We were shooting the film without having cast one of the main roles. I also did something you could never do these days, I cast him six weeks into the shoot. In fact, we got a telegram from his agent: ‘Unfortunately Mr Steiger won’t be able to do this film because his facelift has fallen.’ I’m glad we didn’t have him, because he was a real beast.Įveryone was scared of Richard Burton, because he was reported to be a drunk and very badly behaved. We went to Rod Steiger, who had just had a facelift. He wanted something like a million quid and we had £80,000 so he didn’t want to do it. He broke his leg, and then I looked at Alan Bates, then Marlon Brando was going do it for a bit, but we couldn’t afford him. He was living in Haiti at the time and actually wasn’t my first choice – that was Paul Schofield. Richard Burton must have been interesting on the set as well… The best thing about making films in 1984 was you could actually almost choose who you wanted, as long as they were somewhere in the public eye. He would’ve been good, but unfortunately Al Pacino is bigger box-office. I spoke to him a about doing King Lear, but he was a bit pissed off: I think he wanted to play King Lear himself. I hadn’t seen him for a while, he got married again and I was a little tired of trying to keep up with who he is married to and what he was doing and all the rest of it. He has this wonderfully open, vulnerable face. What was your favourite film role of his, other than 1984?Īpart from A Man for All Seasons, he was pretty good as Steven Ward. He was fantastic in that, and I wanted him to be in this new version of King Lear, but sadly I’ve missed that… I miss him. I used to tease him that he would only be recognised in Japan if he got off the aircraft with a bag over his head. The other film people always think of is The Elephant Man. He had to cross the track, which was built up so it was nearly thigh height, and he was able to keep the same face and step over the track without his upper torso showing he had altered height. You didn’t have visual effects, so I had to blow up a house in the middle of him walking by this camera track. We laid a track down… we didn’t have Steadicams in those days. He was incredibly athletic, I remember that.
1984 john hurt richard burton movie poster movie#
He claimed I once said to him, ‘John, you are an incredibly talented actor, but for this movie I need only 10 per cent of that talent’ – which was a polite way of saying ‘stop over-acting’ – but I don’t remember saying it. I think everybody thought it was mistake, but he didn’t realise that till a couple years later.ĭoing you have any interesting memories from the making of 1984?ĭespite being a film actor, he had a very theatrical voice and a great, strong presence, but he had a slightly tendency to over-act. We became great friends for a long time, until he got married again and lived somewhere else – he went to live in Kenya for a bit.
We made another film together, White Mischief. He just stole the film and I think that’s what made him film-famous. I can’t explain what it was… he was just such a good actor, such a presence, even though this part he had was really quite small. In my mind he had always stuck out, from the moment he played Richie Rich in A Man for All Seasons.
Was there a certain film or performance that caught your eye? At the same time, he had that sort of desperate look in his eyes. He was so scrawny in those days and so unhealthy looking.
He was the person who had to play Winston Smith. Hurt ended up just saying yes, and that’s how we met. I only did that once again, with Il Postino with Philippe Noiret. It’s the kind of thing you wouldn’t say now, but I did at that time. I just went up to him and said, ‘Look, would you play Winston Smith in 1984? And by the way, if you don’t want to do it, I won’t make the film.’ And I actually meant it. Radford: I bumped into John Hurt at some awards thing. LWLies: John Hurt was supposedly your first and only choice for the part of Winston Smith. Here, Radford talks candidly about his memories of working with Hurt, and what it means when the Two Minutes Hate can be telescoped into a Twitterstorm. With the recent passing of lead actor John Hurt and the swearing-in of Donald Trump as President of the United States, both 1984 the film and novel have returned to the forefront of popular discourse, as well as the bestseller list. The timing also linked the film indelibly with how the digital age successfully sold the public slavery through promises of freedom: 1984 also marked the release of the first Apple computer, an event promoted with a Ridley Scott-directed advert also inspired by Orwell’s novel. Radford was able to find locations that were barely standing, easily doubling for bombed-out landscapes. Choosing to make 1984 in the year 1984 was no gimmick, but an inspired decision by a filmmaker working at the height of Thatcherism, and before London was gentrified beyond recognition.