Reasons to Love New York
New Yorkcelebrates the citys timeless, peerless connection to movies.
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After Hoursis a one-crazy-night movie about how work sucks.
Martin Scorseses screwball noir is beloved today, but it basically flopped back in 1985.
Ive certainly been asked a lot.
They were greeted with yeah, okay, and then the audience interest has increased with every generation.
And the easy accessibility of movies.
If you hear about a movie, you might see it five minutes later.
The idea of saying the wrong thing, doing the wrong thing.
Its what everyone fears: to be an outcast and chased by the mob on the internet.
And the movie is done, obviously, in a really funny way.
I think people appreciate the persecution humor of it.
Tim Burton was originally going to directAfter Hours.
There was a great Serbian director named Dusan Makavejev.
We went to Disney, where he was an animator, and met him.
He had the short-sleeve shirt and the packet of pens in his pocket that were bleeding into the shirt.
you could tell this guy was insanely gifted.
But before then, the first very person we gave it to was Marty.
He was just startingLast Temptation of Christ.
We hadnt gotten too far with Tim, butLast Temptationwas shut down.
It was the one that was going to be with Aidan Quinn.
And he said, Its really great.
Id love to do it.
So we said to Tim, Wow, a crazy thing happened.
For Marty, people didnt know how funny he was.
We just knew visually Tim was a genius.
I wonder what he would have done with some of the production design.
Its already a hellish adventure without any sort of exaggerated aspect.Absolutely.
How did that go for you?It went well until one day came along.
Suddenly I was kind of a cool guy, and Marty went, Cut!
Let me talk to you.
You got laid, didnt you?
He was really pissed.
He said, You fucked up that whole thing.
Were going to do it again.
And anyway, the energy was back.
He made you paranoid like Paul.Exactly.
I kind of got into the groove of it.
It took longer to get out of it than to get into it.
We were following him it was a quiet street, Second Avenue and he just floored it.
So did the driver, Larry Block; hefloored it.
I think we hit like 80 miles an hour, so I was really flying around back there.
The cop got in trouble for letting us go that fast.
It was torrential rain.
It was a lot ofSingin in the Rain, just splashing in these huge puddles.
And it lasted all night.
But I never had so much fun in my life.
I would just soak in a tub and get all of that papier-mache off.
They really stuck me in that sculpture, andCheech and Chong carried me around.
It was pretty easy to look claustrophobic in it with just my eyes.
It didnt give them any release.
We just came up with ideas.
And David Geffen, who financed the movie, went,No way, that is a disgusting ending.
I cant say that I disagree with him based on that description.No, I know!
We were desperate for an ending, and it seemed like a good idea at the time.
Getting into it was not a big problem; it just took a while to seal me in.
Thats a fun audition day to be part of.That was a fun audition, yes.
There were, like, 30 candidates or something.
Were you also part of the auditions with the various women?I read with all of them.
Id say Teri Garr was the most famous of the ones you ended up casting.
She was a pretty good get.
How did you land on Teri as Miss Beehive?Shes an old friend of mine.
Marty knew thats who we wanted and he really agreed, so she was grandfathered in.
She was always going to play that part.
Rosanna Arquette didnt audition.
Marty always wanted her.
When Marty was in the desert in Morocco, he and screenwriter Jay Cox were sitting around a fire.
The streets of Soho are totally dead throughout the movie.
The people in the lofts around us were up just like we were.
There were artists painting.
Im only a word processor!
We did several takes of me screaming at the top of my lungs.
It must have been 4 in the morning, and a woman lifts up her window.
She has a cigarette in her mouth, takes it out, and screams, Shut the fuck up!
Just shut the fuck up!
And Marty looks up at her and says, Tell that woman to put out her cigarette.
I forgot that I had a unibrow.
Shes half Mexican, and I dont know why I got it too.
So you just happened to have it at that time?I just happened to have it.
Nobody ever said, Get rid of it.
I wasnt even aware of it, but youre right.
Now theres the first question Ive never been asked.
Im looking in the mirror now, and I dont have one.
I dont know what happened to it.
Yes, I was looking at photos from your most recent roles to see if you still have it.
But Im not critiquing the unibrow!
Our references were always based on Kafka orThe Wizard of OzorAlice in Wonderland going-down-a-rabbit-hole things.
But its always fun to make a movie that people bring their own theories to.
We didnt think of it.
Did you have a wrap party?We had two.
We had an impulsive one when we wrapped the last day of shooting.
We did the crane shot of dropping the keys.
I remember Robbie Robertson being on the set that day.
We partied all day.
Right, because you had finished shooting at night.Yes.
Im hardly the first person to say how surprising it is that this movie didnt makemore money.
Yet in New York there were lines around the block for weeks.
I dont think it resonated much with the rest of the country.
I was not unfamiliar with this becauseWerewolfwas the same thing.
It was,Why do they have humor in horror?
I think it was, as they say, a little ahead of its time.
A couple weeks before shooting, I had gone to Sri Lanka and I met a German girl.
Can I stay with you for the night?
This was some weeks before we started shooting.
Can I come and stay with you until I figure out what Im doing?
I said, No, Im in the middle of shooting and Im in a tiny apartment.
She was very upset and I was very guilty, but I couldnt do it.
We were about six weeks into shooting.
She said, Im coming to New York.
Im gonna figure it out.
Then I never heard from her.
I went,Oh my God.And I leaned down: Greta!
Greta, Im sorry.
She looks up and we have eye contact and I realize its not Greta at all.
She attacks me and scratches my face and has to be pulled away.
Craft services pulled her off me and gave her a few sandwiches.
We were in Sri Lanka together.I went,Oh my God, youre alive!
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