John Boorman Remembers John Hurt
The director remembers his friend, who died earlier this year: “In the morning we dressed him in his heavy, elaborate costume as he drank a beer to steady himself. He asked me what dialogue he had in the first setup; I said just these two lines. He looked them over, we shot it and moved to the next setup. He learnt the next speech as we lit the scene. I filled in the absolute minimum of story and emotion that he needed to know for each shot. Thus we proceeded through the morning. He had not read the script, did not know the name of the character he was playing, or even the name of the film. As we broke for lunch, he said, ‘This is the way to make movies! All that rehearsal bullshit is a waste of time. Spontaneity is everything.'”
