My Ten Minutes With William Friedkin
When you're offered a French pasty by the maker of The French Connection, you really ought to take it.
Somewhere out there on the internets, there’s footage of me interviewing William Friedkin. I haven’t a clue where it is and haven’t the funds to hire a bounty hunter to track it down. And besides, whatever the interview looks like on screen, it’s not a patch on my memories of the moment.
For meeting William Friedkin was a real career high. The man responsible for The French Connection, The Exorcist, Sorcerer, The Birthday Party, Cruising, To Live And Die In LA - with most of my favourite directors no longer with us, it’s probable he’s the person I met with the most movies to their name that I hugely admired.
And while I liked rather than loved the film he was promoting - 2011’s Killer Joe - that too didn’t seem so significant once I was introduced to the great, gracious, garrulous man in his trademark dark glasses and leather jacket.
And our first order of business? “Richard, would you care for one of these pastries? They really are delicious!” As I’d already eaten and I couldn’t see anyway in which eating the pasty wouldn’t results in me wearing half of it down my front, I politely declined. But to be offered a French pastry by the director of The French Connection! That really is an offer I shouldn’t have refused.
But again, no matter, for over the course of the next 10 minutes, the Oscar-winner spoke at length about the difficulties and delights of adapting plays for the big screen, his fondness and admiration for his Brink’s Job co-star Warren Oates, and his conviction that the cast of his adaptation of Pinter’s The Birthday Party was as great as any he’d collaborated with. That we’d draw to a close discussing the relative merits of Dandy Nichols is as good an indication as any of how broad and varied our brief meeting had been.
And then it was time to go. Handshakes and compliments were exchanged (“Always nice to meet a young person who knows my movies!”), the Langham Hotel was vacated, and I was left outside Broadcasting House reflecting on that old adage about never meeting your heroes. Because I’ve been lucky enough to meet a number of them, and not one of them has disappointed.
Just wish I’d accepted that pastry when I was offered it - seize the Danish, and all that…