#mark lawson

[toughpaperround]

Mark Lawson

In episode 7x01 of 911 (ABC), Mark plays the pilot, Joe, who is forced to 'abandon ship'. (The ship in question being his jet fighter plane, which goes on to create a significant problem for the 118 to solve elsewhere!)

Mark played Brody in the long-running drama 'One Life to Live' for many years. More recently, he also played Dustin Phillips on 'General Hospital'. In addition he has had guest parts in shows such as Cold Case, Pitch, Animal Kingdom, and Tulsa King. And in films including 'Most Wanted Santa'.

He has also been an MMA fighter (1999) and is a personal trainer using kettlebells. Mark was born in the US (1978), and studied drama in both Boston and London.

[IMDb] [Promo clip of his scene in 7x01 on ew.com] [other 911 cast bios]

[cuteboys-n-stuff]

[back-and-totheleft]

A week in the life of Oliver Stone

Sunday

I spent most of the day at home in Brentwood, Los Angeles, recovering from a heavy week spent cutting a new, three-and-a-half-hour DVD version of my film Alexander. In the evening, I drove to Hollywood to give an award to actor Michael Peña for his role in my latest film, World Trade Center. It was an easygoing event, full of fresh faces. English actress Emily Blunt made quite a splash. She seemed like a force of nature.

Monday

Up at 5am to catch a plane to New York. I used the seven-hour flight to update my diary; it’s really just a compilation of notes from memory. When I’d dropped my bags at the Mark Hotel in Manhattan, I headed to the Museum of Modern Art for a reception for World Trade Center. My mother, my ex-wives and my friends were there, along with Will and John – the real policemen who survived 9/11, on whose story we based the film – and a dozen others who’d rescued people from Ground Zero. It was a good mix.

Tuesday

After a few hours of paperwork, I went over to the Brook Club on East 54th for a lunch hosted by my old friend Chuck Pfeiffer, a real New Yorker. I chatted to PJ O’Rourke and some crazy artists, then headed out of town to Westchester for a Q-and-A to mark the 20th anniversary of my film Platoon. It was an uptown, educated crowd, with a higher level of debate than usual. Good preparation for England, I thought, as I caught the red-eye to London.

Wednesday

My wife Chong and my 11-year-old daughter Tara flew in to London from LA. We huddled together in the afternoon, walking the cold streets and shopping in Fortnum and Mason. They sat in the audience at the National Film Theatre while I was interviewed by Mark Lawson about my career. Then we popped into the British Comedy Awards, where I gave an award to Wallace and Gromit. I tried out some stand-up on stage; it felt like the audience was with me.

Thursday

At the Science Museum with Tara, I got excited about the industrial revolution. Science was my weak spot in school and I stood there, trying to understand how the steam engine worked, while Tara pressed computers and told me it really wasn’t that complicated. We dragged ourselves away so I could do a TV interview with David Frost for Al Jazeera. He really represented the swinging 1960s, and he still had that charm and lightness of touch. He’s interested in the world; the way I see it, if you can maintain that interest, you stay interesting.

‘World Trade Center’ is out on DVD on Jan 29.

-Laura Barnett, The Daily Telegraph, Jan 6 2007

[biglisbonnews]

‘I’ve never forgotten it’: the very best (and very worst) TV endings of all time From The Sopranos’ unbeatable conclusion to the nonsensical anticlimax of Game of Thrones, here are the most memorable TV finales of all time – for varying reasons …Warning: contains spoilers. Continue reading... https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/feb/07/best-and-worst-tv-endings-of-all-time

[5sospenguinqueen]

The Grid

• Team Betrayal - Red Bull reader caught drinking a rival energy drink (smau)

━━━━━━ ༻𖥸༺ ━━━━━━

alex albon

arthur leclerc

charles leclerc

carlos sainz

daniel ricciardo

fernando alonso

franco colapinto

george russell

jenson button

kevin magnussen

kimi raikkonen

lance stroll

lando norris

liam lawson

logan sargeant

mark webber

max verstappen

mick schumacher

oscar piastri

pierre gasly

sebastian vettel

toto wolff

[themultifanshipper]

This is my masterlist of posted fics,

You can see my WIP masterlist here

And you can find my prompt list here

Warning: these are all smut, see bottom of post for notes and answers to asks/thoughts.

Lando Norris

Pegging Lando ft. Oscar ~0.3k

The Bet (Lando's first win) ~ 2.2k

Going commando - Landoscar ~ 0.5k

Podium celebration - carlandoscar xreader ~ 0.8k

More to love - Plussize!reader ~ 1.1k

Bend over - gn!reader ~ 0.6k

Bend over, Lando (pt2) - gn!reader ~0.7k

Jealous (Oscar's first win) - landoscar ~0.9k

The makeup artist - landoscar x reader ~2k

The untitled foursome - Carlos x Oscar x Lando x reader ~ 2.3k

Honeymoon - landoscar ~ 1.9k

Always the quiet ones - innocent!reader ~1.5k

Logan needs some love - Loscar x reader ft. Lando ~ 3.5k

Lando's treat - part 2 of PB series (ft. Max & Charles) ~ 1.9k

How to tame your brat ~ 3.4k

Max Verstappen

Car sex ~ 1.8k pt2 ft. Charles

Make the boy jealous ~ 1.3k

S(t)imulation racing ~ 1.6k

Fastest laps - Max, George, Logan x reader (also feat. Lando & Charles) ~ 2k

Hospital blues - driver!reader ~ 1k

Charles Leclerc

Post Race sex (with a twist) - gn!reader ~0.3k

What happened in Monaco? (pt2 of Car sex with Max) ~1.5k

You speak french ??? - gn!reader ~ 1.5k

To a good blowie - Seb x reader ft. Charles ~5.5k (if you just wanna read Charles' part skip to 2019)

Making headlines - journalist!reader ~ 2.8k

"It is I, Leclerc" - ferrari!wife!reader ~ 1k

Logan Sargeant

What are friends for? ~1.5k

Logan's Miami blues gn!reader ~0.4k

She's the best - loscalex x reader ~1.9k

Fastest laps - Max, George, Logan x reader (also feat. Lando & Charles) ~ 2k

Logan needs some love - Loscar x reader ft. Lando ~ 3.5k

George Russell

Love at first fuck ~0.6k

The problem with George - Galex+Lily ~ 2k

Familiar voice - raceengineer!reader ~ 1.4k

Fastest laps - Max, George, Logan x reader (also feat. Lando & Charles) ~ 2k

Make you a mother ~ 1.6k

Oscar Piastri

Going Commando - Landoscar ~ 0.5k

Podium celebration - carlandoscar xreader ~ 0.8k

She's the best - loscalex x reader ~1.9k

Good Friend ~ 1.2k

Cuddles and kisses ~ 0.5k

Rivalry is the best aphrodisiac ~ 2k

Jealous (Oscar's first win) - landoscar ~ 0.9k

The makeup artist - landoscar x reader ~2k

Take it out on my puss me ~ 1.6k

The untitled foursome - Carlos x Oscar x Lando x reader ~ 2.3k

Honeymoon - landoscar ~ 1.9k

The video ~ 1.3k

Too tired to get naked - gn!driver!reader ~ 0.7k

Logan needs some love - Loscar x reader ft. Lando ~ 3.5k

Hidden depravity - innocent!reader ~ 1.9k

I hate you (Oscar's version) (coming soon)

