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The_Film_That_Changed_My_Life

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274 Frank Oz<br />

know what I’m doing.” <strong>That</strong>’s kinda what I wanted. I didn’t want a big bravura<br />

performance, I just wanted the character. To me the big mistake would have<br />

been, “Oh, Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro! First time together on film! You<br />

gotta have big explosives, like Al Pacino and Bob!” Well, sorry, that’s not my<br />

job; my job is to make a believable character in the moment. Because the<br />

producers and I wouldn’t let him do what he wanted to do, he kinda only did<br />

himself. What you see on the screen is Marlon, which is what I wanted.<br />

In dealing with big personalities you talk about nurturing people, and<br />

Welles was known for doing this. He would never necessarily pit people<br />

against one another. He was one of these guys that thought that film<br />

was a family.<br />

Oz: Well, yeah. On the other hand, he asked Jim Henson and me to sell a<br />

filmed talk show. He asked Jim and me to dinner, and a few days after dinner<br />

we went on his set and he was absolutely effusive in his caring for Jim and<br />

me, but he was miserable to the crew. [laughs]<br />

So I guess he changed later in life then?<br />

Oz: [laughs] I don’t know, but he was absolutely wonderful to Jim and me.<br />

It’s not that he was miserable; he just had absolutely no patience with the<br />

crew whatsoever. Maybe he got a crew that was not very good. I’m sure<br />

his outlook would still be the same, but that particular instance—and who<br />

knows, you wake up in the morning, you’re grouchy, who knows—but I do<br />

believe that the family thing does make sense with him.<br />

Did that ever surface? Is that in the archives someplace?<br />

Oz: Yeah. It’s embarrassing because I’m the young kid who’s trying to<br />

make a name for myself, and I’m the one who talks a lot and Jim doesn’t.<br />

It’s just embarrassing. It’s around somewhere. I try to avoid seeing it. It’s in<br />

an archive someplace in the Muppets studio.<br />

Let’s come back to Touch of Evil. <strong>The</strong>re are a couple of things we didn’t<br />

mention, and maybe they’re not important for the conversation, but it<br />

was originally called Badge of Evil . . .<br />

Oz: I didn’t know that.

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