The dysfunctional relationship between David Lean and Alec Guinness: “Now you can all fuck off and go home”
It’s hard to reach the top of the industry without stepping on a few toes along the way, with David Lean managing to run afoul of Alec Guinness when they combined their mighty talents on the same production for a third time, not that it prevented the film from going down as a classic.
Of course, that was to be expected from a filmmaker of Lean’s stature, who was already recognised as one of the best in the business when The Bridge on the River Kwai was released in 1957, even though it came before the similarly-vaunted likes of Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago, and Ryan’s Daughter.
Lean already had five Academy Award nominations under his belt at the time, and he was already very familiar with Guinness after they’d previously collaborated on Great Expectations and Oliver Twist. They’d work together three more times afterwards, too, but there was still plenty of friction between them on the set of the war epic.
The future Star Wars icon wasn’t all that convinced by the part of Colonel Nicholson to begin with, saying that the director “didn’t particularly want me” for the part, which had originally been offered to and declined by Charles Laughton. Even when cameras were rolling, Lean would often remind Guinness of the fact he wasn’t the first choice, and they regularly argued over the way the character should be played.
Guinness wanted to inject the role with humour, pathos, and sympathy, whereas Lean wanted Nicholson to be a more button-down, straight-laced type of performance. Michelangelo Capua’s biography of co-star William Holden revealed that the filmmaker had grown so weary of constantly butting heads with Guinness that he couldn’t have been happier to have an American to work with.
The day before Holden was due to descend upon The Bridge on the River Kwai, the duo were already at breaking point, which exploded into a full-blown argument when Guinness questioned why Lean was filming one of his most important dramatic moments – the scene where Nicholson looks back on his Army career – from behind.
In response, the director waited until the footage had been shot and said to his assembled Anglicised ensemble, “Now you can all fuck off and go home, you English actors, thank god I’m starting work tomorrow with an American.” Things remained fraught until the film wrapped, but in the long run, it did nothing to dampen either The Bridge on the River Kwai or the professional respect between the warring duo.
The film won seven of the eight Oscars it was shortlisted for – including ‘Best Picture’, ‘Best Director’ for Lean, and ‘Best Actor’ for Guinness – and they would reunite for Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago, and A Passage to India. The bad blood was in real danger of boiling over more than once, though, to the extent Lean denigrated the acting abilities of his own countrymen, even if the simmering resentment on The Bridge on the River Kwai became water under the bridge in the long run.