Fernando Alonso

Giving head - gn!reader ~ 0.420k

Something in the air that night ~ 2k

Liam Lawson

I hate you (Liam's version) - gn!reader ~ 1.6k

Carlos Sainz

Podium celebration - carlandoscar x reader ~0.8k

Not in the mood ~ 2k

The untitled foursome - Carlos x Oscar x Lando x reader ~ 2.3k

Yuki Tsunoda

Anniversary dinner ~ 1.3k

Insatiable - Nyukierre ~ 1.6k

Alex Albon

She's the best - loscalex x reader ~1.9k

The hitman and the spy ~ 2.4k

The problem with George - Galex+Lily ~ 2k

Sebastian Vettel

Never say 'no' to a good blowie - ft. 3 very special guests ~5.5k

I hate you (Sebastian's version) ~ 1.4k

I love hate you (alternate version) ~ 1.9k

Brother's best friend - Button!reader ~ 2.5k

Two for the price of one - Seb & Jenson x Webber!reader ~ 1.9k

Pierre Gasly

Insatiable - Nyukierre ~1.6k

Daniel Ricciardo

I hate you (Danny's version) - Verstappen!reader ~ 2.6k

One of the Boys (the Paddock Bunny series)

Pt 1: Hungary - Fastest Laps (Max Logan George, ft Charles & Lando)

Pt 2: Zandvoort - Lando's treat (Lando ft Charles & Max)

Pt 3: Monza - Invasive questions (Lando & Oscar)

Other drivers:

•Mark Webber - in Never say no to a good blowie (2013 part)

•Kimi Räikönnen - in Never say no to a good blowie (2017 part)

•Nyck de Vries - in Insatiable (poly with Pierre and Yuki)

•Jenson Button - in Two for the price of one

Thoughts/asks:

-> George is a boob man, pass it on

-> Oscar needs to get fucked until he cries

-> Oscar has a hand kink

-> Writing an explicit song about your bf

-> Using his wealth to have fun wherever you want

-> Are they service tops/doms?

-> more top/bottom discourse

Notes:

See my rules for requesting here

Even though my reader characters usually have vaginas, I do my best to not gender them so anyone can read them (I also never talk about weight, height or skin colour).

I also have a few actual gender neutral works that are clearly marked above, or you can look for them in the tag # gn reader :)

Also I don't use names or Y/N or anything bc i hate writing with that even though i don't mind reading it (idk i'm weird like that)

[maxedes]

texts from the grid

texts from last night x f1

[aviscarrentals]

f1 x textposts p20 sorry for the logan one LOL

[racingcore]

So now Lestappen family has Leo, Jimmy, Sassy, Ollie Bearman, Oscar Piastri, Liam Lawson.

[vinvantae]

How drivers (+Toto Wolff) would react coming home from a race to find you’d fallen asleep on the sofa waiting for them to come home (part 2!)

Part one with the current grid here !!

See below the cut

Jenson Button

Jenson could not wait to see you, the best part of his weekend was coming home to you - so when he finds you dozing on the sofa, he can’t help but carefully jump onto the couch, hands resting either side of your head. Jense! You scared me! But you couldn’t stay mad with the way he grinned at you - he’d lean down and nuzzle his nose against yours, pulling a giggle from you before pressing a longing kiss to your lips - making up for all of the time you were apart. And with a soft hum, your arms would come to wrap around his neck and deepen it further. And as he pulled back, just enough to be able to look into your eyes, he’d tilt his head playfully - his grin morphing into a smirk …so now that you’re awake?

══ ❀•°❀°•❀ ══

Mark Webber

Mark knew you well, despite your best efforts, you would always pass out waiting up for him so it was easy for him to get around without waking you. That wouldn’t stop him popping his head into the living room to check in on you every few minutes - put away his shirts, checks on you, throws his dirty clothes in the laundry, checks on you. And then, after he’s full settled in and you’re still not awake? He’d crouch down beside the sofa and whisper your name - pushing the hair off of your face. And when your eyes finally opened and your face split into a massive grin, he really felt like he’d come home.

══ ❀•°❀°•❀ ══

Sebastian Vettel

Whilst Sebastian wished he could just let you rest, every fibre of his being fought against him so instead he sat beside you and lent down. Meine Leibe… You keened as you felt soft kisses across your skin. Eyelashes fluttered against your skin before you finally opened your eyes to see Sebastian smiling down sweetly at you. Hi, sorry, I didn't mean to doze off. As you sit up, he’d wrap his arms around your middle - pulling you in close so he could tuck his face into your neck, enjoying your warmth. With a content hum, you’d loop your arms around his neck and let him hold you tight. You smell like the plane. He’d laugh, raising a teasing brow. Fancy helping me smell like home?

══ ❀•°❀°•❀ ══

Kimi Räikönnen

You’d always told Kimi it was fine to wake you, but he just wouldn’t. After draping the blanket over your body, he would hide away in a different room and keep himself busy until you eventually woke yourself up. When you wake, you didn’t even realise he was home until you stepped into the hallway to see his shoes nearly on the rack, coat hung up and keys in the bowl. You’d roll your eyes fondly before seeking him out and sitting yourself in his lap, extracting his phone or book from his hands. Been busy? Kimi would nod and kiss your cheek, quietly recounting what he’d been up to as you’d slept.

══ ❀•°❀°•❀ ══

Mick Schumacher

Mick was a cuddle fiend - his friends would often tease him about his need to be wrapped up in your touch. Whether it was his arms around you or vice versa, he could just never get enough of you. So when he got back from a long session on the simulator to find you asleep on the couch, he would push himself into your arms. Micky, hey. You chuckled as he laid on top of you, grumbling into your neck about how tired and achy he felt. He was like your own personal weighted blanket, and you gently stroked his hair as it was his turn to doze off.

══ ❀•°❀°•❀ ══

Toto Wolff

As desperate as you were to wait for up Toto, one of your favourite things in the world was feeling his strong arms tuck underneath your body - pulling you into his chest as he carried you upstairs. You snuggled up into his hold and he chuckled softly, sorry Schatz, didn’t mean to wake you. With a gentle kiss to your forehead, he’d lay you on the bed - manoeuvring the sheets so he could pull the duvet over you before climbing in alongside you, so you could curl your body against his strong chest. He held you close and let his own eyes close before the two of you would drift off together.

══ ❀•°❀°•❀ ══

Arthur Leclerc

Arthur felt exhausted as he stepped into the house, pushing off his shoes and just dumping his bag in the hall before looking for you. A soft smile tugged at his lips as he saw you passed out on the sofa - cheek squished into the cushion. Carefully, he squeezed into the space beside you and pulled the blanket over you both, moving your head to rest it carefully on his chest. You didn’t wake until a little while later, yawning and sitting up so you could look down at the body underneath you - the driver fast asleep. Arthur… you lent down and pressed kisses to his cheeks, nose, lips over and over until his pretty eyes fluttered open. Hey, this is pretty comfy, huh? He’d grin and pull you back into his arms. Who said you could go anywhere?

══ ❀•°❀°•❀ ══

Liam Lawson

The Kiwi driver hummed softly as he tidied up the living room - cleaning up your abandoned cup of coffee, putting away your book and turning off the TV. You were usually always awake to greet him when he got back so seeing you dozing so peacefully made him smile. He wanted to hug and kiss you but you looked so content in your sleep that it didn’t feel right. But when you finally stirred he was elated, rushing to your side. About time, was getting bored without you, sleepy head. You’d scold him for not waking you, of course, but as soon as he pressed a kiss to your lips to shut you up, you’d smile and sink into his hold. Just glad he was back.

