Bella
March 02, 2025
Nicolas Roeg interviewed by Jason Wood:
"Movies are not scripts - movies are films; they're not books, they're not the theatre. It's a completely different discipline, it exists on its own. I would say that the beauty of it is it's not the theatre, it's not done over again. It's done in bits and pieces. Things are happening which you can't get again. I forbid anyone to say "Cut", the soundman, the operator, or whatever.
"They think something's gone wrong, but in Don't Look Now, for instance, one scene was made by a mistake. It's the scene where Donald Sutherland goes to look for the policeman who's investigating the two women. We had an Italian actor there who couldn't speak any English at all, not even "Hello". Through the interpreter, I told him to say "Hello" when he heard Donald knock on the door. And I saw him walking around the set practising. So when it was time for Donald to knock on the door, the sound operator told the Italian actor, not realising that he didn't speak any English, to stay where he was. So Donald walked down the corridor, knocked on the door and opened the door into an empty room with a big lampshade. Donald hunted around, and the sound operator said "Hello?", and from behind the lampshade came a reply, "Hello!". It was fantastic. Because it was such a tense film, it set the tone - the detective instantly became strange."