Richard E. Grant names “the three indie gods” of cinema
When Richard E. Grant performed in Bruce Robinson’s 1987 black comedy film Withnail and I, he pretty much guaranteed a future career in the film industry, even though it was his first on-screen movie role. From there, Grant was fortunate enough to work with some of the best film directors out there, including Francis Ford Coppola in 1992 on Dracula.
Discussing Dracula in conversation with Adam Buxton, Grant noted that Coppola is one of three names considered the best in cinema. He said: “A good experience working for Coppola. Coppola, Scorsese and Altman were the three indie gods of directors when I was a teenager and then again when I was at drama school in the early 1970s. So to have the opportunity to work with all three of them was, ‘well, I can die now’.”
He added: “We rehearsed for three weeks at his Napa Valley Estate that had a big warehouse that had the Godfather desk in one corner, the boat from Apocalypse Now in another corner, props from all his movies. He cooked for all of us every single night. He put Keanu Reeves, Cary Elwes and I in a hot air balloon as a male bonding experience because of our characters.”
It’s typical of someone like Coppola, with an Italian background, to welcome his cast and crew into his life as though they were his own family and generate a welcoming atmosphere on set. Grant said: “He operates in trying to create a real extended Italian family atmosphere by cooking for everybody, and I’ve never known so many visitors come to stay with their pets and friends and family and everything.”
However, Grant had also been directed by Martin Scorsese on The Age of Innocence immediately after working with Coppola, and he noted that Scorsese did not extend that familial atmosphere, despite also being from an Italian family. “Scorsese, the other great Italian American director, worked in exactly the opposite way,” Grant said. “Everything was monastically quiet, controlled, disciplined.”
“I presume it was something to do with the fact that The Age of Innocence was set in the Edith Wharton world of New York’s upper echelon of incredibly wealthy people, so it was very stuffy. The atmosphere was the antithesis of what Coppola created on Dracula. So it was interested to go straight from Coppola’s set with a one-week break to Scorsese land.”
It was of great interest to Grant that Scorsese had developed a reputation for creating violently explosive films, but upon meeting him, he was rather reserved. Grant said, “I thought this is the man that has made some of the most violent films this side of Tarantino, but he was so fastidious and controlled and quiet speaking – although at bullet speed – that it was the opposite to how Coppola operated.”