══ ❀•°❀°•❀ ══

Pato O’Ward

Pato usually bound into your shared space like an over-excitable puppy, throwing his things around and calling out for your attention. But when he arrived home particularly late from a training session, he tried his best to be quiet - unsure if you’d even still be awake at this time. The sight of you sleeping on the sofa, a blanket only over your lower half, are you still watching written on the tv screen - cheered him right up. He was so happy to see you’d tried to stay awake for him. Mi Luna… He’d whisper, brushing his thumb over your jaw. Pato, mi Sol. You’d whisper back, before pulling him into an almost bone crushing hug. Never leave me again.

══ ❀•°❀°•❀ ══

Hope you enjoyed 💙

[landogalore]

I KNOW THE END

a formula one inspired mafia story:

MASTERLIST

—————————————————————————

When a tragic murder begins the outbreak of a war between powerful families occurs, a desire for revenge. But newly-formed romances also begin to thrive, some between friends, maybe even between sworn enemies.

—————————————————————————

WARNINGS: LOTS OF VIOLENCE (so be warned), death, SA, mentions of sex, drugs, etc.

this fic WILL BE ANGSTY, but i promise there’s still smut and fluff.

—————————————————————————

CAST:

THE BUTTON FAMILY:

hope fewtrell:

played by madeline argy

lando norris:

played by himself

max fewtrell:

played by himself

lena muni he:

played by olivia rodrigo

logan sargeant:

played by himself

jenson button:

played by himself

—————————————————————————

THE HAMILTON FAMILY:

sir lewis hamilton:

played by himself

emmeline hamilton-button:

played by laura harrier

————————————————————————

THE ROSBERG FAMILY:

nico rosberg:

played by himself

freja rosberg:

played by kaleen

kimi antonelli-rosberg

played by himself:

————————————————————————

THE ALONSO FAMILY:

fernando alonso:

played by himself

alejandra maddeline alonso:

played by angelina mango

————————————————————————

THE WEBBER FAMILY:

mark webber:

played by himself

oscar webber-piastri

played by himself

sydney webber:

played by rain spencer

liam lawson:

played by himself

————————————————————————

THE VETTEL FAMILY:

sebastian vettel:

played by himself

quinn ricciardo:

played by benadetta porcaroli 

daniel ricciardo:

played by himself

other side characters also included!

————————————————————————

DOOMSDAY.

date: 13th february 2024 || time: 11:31pm

‘Joder, hermosa.’ The man groaned, the tight sensation against his cock causing his muscles to tremble, bucking his hips in a stable rhythm. ‘You feel increíble around me.’

‘Getting so close, Nando.’ She whined, her fingers gripping his ruffled hair with more force, trying to bring more pleasure to her body; enough to let the sensations consume her.

‘Mmm, Mads.’ He hummed at the tugging of her hands, pressing their frames closer, the woman almost able to feel the warm breath that escaped his lips, panting heavily with both lust and exhaustion.

‘I love you so much, Fernando.’ Her mouth moves towards his ears, whispering serenades of praises, the few words sounding like music to him, able to listen to her soft mumbles for eternity.

‘I love you too, mi vida.’ He chuckles, both of them now relaxing after the sheer adrenaline that pumped through the couple’s veins as they reached their highs. ‘Don’t know how I’d survive without you.’

‘I’m not leaving, not just yet.’ Maddeline giggles, nuzzling her now marked neck into his bare chest, allowing her muscles to rest after the romantic session, smiling at the heat that radiated from his skin.

As the two eventually began to drift off into a tranquil state, the sudden blare of sirens started to surround the once calm environment, immediately creating a sense of danger.

‘What was that?’ Her eyes blurted open, alarmed by the loud noise ringing in her ears, concerned about what was happening.

‘Don’t worry, cariño. You stay here, I’ll sort it out.’ Her husband reassured, planting a soft kiss on her forehead to promise their safety, the man climbing out of bed to wear something appropriate for the serious situation occuring.

Desperate to sort the issue so he could go back to his wife, Fernando slams the door open, marching down the elegant hallways as if he was on a mission, phone firmly gripped in his fingertips. ‘Carlos, get ready. Business to attend to.’ He declared, gaining as many forces as possible. The alarms were only triggered by something drastic, but Maddeline didn’t need to know that.

The angered man continued storming through the house, the device originally grasped replaced for a gun, loaded and prepared to fire if necessary.

‘Ready?’ Fernando makes his way to the entrance, added forces waiting for him to announce the attack on the intruders outside.

‘We’re ready, jefe.’ Carlos replied, weapon firmly gripped in his palms, holding it up towards his eye, able to get a perfect shot if bullets immediately began firing.

The blinding headlights shone as they exited the house, blocking the view of who was actually there unless they approached further.

‘Fernando Alonso.’ A somewhat familiar voice spoke, a stern tone prominent in his voice, whoever it was here was for business purposes only.

‘I’d recognise that Australian accent from anywhere, you’re one of Webbers.’ The group moved cautiously, trying to see the faces that they could only perceive through their speech.

Adjusting to the harsh light, a younger, brunette man leaned on his car, practically staring down the boss in the centre, un-phased by who he was sending daggers towards.

‘Oscar Webber-Piastri.’ Fernando eventually recognised him, unable to not remember the same sarcastic and unbothered personality the boy seemed to cherish. ‘Where’s your daddy?’ He asked, the delightful presence of his father sadly not present in this feud.

‘My dad is not here, sorting out other important duties, you know, actual necessities.’ Oscar huffed, annoyed at the older man’s childish remark, despite being 23.

‘So what are you doing here? Daddy send you to do his dirty business?’ He snickered back, maybe if he could get into the fragile boy’s mind he would be less defensive when the weapons began firing.

‘No, my dad sent me to cause some damage.’ Still emphasising that Mark was not his ‘daddy’, the enemy smiled, a wicked glint in his supposed innocent-appearing eyes.

‘Then what are you waiting for, huh?’ Fernando teased, waiting for the boy to actually make a move instead of standing there and attempting to intimidate him. ‘Do you even know how to use that little toy you like to call a gun-’

*BANG*

‘CHECO!’ The loud screams of Alejandra’s filled the atmosphere as the bullet ripped through the man’s skull, the explosion sending blood everywhere as he fell dramatically to the floor.

‘Told you I knew how to use it, old man.’ Oscar smirked, proud of his accomplishment. ‘I said I was here to cause damage, and I think I’ve already caused a bit of commotion.’

‘Fuck you, you’re asking for it now, cabrón.’ The man seethed, anger fuelling his muscles as his arms jerked up, pressing the trigger on the pistol, beginning the shower of gunfire.

Bullets flew across the two groups, most hiding behind any shelter they could discover to protect themselves, not wanting their last moment to be this very scene.

‘Shit.’ Alejandra cursed, the soaring metal basically skimming her body as she ducked behind one of the cars, scouring the surroundings every so often to check if any enemies could be nearby.

‘Looking for me, darling?’ The voice boomed, the girl’s eyes widening in fear as she recognised the same Australian accent that made people shiver, the person who just murdered one of her father’s loyal workers in cold blood, unable to show a slight indication of remorse.

‘You gonna shoot me too, Piastri?’ She challenged, anger clearly prominent in her voice as she glared at the armed man.

‘Maybe.’ Oscar debated, moving the gun closer to the girl, aiming directly at her forehead.

‘You shoot me and I’ll shoot you. Seems pretty fair.’ The woman added, similarly moving her weapon to a vulnerable area, one click and he would drop dead. ‘You’re not going to, are you? You won’t as much as you might want to.’ Alejandra continued to tease, inheriting the same manipulative skills as her father.

