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We are back with Faith Ford from Maggie Winters here on CBS and here is James on the toll free in
Sharon Hill, Pennsylvania. Hi James, welcome to CBS. Hello. Hello, Tom. How are you doing? I'm fine, James. Hope you are.
Yes, this question is for Miss Ford. Hello, Miss Ford. How are you? Hello, how are you? Very good.
We are earning our money, but I just think it's terrible for actors to become public property, per se, because you want to see the work on the screen.
Conversely, the problem is, of course, that a lot of times, the guy who was doing an interview with me today, we were doing a photo shoot for them promoting the movie,
and he said, you know, people have this image of you, what do you think it is? And I said, I swear to you, it is pressed and costed.
In other words, Tom Hanks always plays nice guys. Now, he happens to be one of the nicest people on the face of the earth, and he is just a genuinely decent good man.
But even if he weren't, most people would think he were, because he plays a lot of those parts. Converse.
But when you play sort of edgy characters like I play and so on, you do get a little tired when people come into your home and they go, my God, this is the most beautiful home,
and you have your library and everything else. You thought I was going to have my collection of axes where I go out in the rack and the electric chair and the culture machine,
you know, the double-headed, you know.
What about when fans meet you on the street? Are they sometimes a little standoffish?
No, actually fans are like the smartest people of all. I mean, they totally get it. A great thing happened on the way over here tonight, and I have to tell you,
a real homeless person, what we used to call like a bum, was walking down the street, and I mean, he had that, I don't know where they go to get this,
but they always have that sort of dark film over their faces, you know, they always have that kind of like patina of a lot of soot or something and so on.
And he walks by me and I figure, okay, I'm going to get help with some change, and he goes, oh, James Wood.
And I go, oh, here it comes. And all of a sudden he becomes like Bernard Baruch. He goes, I just want to say how much I've enjoyed your work through the years.
And I always wondered like, where did he see it?
Yeah, exactly. I enjoyed your work on my DVD.
And so on. He said, you're just my favorite actor, and he was so nice and so pleasant. And I said to him, I said, gee, this really means a lot to me.
And so I shook his hand and I was chatting with him a bit, and I said, it's kind of cold out tonight. Could you use a little help?
He said, you know, I'm going to respectfully decline because I wouldn't want it to interfere with the compliment because it really means so much to me to share this with you and so on.
Isn't that nice?
And I said, wow. I mean, that was like, you know, it was really actually very true.
You didn't give him the...
I actually did. I actually, I said, look, it's a cold night. Please go out.
You know, I said, you know, I said, I have this plaque of, you know, Tom Snyder.
I couldn't have of advanced because I didn't have one.
Now we're here to talk a little bit about another day in paradise. And before we do that, people have raved about this picture.
In fact, one of the critics said that you, with your power on the screen, can still rip out our throats. Okay?
And I'm wondering why I haven't heard the words sure austronominee along with this performance.
Well, you know what? It's a very good question. And it's kind of a rough answer, which is this.
The Oscar campaigns, and I'm not speaking as a producer because I don't like to talk about myself.
It just feels immodest and weird. But the Oscar campaigns for our entire cast, for Melanie Griffith and Natasha Gregson Wagner,
wonderful in the picture, the young boy, Vinnie Carthager, and hopefully myself, you know,
those campaigns are mounted by the studios and they are big, expensive campaigns.
There was an article in the LA Times about the millions that were spent, for example, on a wonderful picture called Swingblade
that a friend of mine wrote, actually starting with Fabula Bobfort.
But at the time when it opened, it hadn't really had that much of a push.
And Miramax, at the time, Harvey Weinstein, for example, said, you know, to himself, I presume,
you know, I've got English patients, it's going to get some Oscars. He was making a big move in his life to sell his company to Disney and so on.
And he put an inordinate amount of time, effort, and money into promoting Swingblade
and brought this wonderful picture to the attention of the public.
We have a very small company that bought our film.
And this is kind of the background of what happened to make this film.
