You'd think the guy who directed Alien, Gladiator, and Blade Runner would have just about seen it all in his 50+ year career. But this December, Ridley Scott (that's Sir Ridley Scott, to you) undertook one of the most ambitious reshoot schedules of all time. After the sprawling, disturbing allegations about actor Kevin Spacey came to light, Scott made the decision to recast, reshoot, and re-edit a huge portion of his next movie, All The Money in the World. The film revolves around the kidnapping of John Paul Getty III, his mother, Gail's attempts to bring him home, and his grandfather, John Paul Getty's, steadfast refusal to pay the ransom.
J.P. Senior, as Scott calls him, was originally played by the now-disgraced Spacey. He was replaced by Christopher Plummer last month. GQ spoke with Scott about the arduous production schedule, how his film can artistically compete with the huge news stories surrounding it, and why not enough people cared for Alien: Covenant.
GQ: I guess my first question to you is: why not just delay the release, instead of working up until the release itself?
Ridley Scott: Delay the release? No, I'm done. Are you kidding? I'm ready. I was ready a month ago and then I decided to redo it. I did that no problem at all. Easy.
Can you tell me how long the process took between the time you heard about the extent of the Kevin Spacey allegations and the decision to reshoot and recast Spacey's role with Christopher Plummer?
Nine days. I was more disappointed in what happened, than anything. Because Kevin did do a good job, but when I heard about this I realized that there was no way that we could go ahead with the film as it was. It would actually affect us badly.
Was the experience of such extensive reshoots in such a condensed timeframe stressful, or was there room to still enjoy the film making experience?
I always enjoy the film making experience... Also, you may [have] gathered, I enjoy a bit of stress.
It was hard at first. I had to say to my producers, "Listen, I can recast this. We can get this together. We can go at the same date." There were a lot of dates and semantics and phone calls, which is really the stressful stuff. Once I've got that, I move like lighting. It's pretty straightforward. I did 22 scenes in nine days.
Presumably you were editing on the fly.
Yeah. I'd go back having finished shooting it that day, go into the editors room and see how it fit in to what I'd got.
And how is Christopher Plummer's performance?
Quite different. I'd say warmer, in a sense. Christopher is this guy who's a very elegant figure. Who's both charming and has this... he's got this smile and this twinkle. I think that put the character of Paul Getty, this hardened man who is very rich and has built up a lot of walls, who will not negotiate with kidnappers, in a different and more complex light.
The Getty family are such a fascinating and huge part of American culture even now. Were you able to talk to anyone from the family, anyone who was there?
Oh, I made sure that Gail Getty saw it. She came to Rome and saw it. She was very happy and relieved. She said, "I'm personally relieved the film's so good," which is nice. She said we may have painted John Paul Senior a little harder than he really was, but that was her only comment.
Someone else I'm fascinated with in the Getty family is another one of John Paul Getty's grandsons, Andrew, who self-financed and made his own horror film. Did you know about that? Did you see that?
Wow. No, when was that?
I think he spent around five million dollars of his own money on it. He died before it was finished, but it was released earlier this year.
That's interesting. There's a scene in my film where John Senior is cleaning his guns, and he talks about the abyss of wealth. He's talking about how much money can destroy families and wives and people and, most of all children. I think, with that amount of money, you're isolated.
This film comes at a very interesting time just in terms of conversations around around unchecked wealth, especially in the hands of just a few people. Did studying this family who by all accounts are almost a poster family for that kind of thing change your perspective of them?
I think it's a bit like studying the Kennedys. Did they have a lot of bad luck? Was it bad judgment? Or the silly question, were they cursed? Silly thing to say, but there is that belief as well.
I think John Paul Getty was so driven by his own need to make money... Out of that, his family suffered. JP3 actually at the age of 25 OD'ed. But, by then he had already had two children and one of them was Balthazar, who is an actor I've worked with. I met JP3 then, who was in a wheelchair, blind, and pretty inadequate. Very sad.
It sounds like there's enough material for an entire Getty film franchise if you feel like it.
Oh, yeah. It makes you think, “How does this happen?” you know? I don't think you can even dream of criticizing anything the Gettys did until you understand what they went through, how they lived.
Are you concerned this film will be overshadowed creatively by Kevin Spacey and the news story of the fast recast and reshoots?
No. I think, I hope, if anything, it will be more interesting. I'm not only up against the story, I'm up against Star Wars and Jumanji and things like that. I'm concerned, but we have to go now, because there's a TV movie about the Gettys happening in January.
What's next ahead of you? Is it the third Alien prequel?
That's in the works. My next film is one about the cartel.
I was a big fan of Alien: Covenant. I feel it was one of the more misunderstood films of the year.
Yeah, I think it was pretty good. It should have been much bigger, right? I was amazed, actually. It should have done better. It did fine, but it should have done way better. It was a good front path to the next phase. We're trying to pull away from the beast and go somewhere else with the story. There's a plan.