‘Don’t worry, I will eventually.’ His eyes squint, rage consuming his pupils, visibly angered by her attitude that she couldn’t help but smirk at the effect she had on the boy.

*BANG*

All heads swiftly turned to the slamming of the entrance door, an older man storming out.

‘Mark Webber.’ Fernando remained shocked, wondering how weak his security must’ve been to allow the mafia boss to waltz into his home so easily. The house where his wife is sleeping peacefully.

‘Fernando Alonso, it’s been a while.’ Mark greeted, being a long time since he paid the Spaniard a very welcoming visit. ‘Sadly I can’t stay long, my work here is done.’ He almost pouts at the situation, heading back towards the cars. ‘Oscar, come on.’

‘You got lucky, darling.’ He removed the weapon from her head, appearing dissapointed that he was not able to cause any more wreckage.

‘Your wife says hello.’ Mark snickered as he entered the parked vehicle, and that was finally the breaking point.

‘MADDELINE!’ The husband’s voice echoed around the house, desperate for some sort of signal that she was safe, and that all that Mark had spoke was just some scare to make the man weak.

But that theory all came crashing down when he walked into the bedroom. There she lay, once sleeping peacefully for the night. Now resting forever in a pool of her own crimson fluids.

‘Máma?’ Alejandra peeked through before immediately turning away, a slight sickening taste building up in her throat. Usually it would not phase her, but seeing her own mother in that state broke her.

‘Hey, come here tesoro.’ Carlos comforted, wrapping his arms around her as she dipped her head in his chest, allowing the tears to flow down her face, attempting to block out the scene before her.

‘Don’t worry mi vida.’ Fernando was overwhelmed by the crushing feeling of grief in his heart, but it was slowly developing to an enraged desire.

‘I’ll get my revenge for you.’

—————————————————————————

HOPE YOU ENJOY! <3

[miloformula123fan]

for 150 followers, I am announcing my big current project - the bachelor, but f1 style.

basically, i was talking to leo about how they should decide the mercedes seat bachelor style, which descended into this.

how it will work:

once i publish a chapter, i will also publish a poll - this poll will be WHO TO ELIMINATE, NOT who stays.

whoever 'wins' that poll will be eliminated and we will continue the remaining contestants

i will publish the first chapter 'soon-ish', so you're not voting off the moodboard, don't worry

the moodboards do have some easter eggs for the future, relying on them not being eliminated.

also yes i fiddled with the ages, deal with it.

so - meet your contestants

y/n y/l/n, 25, f1 driver for aston martin - the bachelor

and the people vying for his heart

kimi raikkonen, 34, financier from finland

2. logan sargeant, 23, dj from usa

3. daniel ricciardo, 33, photographer from australia

4. alex albon, 27, lawyer from thailand

5. mark webber, 37, bodyguard from australia

6. liam lawson, 22, firefighter from new zealand

7. fernando alonso, 42, physio from spain

8. esteban ocon, 27, baker from france

9. yuki tsunoda, 23, chef from japan

10. carlos sainz, 29, football player from spain

11. lance stroll, 25, heir from canada

12. max verstappen, 26, cat shelter owner and vet from the netherlands

13. sebastian vettel, 36, florist, conservationist and activist from germany

14. oscar piastri, 22, author from australia

15. mick schumacher, 24, surfer from germany

16. nico rosberg, 38, philanthropist from germany

17. arthur leclerc, 24, model from monaco

18. lewis hamilton, 38, model from the uk

19. george russell, 26, CLASSIFIED from the uk

20. jenson button, 34, artist from the uk

21. charles leclerc, 26, fashion designer from monaco

22. pierre gasly, 28, lead singer of a boy band from france

23. lando norris, 24, twitch streamer from the uk

24. toto wolff, 41, ceo billionaire from austria

25. susie wolff, 31, girlboss from scotland

---

taglist of people who i think may be interested in this (but let me know if you want to be added or removed):

@leosxrealm, @tallrock35, @wolf-knights, @janeholt3, @badblondebisexualboy, @ghostking4m

[back-and-totheleft]

BFI Interview

Mark Lawson: Welcome to the Guardian interview with the three-time Academy Award-winning director and writer Oliver Stone. We're going to talk about his work tonight, which over the last 40 years has dealt with America's critical emergencies, from the Kennedy assassination to the Vietnam war, to Watergate and the Nixon years, to most recently, with World Trade Center, the 9/11 attacks. Welcome, please, Oliver Stone.

We'll talk about the films in a moment, but the first thing that struck me on the way here is that tomorrow, after nine years, the report into the death of Princess Diana is published in London, addressing all the conspiracy theories - was she murdered, etc. And Oliver Stone flies into London the night before? Are we supposed to believe that's a coincidence?

Oliver Stone: I believe I was told part of the revelation tomorrow. What I had to do with it you'll find out. What was more shocking to me when I arrived today was, the first thing I saw at Heathrow was a banner headline saying "Strangler loose in Ipswich". I thought, how British. Jack the Ripper, Hitchcock's Frenzy - it was kind of a throwback.

ML: I mentioned in the introduction that you've dealt with the big American political subjects from Vietnam to 9/11. There's one gap so far, which is Iraq and Bush. Probably for a lot people here, the dream next film from you would be Bush or Iraq, or both. Is it going to happen?

OS: That's a very flattering comment because I feel World Trade Center is an opening for me into this world. And I really am interested in the "post" period, the 9/12 on. I'm not sure the answer lies so much in Iraq, I think that's a result. For me the answer lies in the interim step, in Afghanistan. I think there's a lot of light to be shed on the nature of that war, how it came about militarily and politically, and also the nature of the war with Pakistan, India and Iran. It's a great subject matter. It leads to Iraq but that's the third phase. And there are already many movies about Iraq in terms of the internet and documentaries - in a sense, it's been usurped by television, as 9/11 was, to a certain degree.

ML: Before we talk about World Trade Center, do you know what the next film will be?

OS: No. It's the same thing for any film-maker who works at it. It's a period of uncertainty. We've been developing three or four things. We do a lot of work in research and development - we hire, we write screenplays or have writers write them; sometimes the screenplays take a long time, sometimes they're quicker. You need an actor, a budget, a studio. It all has to blend; it really is like an experiment. Nine out of 10 things do fail, or four out of five. So it's that period right now and it's a tough period, but we work just as hard doing nothing as when we're filming.

ML: We're going to start with the most recent thing you did, World Trade Center, the story of two men from the New York Port Authority Police Department caught in the collapsing World Trade tower.

[runs clip]

ML: I think that film surprised a number of people who've followed your career. As you know there are numerous books of conspiracy theories about 9/11: the American government did it, Israel did it, it wasn't a plane that hit the Pentagon and all the rest of it. But you've pretty much gone with the official facts of the story.

OS: We followed strictly the story of these four people - two husbands and two wives. Their story is corroborated. We also had 40-50 rescuers on the film who worked there. We're dealing with facts here, authenticity, we're dealing with what we know. Eyewitnesses would tell us, "This happened that day." I talked to John McLoughlin and Will Jimeno and their wives many times. I don't think they ever expressed to me even once any opinions about politics or Bush. It wasn't about that. In fact, John, because he'd been at the 1993 bombing at the World Trade Center, all he said was that in the confusion that day, he thought it was a truck bomb. It never occurred to him that it was a plane. And to the end, that's what they thought. There's a wonderful moment when Will Jimeno comes out of the hole and says "Where'd the buildings go?" They didn't know. If you're operating within the parameters of these 24 hours, you must adhere to what they know. This is a subjective movie - it's seen from within, from their point of view. But it's also from the point of view of their wives, from without, through the television, so it's subjective and objective. It would have been wrong to go to politics. Plus, we had a lot to do - there were three rescues, devastation, survival, life in the suburbs amid the worsening news, all this in 24 hours. You have to understand the tension - two wives at home realising that there would be no survivors. That's a great story in itself. Then there's the marine who rescued them, that's another great story. What time do you have to cut away to other things, much less want to?