Okay, okay.
It's a little complex. Stick with me.
We had a director who had final cut. And you know our problems our director has had, and I don't want to beat up on him,
but you know, he relapsed into heroin usage during the making of the picture, Mr. Larry Clark.
Larry Clark.
And became really dysfunctional, completely dysfunctional during the cut of the picture.
So we as producers were stuck with the picture. He had final cut and he's virtually not functioning.
Okay.
So now we have to go to the bank and go, we don't have a cut.
Our director is really kind of not doing so well right now.
And our house is on the line, you know, what are we going to do?
And through a bit of pressure and chicanery and whatever else, we ended up with this wonderful cut of the picture we have.
And Larry signed off on it. I'm not sure if he was really aware of it when he did it, but hey, be that as it may, we got the cut.
Who did the cut?
Well, we did it with him and so on and we wouldn't.
Okay. Okay. Whatever.
But when we showed the picture to the people who were going to distribute it, we showed Larry's first cut, which nobody wanted.
They just said, look, it's too long, there's a wonderful movie here, but you know, the picture is too long and Larry has a reputation.
It doesn't work.
It doesn't work. He has final cut and he has a reputation.
When he did kids, Larry, Harvey Weinstein, evidently offered him a lot of money to cut the picture down.
He refused to do it. So we just don't want to deal with it. We couldn't sell the picture.
We couldn't sell the picture.
So when the picture was recut and now it's in this shape, it is getting phenomenal reviews and great audience response.
So we're very proud of it.
By the time we brought it back to the people, they didn't want to see it again.
So we got a small company, unfortunately not, you know, probably where we would like to have been.
And this small company is not spending any money on a campaign.
And the bottom line is I don't care how great the reviews are and how great the performances are.
Sadly, if when you open up the trades every day, which everybody in the business reads, or if you see ads, there are bigger ads for sound effects editing for pictures or don't have a chance.
So what you're saying in long form is that without the push of a studio behind an Oscar campaign, the campaign doesn't go very far.
We don't stand a chance. We don't stand a chance.
But what I'm getting, which is really sad, is people calling up going, I've never seen reviews like this for an actor.
Aren't you thrilled? Why aren't there any ads in the trades? Why aren't I hearing about this?
And I've had this a couple of times before in my life, like with Once Upon a Time in America, which was a great picture.
It was not even submitted for Academy Award consideration by the studio. It was not eligible.
Now, because they didn't believe in it, they didn't care, they cut it and so on.
And I put a year of my life into Another Day of Paradise.
I mean, not only starting in it, but every single day of producing it since last November, I have been on the phone, dealing with it.
I went to New York, paid for my own trip.
I'm paying to go to New York to promote the picture because there are people in it that I feel responsible for.
It's a pretty cold night, could I give you a look?
Yes, please give me the sign back.
No, but the bottom line is I want Melanie and I want Natasha, and I'd like Vinny.
I'm not going to be that modest about it. I'd like us all to get Oscar nominations.
We're not going to because people are aware of the picture now, just starting to become aware of it.
The buzz is out, but guess what? The ballots have been out for two weeks. They're due next Friday and it's too late.
And I'm going to go through another year of people going, how come that picture never – and it's incredibly frustrating.
And I was a little frustrated with my agency for not using their power, which they say they have, to call up the head of the studio and say,
you know what, this is one of our talents. Why aren't you pushing this picture?
And if you don't, you're not going to use our clients, but they didn't.
They dropped the ball, the studio dropped the ball, and I'm saying it right here on public television
because I think it's really frustrating that artists – take me out of the equation – artists like my cast who worked very hard for me at a reduced rate,
you know, worked for nothing, put their hearts and souls into it, gave phenomenal performances, which everybody's acknowledging.
This isn't our grade. We're getting reviews and then nothing comes.
And nothing comes, you know.
Let me take a fast break. We're chatting here with James Woods.
The picture is called Another Day in Paradise. We'll be right back after this break.
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