Interview with Stephen Woolley

Stephen Woolley, producer of Mona Lisa and The Crying Game to name just two films from his illustrious career spanning three decades, took on How To Lose Friends & Alienate People at the early stages, bringing together director Robert B Weide with cast members Simon Pegg, Kirsten Dunst , Megan Fox, Gillian Anderson and Jeff Bridges. We talked to him about making movies the European way, getting famous too fast and why the recession will see off Simon Cowell.

Comment on this feature >

Cultural differences between the US and the UK are a source of confusion for Sidney Young. He finds himself a fish out of water at the film industry parties. In your experience what are the differences in social etiquette?
I think Americans drink more than the British do. They drink hard liquor. Their alcohol levels are much higher because they don't drink beer or wine like we do. We do get drunk and publicly drunk. Americans drink at home with their whiskeys and their vodkas.

In LA people don't drink. People get up at 6am for their run, and then they're back at 7am to read a script and then they have a meeting. You think it's all healthy, healthy, healthy. And then you find out they have cocaine habits. In LA it's frowned upon to do anything publicly. When I lived there, all the Europeans would find a restaurant or a bar and they'd be there, drinking and smoking until 2am. Whereas the Americans would be at home tucked up in their beds.

Isn't socializing - drinking and eating - an important part of the entertainment industry and the exchange and development of ideas?
The Europeans like their drinking wine and their talking. We have dinners when you exchange ideas. All the films I have ever made, all the great ideas have happened at one in the morning over pints of Guinness. In LA, it's stultifying. I like the whole thing of breaking bread - you chat, you have some wine, you order food, you chat.

In LA, one meal I went to, the person ordered the food on the phone beforehand so the dinner could take just half an hour. They have this thing; the waiter asks 'are you still working on that?' In Europe eating is part of the sensuality of life, you're not working on it, you're eating. We're not building a building, we're eating. It's all come in, come out.

The Americans don't like the Europeans habit of drinking publicly. Eating and drinking is seen as just a necessity because everyone's so scared of their bodies, the way they look. It's about looking the best you can. Food is an embarrassment - it will make you fat and not attractive.

LA is a difficult place to exist in if you're in the film business. Every person working in a bookshop is a writer, every person driving a cab is a director and every waiter is an actor. The waiters are constantly performing for you. And they're all producers. The word 'producer' doesn't mean anything in LA, everyone at the Studios has a producer's job - there's a casting person, there's a budget person. Everyone calls themselves a producer. But all the pivotal work producers do in Europe, pulling together the cast, the finance - that's not recognized in Hollywood. Everyone wants to get the studio to give them money to make the film. The producer just reads the book and finds someone who agrees that they should make it into a film. In Europe the producer puts together the nuts and bolts of the movie.

Next page • "You see Megan Fox and you want to date her. It's that consumerist desire that we have to eat everything"