ML: I understand that. You're entirely true to the story, but if I'd had to guess which aspect of 9/11 you would have chosen to dramatise, I don't think I would have chosen this. It's the one optimistic part of the story - that some people did survive it.

OS: There were times in the 90s when things were so prosperous… I mean, when Reagan was still around, I made Salvador attacking the Reagan administration in Central America. Perhaps I'm a contrarian. It seems to me 2006 is a far darker time than 2001. Those of you who remember that day would have seen how united the world was - the world was with America, had great empathy with America, and did again, maybe not as much, for the war in Afghanistan. But that has all changed. Now we have serious problems - more deaths, more terrorism, more constitutional breakdown in my own country. It's a disgrace, what's happened. And that's much more serious to me than the 2001 was-there-a-conspiracy-or-not. I don't know enough about it and I'm sure there's a lot of leaks and messy stories, but I've been through these arguments. But al-Qaida claimed they did it, over and over again. They claimed the credit, and the motive is very clear. They succeeded in creating a panic, a mental instability in the world and that had tremendous consequences because it was fuelled by George Bush's administration's reaction. So they've won. It's the opposite of the JFK killing - there you had a man, an uneducated, single guy who said, "I didn't do it. I'm a patsy." He disappears with the Dallas police for almost 48 hours, all his transcripts are destroyed, or are missing, and he's killed. It is the opposite of this story. It's a Reichstag fire kind of story. There's no motive, and who benefits? This is the key question and never gets addressed by the press. They always follow the scenery - that's what Ruby and Oswald were. I always say follow the money. Who benefited, what was the motive to get rid of John F Kennedy? I think there's a big difference. So why waste time with conspiracy theories? If you're going to politics on this issue, go now. But we don't know everything. If I'd made a movie in 2004 about the politics of the Bush war, I'd be shamefaced today because there's so much new information that we didn't have in 2004. Every month in the US there are about 10 books - [Bob] Woodward['s Bush at War, etc], The 2% Solution [by Matthew Miller], The Looming Tower [by Lawrence Wright]; every book has deepened my awareness of what really happened and it's not so simple as going after Osama bin Laden. If I make a movie - and we're not journalists, we're film-makers and dramatists, we have to look for the overall meaning and pattern of an event. That takes time.

ML: But it seems to me you are moving towards that film.

OS: Don't rush in where angels…

ML: The reason why I chose that clip from World Trade Center was that another surprise for me when I saw it was that, when I think of an Oliver Stone film, I think of the huge expansive camera movement, reminding us how wide the screen is. This was very, very different.

OS: This was a very tough picture to do, as hard as I've ever made. The lungs alone took a beating. But then you're working with two men in a hole. You have two actors - Nic Cage hasn't been this quiet in a long time. You basically have half a body and a head - it's a pickle in a jar. It's not easy. And Seamus McGarvey, our Irish-Scottish DP, lit this thing - you could see the expression on Jay Hernandez's face, but this was a very dark hole. It's basically a conversation between light and dark, because then we'd cut to the suburbs. We timed it so that you had 10 minutes in the hole the first time -very dark, very cold - then out to the suburbs where it was a really beautiful day, then back to the hole; eight holes with diminishing time periods from 10 minutes down to about two or three minutes. But our biggest problem was the third act, because once they're rescued by the marines - I don't know if you've all seen the movie…

ML: You've just given the ending away.

OS: There are three rescues in the movie - the marine, Will and John, and each one was a big number in itself. It took five hours to get Will out. People think that when you see somebody it's easy to rescue them but on the contrary, it's even more difficult; people can get killed because the spaces are so dangerous and narrow. We wanted to show the heroism of the first responders - it was their job but they went into those positions and risked their lives. And it becomes more than a story of two men, it's the story of collective effort.

ML: Let's take a look at a second clip. We're now going in chronological order, starting with Platoon.

[runs clip]

ML: I'm interested in the shape of your career because there had been work before Platoon - there were screenplays and some directing. But in 1986, when you were 40, that's when your career really seemed to begin and you became a director. Was there something that happened?

OS: Yeah, I think I got angry and fed up. I had done Midnight Express, Scarface and Conan, but I really was a director at heart, and I wanted to break through. I'd had two failures up to then, two horror films. They were similar in theme, actually, and I vowed never to do a horror film again. Jamais deux san trois. It would be a disaster for me to do a horror film - I'm not a natural born sadist, actually, and I think you have to be to do a good horror film. You have to scare the shit out of the audience, you have to really want to. I don't know if I could. 86 was a banner year.

ML: You'd served in Vietnam. Had you always known that that would be a big subject for you as a film-maker?

OS: It wasn't made, you know. It had been written 76 and turned down for 10 years. It was a bit of a stale joke. Frankly, when I got the opportunity from an English producer called John Daly… he actually read both scripts, Salvador and Platoon, and asked which one I wanted to do first. Which of course to a young film-maker is like a dream. I picked Salvador first because I was so convinced that Platoon was cursed - it had been started so many times but not got made, so I thought it was not going to happen. It was [Michael] Cimino on The Year of the Dragon, which I wrote with him, who convinced me to pull it out of the closet and go with Dino De Laurentiis, who reneged on his promise. I got another lawsuit but I got it back by the skin of my teeth. And then John Daly walked into my life. God bless the English for making those two movies - they were made illegally, almost fraudulently in Mexico. Salvador was made on a letter of credit issued to an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie - on our slate on Salvador, you can read the word Outpost, which was supposed to be the movie he was doing. Years later, of course, for other reasons, the banker was indicted, the letters of credit were questioned and so forth. But I do think you need government tax help - Britain benefited enormously from this. I don't know what's going on now…

ML: It's in the balance at the moment.

OS: You had a great system for a while.

ML: One of the subjects of Platoon and also Born On The Fourth of July is the number of people who were destroyed by the Vietnam war - the suicide rate being higher than the death rate for example. Did you ever come close to being destroyed by it?

OS: I'm very lucky that I got to make three movies about it - I think that helped enormously. I think there are a lot of successful Vietnam veterans in civilian life who are doing very well on the surface but are very bottled up inside. People who killed people, who killed civilians…Vietnam was a charnel house, there was a lot of indiscriminate killing, probably more so than in Iraq. But that's the nature of war. Platoon is fundamental, it's almost biblical. I was in three different combat platoons, and looking back I have to say there were people who were predisposed to kill anything, and other people who are predisposed to restraint, and it's not an easy equation because there are times when you are under pressure and you kill. It was a bit like a western. And of course, there are the kids who fall in the middle, like my character, the Charlie Sheen character in Platoon. Sometimes life is that way. And the kids in Iraq - who I hear are better soldiers than we were, and there are more Christian-trained and born-agains - they're all encountering this fundamental problem now. Their hatred of the enemy has reached the point where many of them hate the civilian population and they don't know the difference any more.

ML: Do you get angry when you look at people in America, from the president downwards, who got out of the war?

