what 46, 47, just different. I don't know, 'Alexander' has resisted a lot of storytellers. Why didn't Shakespeare do it? Why didn't Marlowe? Any of those guys. The Richard Burton movie ('Alexander the Great') is the only one I know of and that was by Robert Rossen, who was a very talented writer and director, he had done 'The Hustler', and the movie was not good by his standards and Burton was not good. And I say that with due respect because it's a hard subject to lick, the story, the script is key. I think if you start in Greece, you will never make it through Persia much less to India or Babylon again because it's too big of a story. So how do you dramatise in two and a half hours, three hours, the story of this man? How? I like that. It’s a big issue and that's what takes time. Without a script, you can't make this work. You have to know exactly what you want; it's too big a story.

Alexander was real, but his story was mythical. Does it have relevance today?

Well, he's not mythical. He became mythical. He was real, but we don't really know what the myth is and what the reality is and that's what's eternally fascinating. But what does he represent now? Well, as I said earlier, great idealism, great belief in what a man can do. There's a line in the script that says 'well, when the gods change, men will change,' his father tells him. And later on, Alexander lives out the idea that when men change, the gods will change.

Alexander and the Macedonians in the film speak with Irish accents or what could best be described as Celtic accents. What's the thinking behind that?

We didn't want the Macedonians to sound like the Greeks, even though they are speaking the same language. They considered themselves slightly apart from the Greeks so I thought of the Irish, the Scots, the Welsh and their relationship to the English. I wanted to make a unified feeling of a rougher version of the same language, slightly off-key English that will still be understood.

What convinced you Colin Farrell was right for this role? Was it any one performance?

Probably the first one I saw him in which was 'Minority Report'. I thought he really held his own with Tom (Cruise) and held his own on a big level. He was very handsome, for me, very dashing. And I saw 'Phone Booth' later and I thought he was marvelous in that. I saw 'Tigerland'. And I met with him and it was not a great meeting in the sense that he was probably nervous or something and he was like spilling things and talking and so it was a mess of a meeting. I liked him, but I didn't think he was Alexander. And then we did a screen test and he quite surprised me because I was quite curious to see if he could do blond hair - because that was an issue, the blondness of Alexander. You can't be a black/brown Irishman. Like Tyrone Power. I wanted Errol Flynn, if you know what I'm saying, who was a bit blonder. But Colin has both qualities; he has a bit of Power and Flynn.

And has he lived up to your expectations?

He has amazed me; he also stayed very loyal to the project. We had a long gestation period, almost of a year and a half of gestation where we couldn't get going, but Colin stayed loyal. And he was getting hotter and hotter by the time we started to come close to production and he was offered much bigger money and many big films but he stayed true to this one, which is very rare in this business. A very honest man who keeps his word. I am very impressed with him and I can't find anything bad to say about him (laughs). I think he is an extraordinary person.

Finally, is there some sort of conspiracy angle to the film?

Of course. But it's not just the only reason to make a movie; conspiracy is part of the movie. How many Macedonian kings were killed by conspiracy? I think just about every one of them (laughs). Seriously, the movie is ultimately not about conspiracy but its part of the story. Alexander had two big conspiracies against him and he executed everyone involved - just so you know that I'm not making that up (laughs). Or Alexander says they were conspiracies, we don't know. And the film treats them like that.

'Alexander' is released on January 6.

For more information check out the film's official site at www.alexandermovie.co.uk

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