The_Film_That_Changed_My_Life

32 Danny Boyle
shooting schedule; he mortgaged his house; Martin Sheen had a heart
attack . . .
Boyle: I heard about that in the run-up to the opening of the film because that
was the baggage that accompanied the film. I think it made it more attractive
to go and see rather than buried it. Because normally, that kind of reputation
would bury a film, but actually—ironically—it made it more attractive.
Well, it helped. Apocalypse Now shared the Palme d’Or with The Tin
Drum as well, so it did have acclaim. But it had a rough beginning.
Originally, Steve McQueen was supposed to play Willard, which didn’t
work out. Then they filmed a couple weeks with Harvey Keitel in the
lead role. Have you ever dealt with miscasting?
Boyle: I don’t think I’ve ever been through that. Certainly not in a way I’ve
ever done anything about it. I sacked somebody once, but basically for misbehavior.
I think this is the opposite. I think Coppola wanted to hire people
who would misbehave.
Speaking of which, Dennis Hopper was high the whole time. He kept
forgetting his lines.
Boyle: I think sometimes with a film, its persona announces itself. Obviously
because he was a megalomaniac and also a genius, that persona began
to emerge in the film and he just embraced it. So he would not try to stabilize
the film—you can see that—he would just go with the madness of it.
So he would sack Harvey Keitel and get someone else. And if Martin
Sheen does have a heart attack, he does drag him back to work again,
rather than quit. In a tiny, tiny way you can feel where the persona of a
film declares itself, “This is a film and this how you’re going to behave in
it.” This is just the maddest, craziest example of it, I guess.
How much was this film on your mind when you were making your
own jungle picture, The Beach?
Boyle: [laughs] Yeah. We had an excerpt from it. I was hoping to find, in the
way that we made the film, I was hoping to find connections with the film,
but we never did. And, I think in a funny way, I was happy that we didn’t
keep trying to. There’s a sequence of Apocalypse Now in the beginning, but