OS: I am beyond it. 2002 was the year I got upset. He was moving troops to the Middle East before the UN resolution. Now they're re-examining that whole period and the Colin Powell speech, but there were troop movements before Powell's speech. Once they moved there, you knew something was going to happen. And [former White House anti-terror adviser Richard] Clarke and various people have verified it, that Bush had the thing on his mind, he wanted to go to war, it was a given. It angers me greatly because when Bush went to Vietnam just four weeks ago, they asked him, "What did the Vietnam war mean to you?" And of course, this is the guy who sat out the war, draft dodged, as did Cheney, six or seven times. And he said something to the effect of, "I think it proves that if you stick in there, you'll win." That was his lesson from Vietnam.

ML: We move now to an earlier president, John F Kennedy. This clip I've chosen, it's part of a very long scene, and is my favourite Oliver Stone scene. It's a speech which I think is one of the great speeches in cinema and I want to talk to you about the writing and the directing of it. But here it is, from JFK.

[runs clip]

ML: The reason I chose that is I want to get at this business of getting what's on the page to what's on screen. It's an enormously long and complex speech, and it's exposition, which is what people always say you can't do in movies. So can you talk a bit about planning that visually?

OS: It was a 12 to 18-minute speech. I offered it to Brando, and I'm glad he didn't do it - it would have taken 30 minutes. It's actually two scenes, it was really complicated editing. Jim Garrison sees Fletcher Prouty in the middle and at the end. We ended up collapsing that in the middle. The secret, I think, to why many people have liked it is not only John Williams's music, but it's coming at the end of the first half. In Holland, there was an intermission after this scene so it gives you time to absorb this. Really, it's about Garrison going from this small, local investigation in New Orleans and jumping up another level - a quantum level leap. He never met Fletcher Prouty but he met a man similar to Prouty, who told him a similar story. But the man vanished. He's no longer operative. Fletcher was somebody I met separately. He'd written several books about it, including The Secret Team. He was chief of special ops, one of the key guys in the cold war. He was involved in at least 25 to 50 CIA missions in Tibet to Guatemala, everywhere. He supplied the hardware - the CIA didn't have the military weapons at the time. Something smelled bad to him that year and he quit, and he was discredited by the administration and by journalists, not for any correct reason. They spread the usual disinformation about him and Garrison. He told me the story from his point of view. I'll never forget that day.

ML: How carefully was it planned in advance?

OS: This was shot on the fly. We did it in two, three days. It was the last scene in the film. [Donald] Sutherland is the fastest talking actor in the world, he's very authoritative at that speed. It was a hell of a lot of dialogue, but I wanted to get it all in. Because Garrison is learning it as we learn it. And Garrison's jaw is dropping, "This is much bigger than I ever thought, how can I go on?" Garrison was the only public official who did anything. It is as a result of his beginning something that we have some records, and those records are invaluable. He also attracted the attention of the private community and they gave him a lot of help. But he could not get all the facts together. I didn't change what Prouty told me - this is based on what he said.

ML: That account in the film is very exciting. Do you believe that that account is what happened, that it's correct?

OS: I don't know who did it but I believe it was a military operation. The shooting, the autopsy, the brain, the Zapruder film - you shoot the guy coming towards you so you get the second shot, the third shot. You don't shoot him going away from you. The pressure's enormous, the sound's enormous and Oswald was not a great shot. And the [6.5mm] Mannlicher-Carcano was a piece of junk. I mean the story was just so ridiculous. The Zapruder film is evidence enough - there are two smoking guns. His head flies backwards, he was shot from the hedge. And they talk about this bullet that hits Kennedy and [Texas governor John] Connally 11 times - it's the most ridiculous bullet in the history of the world. In fact, a British audio group did a test a year ago - this is the English saying this - and said they're 99.9% sure that there were four shots. And the Americans came back a few weeks later and said, "The British are off on this." They always do that. This is a contentious thing, but bottom line: I don't know who, but I know it could not have been one man because too much went wrong at a high level. It was planned, there were a lot of red herrings and misdirections. As Prouty said himself, that whole thing about the military group is typical of a misdirected operation. All this stuff had been worked out in the 50s - you saw this time and again in assassinations in Latin America and everywhere. This is black ops. Who did it? Somebody with military capability. Why? I presented several motives in the film but I can't tell you the answer. But I would say Cuba and Vietnam and the détente with the Russians, with whom Kennedy in 1963 signed this historic agreement on nuclear weapons. That really was potentially the beginning of the end of the cold war. All this had occurred after the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. The Fog of War, as good a film as it is, never mentions why the Cubans were so paranoid about an American invasion in October 1962. Why did they have Russian missiles coming into Cuba? Because they were frightened of our 1961 invasion. There is always cause and effect. Cuba was a big issue and Kennedy was backing off. He was making this new relationship, partly with De Gaulle, with Khrushchev. The world balance was changing. He did announce that he was coming out of Vietnam, whatever contrary evidence is presented. He had no intention of running for re-election on Vietnam, he knew it was a dead duck. So out of these factors, the military-industrial complex, as described by Eisenhower at the beginning of the film, was threatened. This guy was going to win the election in 1964 and the nutcase, his brother Bobby, looked like a 68 potential. This was a serious business, to stop the Kennedys.

ML: You mention Bobby Kennedy. There's a recent book, endorsed by Gore Vidal and others, suggesting it was a mob killing because Bobby went after the mafia.

OS: I know Gore, and I've talked to him about it and we just cannot agree. The mob has no history of doing this kind of thing, except for one time, maybe, with Roosevelt. They seem to be close order killers - they do The Godfather style shootings. This was an organised thing. The mob did a lousy job in Cuba - they missed Castro how many times? The good work they did was with Lucky Luciano in the second world war, when they were called upon, with the labour unions and strikes and stuff like that. But the mafia has never been a very successful ally of the CIA, unless they have some involvement with drugs, with I don't know enough about.

ML: We move on from Kennedy, missing out Johnson, to Nixon.

[runs clip]

OS: The reason I chose that scene was because, certainly in this country when people wrote about it, the blood on the plate was seen as a metaphor that you'd imposed. But I happened to have read The Haldeman Diaries and it was there: there is a scene where Nixon tucks into his steak and he sees the blood. And most of that, those exchanges, is documented.

OS: Anthony Summers actually followed up the movie with a wonderful book [The Arrogance of Power] which never got any publicity in America. Nixon as far crazier than I thought. Anthony, who's a very sound journalist and double-sourced everything, documents these six or seven occasions when, in the middle of the night when he was loaded, he'd declare war. He'd call up Henry [Kissinger] and say, "Send the battle ships to Syria or to Lebanon. We're going to blow them up. I've had it with these people." "Yes, Mr President, they're on their way." And then around eight or nine in the morning, he'd call and say, "Did you send those ships?" And Henry would say, "Well, there was a bit of a malfunction and they're still there." In other words, they humoured him. He got really aggressive at times, especially when he'd been drinking. I'm not saying he was a big drinker but I do think he could not take drinking. But you can't underestimate the man's brilliance. His concept, or Kissinger's, whoever takes the credit, of triangular diplomacy, for instance. In 1950 the smart people knew that China and Russia had a big problem. But we persisted in my country for 20 years to believe in this China-Russia alliance that was going to destroy us, when in fact they were fighting far more amongst themselves.

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ML: We've talked about the camerawork and the visuals, but that's an example of acting. Do you work closely with actors in rehearsal for a scene like that?

OS: We rehearsed it and rehearsed it - I believe in rehearsal - and then we got out. It was one of the last scenes in the movie, so we got out one night on the Potomac on a boat. I think Hopkins is great. He embodied to me the spirit of the man, the irritation. I wish the movie had been released in 2006; it would have had much more success with the Bush administration as a contrast. I think Bush makes Nixon look like St Augustine.

ML: To ears in this country, Hopkins sounded a bit Welsh for Nixon. He doesn't do an impersonation, does he, in the film?

OS: No, but it's about the spirit of the man, and I think he gets it for me. He gets the anger, the love. Nixon was a human being. People expected me to do a hatchet job - I'm not sympathetic to Nixon, I think his policies were bad for America, but I'm empathetic to him. And I feel he did suffer greatly from his inferiority complex and from his mother and father and the Kennedy thing. He was the used car salesman in this situation, and I find it very moving sometimes.

ML: One of the visual decisions you made in that movie is that you have switches of style, so that sometimes we have CCTV footage, black-and-white, etc. What was the thinking behind that?

OS: Much less so than in Natural Born Killers and JFK. I think this film was more reserved. It was a tough film to make - you're dealing with 15 white guys with bad haircuts in suits. There's not much to attract a big audience on this movie, and it didn't. It's mostly talk. To me it's one of my favourite films because it's got so much going on inside. It's a psychobiography of a man. I loved it but it was not meant to be a success. But it still holds up for me.

ML: Apart from Nixon, the modern American president most written about is Clinton. Were you ever tempted by Clinton?

OS: Was I what?

ML: Tempted. I don't mean sexually. I mean as a subject?

OS: Frankly, I think Mr [Mike] Nichols did a great job with Travolta in Primary Colors. It was a hell of a job - it doesn't tell you the whole story but it does tell you part of it. I look at the Clinton administration as a lighter leaf in the storm. I suppose the third one, if I ever did it, and if I survived it to see the pattern, would be Bush Jr. This is a true Richard II or perhaps Richard III story.

ML: But also, Bush Sr would be a good character in that. The relationship between them…

OS: I wanted to do the remake of the Manchurian Candidate. The producer did not want to because it was already under way, it was a conventional script, and it was a remake. And I'd done Scarface as a writer and I'd done it completely differently from the original, tried to anyway. I wanted to make Barbara Bush into the Meryl Streep character, when it was Angela Lansbury. Barbara Bush is the key, she runs the family, and this guy George is the Manchurian candidate. He's basically a very shallow, brainwashed person. And ideologically motivated, the most disastrous thing of all in a political leader - you might as well be Khomeini.

ML: The fifth clip we're going to show now is from Any Given Sunday.

OS: In England?

[runs clip]

ML: As you said, we have no idea what's going on in that and we couldn't tell you the score. But I chose that scene as an extreme contrast to the one I started with. What fascinated me, watching it originally and seeing it again tonight, is how you get to that? How much do you know of what it will look like before you shoot it? And how much emerges in the cutting room?

OS: That scene is what I feel like as a director when I walk out on the set. Sometimes, there's so much pressure and there's so much going on. This is a cut film, very much so. When you have huge infrastructures - you have the stadium, huge amount of extras, the football team who are beasts and have to be fed. You have two teams, you have to do this like a military operation, so you shoot a lot more footage. Platoon was a low-budget film where you picked it out, you shot as much as you could in your head and the scenes were very precise - almost minuets. There were only eight or 10 scenes in Platoon. This is the opposite. This has at least 10 characters and perhaps 50 scenes. So this is the other end of the spectrum - it's definitely an attempt to tell multilevel stories at the same time.

ML: Thousands of cuts in it.

OS: Natural Born Killers was the most I made. That was maybe 3,200 cuts, which was a record I believe. But that was prompted by the style of the movie, it wasn't imposed. This also requires a frenetic style to match the pace of football, which is a rough game and about egos, too. World Trade Center is a quiet film because it's a life and death issue, it's about those two men and how close they come to death, and what makes them survive. Why do they stay alive? Most people would die.

ML: There's one part of the equation that we haven't mentioned at all, which is critics. When you've had a bad time, which you did with Alexander, did it affect you?

OS: Oh, I suppose so. It all goes in and goes somewhere. That was a very tough film. But I'm not a quitter. I went back and did a third version, which is coming out in America in February. And Warner Bros is very excited about it. I changed the structure and I went back to what it should have been. It should have been a road show. They don't make them anymore but this is for video, not for theatre. So it's three-and-a-half hours, two hours to the intermission, then a break and then it goes to the last hour-and-a- half. To me, because it starts with the Battle at Gaugamela instead of later, it changes the perspective of the entire movie. It was always a road show but I backed off it because it wasn't doable in America. So I took advantage of DVD and I hope you like the new version. It's the best, the clearest and it allows you the time to immerse yourself in that world.

ML: So is the fact that you went back to it an admission that you got it wrong originally?

OS: Not wrong, but trial and error. It only gets better. I mean, the director's cut is better than the theatrical cut, but I backed the theatrical cut because I had seven months and I thought we'd go with it. I just don't think it clarified to enough people what we were after. Some people loved it and that's what gave me the right to do three cuts. It's only because of the success of the director's cut - they shipped a million copies of that in America. Plus, we did very well theatrically with Alexander - it was one of the top 20 films of the year. So that allowed me to go on to this third version, which I hope you'll like. I just think he's too important a man to forget. It's so important to get it better because he deserves it.

ML: We'll take some questions now.

Q1: You said earlier that we're not journalists, but I perceive you as a social commentator. How did making Natural Born Killers, which had the impact on society that it did in various extremes, affect you as a director? Did it influence your choices later either thematically or aesthetically?

OS: It's ironic you mention Natural Born Killers - it's a fictional movie, therefore there were no restraints. I was able to really let loose. I was also going through some personal turmoil at the time, so I really put a lot of passion and chaos into that movie. But I did think it reflected the OJ Simpson mentality of that time. America sold out to television big time in the 1980s, when the news was made for profit. Television, when I was growing up, was a public trust, or it was supposed to be. They didn't give licences to these people unless there was supervision. So there was a concept of quality. But when Reagan came to office, that line eroded very quickly. In 1982, I believe, Laurence Tish at CBS said, "I'm going to make the news division for profit." That changed the news in America. Not that it was ever great, but it was the end of any serious news. So what you have now in America is celebrity news, soundbites, and every major issue is reported but so superficially. It's the "he said, she said" school of journalism. That's not a serious debate. So Natural Born Killers grew out of anger and chaos, and it cost me deeply because it was coming out close after JFK. And between those two films, I took a major hit. Warner Bros was really upset with it. Americans took it really literally - they saw it as a pro-violence film. It was never intended as such. It was clearly to me a cartoon of violence, but it was perceived as violent and aggressive and castigated by the mainstream press. It did well with young people in spite of that, but Warners was never really behind that movie, and the DVD was not really sold. And it was the end of my relationship with Warner Bros after three great experiences. And there was also a major lawsuit for five years, instituted by John Grisham, who was a lawyer whose friend was killed by a couple of teenagers who claimed to have seen the movie and acted upon it. These claims were repeatedly made and never proven. We were sued for accessory to murder - it took six years and went to five different courts before the supreme court. It cost Warners at least two million bucks, it cost me quite a considerable amount of money to defend myself also, and at the end of the day, it was basically a product liability. Grisham was saying a movie is a product - if your vacuum cleaner comes out and it's defective and someone blows up with it, you're liable to pay insurance to the person. Can you imagine, if you can say a movie made me kill someone, then you could also say "Beethoven's music drives me crazy and I had to kill my neighbour" or "I read Dostoevsky and decided to do something about it". It would have been the end of movies, and that lawsuit came so close.

ML: So you won't be making a John Grisham film any time soon?

OS: I can honestly say that I would not have made it before the lawsuit.

ML: Just briefly on that point, the fact is you say that the film was misunderstood. Did that make you rethink or affect the way you made films?

OS: Yeah. I mean, how many times do you get burned? It does burn, it singes. Nixon was controversial, but it was a different kind of controversy. Again I was accused of lying and defrauding the public and miseducating young people. And this gets tiring after a while - it would tire anybody. It's been going on for 20 years. Does it change you? If you let it. You get wiser, smarter, try to figure out ways to do it without… For World Trade Center I was accused of being too far to the right. I don't think I can ever make an Oliver Stone film, whatever that is, because every time I make one it's not like an Oliver Stone film. If I made an Oliver Stone film about the World Trade Center, they would have been deriding me as a conspiracy nut. So I don't know. Who can you be except yourself?

Q2: Do you get a lot of problems with ratings boards, because of the subjects that you deal with?

OS: I'm very pleased to announce that World Trade Center was the first PG13 I've ever had in my career. And it did very well all over the world, enormously well for this kind of movie, where you have two men in a hole, it's not easy to look it. But it made $165m. The other films, like Natural Born Killers, I went through 155 cuts - it was a hassle. There was an unrated version that I managed to release through Lions Gate in America, but it's no longer available. But the licence ran out and it's now with Warners, and they won't release anything unrated. I thought they were very stupid cuts. There was nothing specific - it was always, "Mr Stone, this is too much chaos. Just take the chaos down." But that's the whole point, the whole world gets turned upside down. The riot at the end was what got hurt most - we really shot this in a state federal prison in Illinois, very serious violent prison with a lot of gangs, and we used them as extras. So it was quite a nuthouse, quite a scene.

Q3: Do you have any plans to direct in French or in France in the near future? Have you ever contemplated asking Brigitte Bardot to make her long awaited comeback, maybe for a film of penguins discussing Marcel Proust and The Remembrance of Things Past on an iceberg?

OS: My mother is French and met my father in the second world war. So I love the French language and I love the French movies of the 50s and 60s, 40s and 30s, more so than the more recent movies. It's a wonderful place to shoot. I would do it but it would have to be on a smaller budget and with lesser ambitions because French cinema, the subtitling alone is a problem. If I could do something very personal about my own boyhood there, I would. I just don't want to do the Ridley Scott movie, because I loved the landscapes better. I'd get my own vineyard if I could.

Q4: You've worked with some incredible actors in your career that have been hugely inspirational to young actors starting out. You must see so many people, so in your opinion, what is it that makes the difference between a good actor who gives a good performance and a great one that brings it to life and communicates with people the world over?

OS: If I could put it in a saltshaker… it's worked on, it's magic, it's a combination of things. A good actor with great charisma can be in a bad piece but still be charismatic. The ideal is to give an idea that inspires the actor, that raises him, so that he goes and takes his natural born charisma and does something with it that no one's ever seen before. That's the goal of most directors. It's a marriage, and it's luck, it's incidence and timing, and you cut the actor. Brando, as great as he was, didn't cooperate with his directors after a certain point and I think he got hurt by that. I think it's really a collaboration, and a good actor and a good director knows that. You all depend on each other, it's organic. But it doesn't happen all the time. You work and you work, and then it does happen. There are those moments that shine. I hope you get a chance to see World Trade Center because Nic Cage, he doesn't have much to operate with, and here plays a sour man who very rarely smiles, but towards the end of the movie, when he lets the light into his eyes and he goes to the edge of death and fights for life, he just flickers back. He sees the spirit of his wife and then he meets her in the hospital - I'm just so moved by that, that's one moment where Nic becomes transcendent. But he worked on that very hard.

Q5: For films like JFK and Nixon, there seems to have been a lot of research put into them. How long does the research process take before you write the scripts? And how were you able to pummel out so many films between 1986 and 1996?

OS: That was 10 years, 10 films. Yeah, that was quite a push. I really was hungry, I had been denied making films for so many years. I was 38 when I got the ability to go ahead, so I really had the attitude that this thing could end tomorrow, so I just kept plunging. I burned out by Nixon. I see that in hindsight, I was tired. And I wrote a novel the next year, and I just did not want to see a camera and I did not want to be around films for a while. I did documentaries, small films, tried different things. As for research, we do as much as possible. That's not to say you can't burn it out. You have to get it right but so much is unknown about Nixon and Kennedy. You go as far as you can and then you go behind closed doors. That's when your instinct comes into play. There are two books about Nixon and JFK - they're available with the entire screenplay and footnoted. Footnoted! We never tried to pull the wool over the public's eyes. It was always there; the press knew it and they never gave any coverage to those books.

Q6: You often talk of Godard, and the master finally honoured the disciple because there's a shot of Nixon in Notre Musique. The question is, what could America learn from Alexander?

OS: Alexander was a great frontline commander - he was in the frontline. Mr Bush never went to Vietnam. If you fight a war like Alexander did, you win it. Whenever anyone betrayed Alexander - and he made alliances all the way through, he was a smart guy and would prefer to negotiate - but if you screwed him on a negotiation, the first thing he'd do was go back. He was famous for going back and he punished the bandit tribes, the armies that revolted. He never left anything behind. He ran into problems all along the way - and in India… exhausted army, edge of mutiny, too many elephants, too much rain. He got as far as he could. But he never lost a battle. At the battle of Multan, that's his finest moment. At Multan [battle against the Mallians], he was about to lose, but he jumped into the enemy - him and three men. And that made his entire army turn around and charge the walls and save his life by this much. But an arrow through his lung was probably the most dangerous wound that he had. That's the kind of man Alexander was. That's a great leader.

Q7: You've taken a lot of hits for a lot of what you've done in your career and you continue to do it, you've persevered . So what I'm trying to understand is, what is it that you're trying to do and what makes you want to continue to do it?

OS: I don't have an easy answer to that. I've done what I've done as I felt it over the last 20-some years. And I've gotten to a place where I've achieved a lot of what I wanted to do. I have to be grateful for that, I mean, I get to do three versions of Alexander. And Nixon, Kennedy, Castro - I've really got a lot done. The next thing I do, I want to make it count. I don't want to just make films, it's just too tough to just make films.

ML: That seems like the perfect final speech to me. I'm sorry we couldn't get more questions in but the British Comedy Awards need him. Thank you very much to you and to Oliver Stone.

-The Guardian interviews at BFI with Oliver Stone, Dec 15 2006

[biglisbonnews]

Is Harry the next James Corden? The prince’s TV appearances, in order of greatness After a week of major TV stand-offs – some with added tequila shots – the spare to the throne hasn’t stumbled. He’s a smooth operator … and truly his mother’s sonKing Charles, as the Prince of Wales, gave one TV interview (on ITV in 1994). Diana, Princess of Wales (on BBC One, 1995) and HRH Prince Andrew (on BBC One, 2019) also did the same – and only Diana seems likely to have considered the primetime conversation successful.But Harry, Duke of Sussex has now made 11 high-profile TV appearances: from Oprah With Meghan and Harry (CBS and ITV, 2021) through the six parts of the documentary series Harry & Meghan (Netflix) to the four British and US interviews this week to promote his memoir Spare. So how well did Harry use the medium, and how well did it use him? Continue reading... https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/jan/12/prince-harry-interviews-tv-appearances-in-order-of-greatness

[poscariastri]

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